My Life in a Seinfeld Episode

I'm a huge Seinfeld fan which makes sense considering it it is one of the greatest sitcoms in the history of television. In my mind nearly every situation in life somehow relates to an episode of Seinfeld. I've even come to realize that I have conversations that sound like they came straight off of a stolen script. For instance, what is the proper placement of the second button on a shirt? I've had that conversation more than once. Sometimes I believe my life may just be an un-aired episode.

Now, however, it's gone too far. If you are a fan of Seinfeld than as soon as I say this next sentence you are going to know exactly what I'm talking about. The other week I sold a guy a used wheelchair. Ok, now your mind has started to wonder and your thinking about the episode where Kramer gives the lady a used wheel chair and she looses her breaks and, well, it didn't go well. Ok, stop thinking about that and keep reading. The guy I sold the wheel chair to text messaged me tonight to tell me that something broke on the chair that I sold him and it rolled right over him. Oh snap, that's not good. Well, the guy was fine and he said he still loves the chair. But still, my first thought, "Oh no, I'm in a Seinfeld episode!" I'm just glad that this guy is both very nice, and lives very very far away.

One Too Many...

I went to the Delhi Skirt Game tonight. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this strange Westside tradition here is a short explanation. A couple of thousand Westsiders go to the park and watch grown men dressed up as women play a game of baseball. Then there are fireworks. It's a charity event. Now that I've got that out of the way I can get to the heart of this blog and that is alcohol abuse.

I was sitting next to a good friend of mine who was talking to one of his friends little girls. She was around 8 and was obviously upset. "I want to go home"
"Why do you want to go home?" my friend asked her.
"Because my mom is drunk and she has already gotten two guys numbers."

When I heard this my heart sunk. So many parents think that their use of alcohol has nothing to do with their children. They believe that somehow, their being an adult is an excuse to model bad, addictive, and often destructive behavior in front of their kids. If you think that your drinking has no affect on your children, think again. Let me assure you, your kids are watching you and your behavior affects them on a level that you may never completely be aware of. A drunk role model is a bad role model. What kind of role model are you?

The Story of the Dumb Spider

There is a spider who lives at my house. He doesn't bite me so I leave him alone. Everyday the spider builds a web. He puts hours of work into his web until he gets it just right. But then, everyday, I open my front door and I walk face first into his craftsmanship, tearing it to pieces. And as I walk away wiping the sticky strands from my face, I think. What is wrong with that spider? He certainly does not lack work ethic. Everyday the spider re-builds his web. A sloucher he is not. What the spider is lacking is intelligence. That spider is dumb as a rock. Why would you continue to re-build something that will inevitably be destroyed? Why does the spider not invest his time and energy in building a web where it will at least last more than 24 hours? That spider needs to work smarter not harder. But alas, he is but a stupid spider whose very days are numbered. He will continue to build his web in my front door and I will continue to destroy it with my face. And then one day the web will be gone and the spider will be dead and I will not miss him because he was nothing but a dump spider anyhow.

and Everyone Was Happy and Everything Worked

Have you ever experienced something that should have gone terribly wrong but somehow, despite the circumstances, worked out great? To me, this weekends kids church was a prime example of that very thing. First off though, let me assure you that I knew everything would turn out great from the beginning. But that's just how I am. It could just as well gone terribly wrong.

The first thing that went wrong started a while ago. The air conditioning in the Elementary kids church room died. The HVAC guy agreed with me that the entire system was worth it's weight in scrap metal and not too much more. This being said I set up a temporary kids church room in the churches main building. That turned out to be a bit more work than I had envisioned. Pretty much everything in life is like that though. But, alas, after wondering around the church for hours stealing... uh, borrowing things from various rooms, it was done, and it worked. Granted, instead of a puppet curtain I had some sort of drop cloth and instead of a projector screen I had a round table turned sideways on top of yet another table but it worked. It kind of looked futuristic in a ghetto rigged kind of way.

Saturday evening came and yet another problem arose, I had no adult helpers show up. Luckily though I had three 12 year olds volunteer to help and they took care of everything that needed to be done. And it worked, it worked well.

Then Sunday second service came and I had 30 kids. Normally there are video games, Foosball, air hockey, and pop shot to keep them entertained before the start of service. Today, being in a temporary location, all I had was a broom stick that I found in the corner of the room. So, we danced and did the limbo and I won, and they had fun, and I had fun and two six year old girls discovered that they had a lot in common and declared themselves to be best friends. They held hands and challenged me to a dance off, and they won. And then I once again had no adult helpers. Only this time I had only one 12 year old. So, she walked kids to the bathroom and, since I had no puppeteers I did the next best thing, ventriloquism. I guess I did a decent job of it because one of the kids asked me if I was doing the devils voice or he was really talking. I assured him that it was just a puppet and puppets can not talk of their own free will. Along with the ventriloquism, when I needed to talk to a character who was supposedly back stage, I would lean over the stage and use a different voice. And once again, somehow that worked and none of the kids pointed out the obvious that I was in fact talking to myself. And thankfully, before any more ventriloquism was required, help arrived and everything worked.

As I sat in the back of the room during the 10 minute movie portion of kids church I ate pancakes and was happy. And if your wondering why their were pancakes in the back of the room, well that's a different story. As if by some sort of miracle, only one of the 30 kids noticed that I was eating pancakes, just one little girl. And as she stood next to me I asked her if she wanted a bite and she said yes. So I gave her one and she was happy too. And everyone was happy and everything worked.