Andrew's H8LV 5/12/11

I hate things, I love things. Sometimes at the same time.

H8#3: Locking DVD Cases

              You know the ones I'm talking about. There are two little snap locks on the side of the DVD case that you have to pop up before you can open it. Will someone please tell me what the point of this is? I've wracked my overworked brain for at least seven seconds and have yet to come up with one possible improvement these have over regular DVD cases (I feel the same way about DVD cardboard slipcovers by the way). All of my other DVD cases that don't have snap locks seem to work just fine. Shockingly none of them have ever spontaneously burst open, expelling their contents across the living room as my friends and family dive for cover (I would like this very much, actually). The only thing these DVD cases have ever managed to achieve in my home is when I pick up a movie to watch and, like a sensible human being, open it while walking over to my DVD player in my basement with my cat petting herself with my ankles. It seems to stick for a moment, so I apply more pressure and manage to break the case instead of opening it. Now, I'm sure this wasn't the intention of whatever genius designed this case - how were they supposed to know that in rural Georgia there lived a movie nerd with fantastic muscles who doesn't know his own strength? Still, as I've said before, if you (or your product) contribute absolutely nothing positive, and manage to make life more difficult and annoying in some way I HATE YOU!

H8#2: Teenage Mothers

            While I realize this was all the rage like 100 years ago, when girls got married at age 13, don't you think we should have progressed beyond it by now? I remember long ago (in the good old days) when there was something called shame. Social stigma. I blame a lot of this on abstinence only education, but let's be real for a moment - we all know where babies come from. If you're a young teenager and interested in having sex (and what teenager isn't) you should realize the consequences. Getting unexpectedly pregnant when you are young, unmarried, and probably single, is nothing but a gigantic advertisement of your own stupidity. I know a billion people who accidentally got knocked up so I'm stepping on ten billion toes here, but really, you're all very dumb. It isn't that terribly difficult to avoid. I have a friend who has little to no sense,  and has had sex hundreds of thousands of times, and still hasn't gotten anyone pregnant. You know why? HE'S IMPOTENT! OR he realizes that knocking a girl up would change his life in uncontrollable ways that he is not at all prepared to handle so makes it the most important thing in his life NOT to get anyone pregnant. More important than eating, more important than working, more important than remembering to put gas in his car, more important than not getting arrested. All of these are problems, yes, but problems that can be solved - not something that will last as long as he lives. There is a reason that teenage pregnancy rates are the highest among the least educated social classes - because educated people make better decisions. Now, I'm not saying these children should be treated as bastards, and I'm sure they're all wonderful kids and their parent(s) wouldn't trade them for the world - but that doesn't make their conception any less of a mistake.
          Let's try to not glorify bad decisions, eh? Children are wonderful, and parenting is wonderful, and yes, sex is wonderful too - but we don't randomly buy houses for twenty minutes of pleasure. Know why? Because buying a house is a giant decision that will affect many areas of our life. Let's try to treat childbearing with at least half of that gravitas.

         Note: none of this is to let teenage fathers off of the hook, but unfortunately they are often off of the hook already. It takes two to tango but when it comes to teenage mothers it's rare to see both parents raise the child. This isn't okay, but it's a fact. Everyone should be very conscious of the consequences of their actions, but the consequences are often much greater for the woman than the man. 

H8#1: Hello Kitty

I take it all back. This is obviously so witty it justifies the
existence of Hello Kitty. Also, the original caption for this
on the site where I found it was, "I've worn this once and
will be wearing it again once I lose enough weight." 

            My problem isn't really with Hello Kitty as an object, or a character, or a brand - that's just smart marketing and a simple supply and demand principle. My problem is with the fans of Hello Kitty. For some reason a lot of adult females (and I don't think this is as bad as it was even five years ago, but it's still worth hating) have a weird obsession with Hello Kitty. It's creepy, frankly. Sure, everyone likes cute stuff, girls especially, but Hello Kitty is so ultracute, and so twee, and so patently ridiculous that it's just embarassing to fawn over. It seems to me (and this is just a theory) that girls think that boys find it cute for girls to act like little kids. (Re-read that last sentence to make sure you understand it). We don't. We spend most of our time cursing all the ways that you, as women, don't act like adults. You know how adult guys act like boys - making fart jokes, playing video games for hours on end, trying to look down women's shirts - that ain't cute. It's immature and a huge turn off to you ladies. Now, why in hell would you think that we fellows would find you talking like a little girl, liking little girl stuff, and putting Hello Kitty stickers on your possessions is cute? 

          There are only two types of guys that find this sort of thing attractive, and before you start acting like an 11 year old consider this and decide which type you are trying to attract. A) Pedophiles. B) The Japanese Business Man Stereotype. Hello Kitty originated in Japan, the center for repressed sexuality and terrifying perversion. Japan is a truly freaky place - beyond what any of us could imagine and reaching far beyond the whole Japanese school girl stereotype. If you want to be horrified just do a little research or spend a couple of weeks in Tokyo. 

         I'm a sane guy, and I can admit when I'm reaching a bit. There are plenty of people who find Hello Kitty adorable and can't imagine why I would hate it or relate to me on any level. That's okay though, because this is MY hate list, and I truly, deeply, madly hate it. 

LV: Peanut Butter

                    If you know an O'Dell, you know that we love peanut butter. You know that we simply cannot live without it. You know how some people say, "Oh I love [insert whatever food here]" as a way of saying that [insert previously inserted food here] is one of their favorite foods? Well I don't mean it like that - I mean that I legitimately love peanut butter. How much, you ask? Honestly, if one of the many O'Dell children one day declared that they simply did not like peanut butter well - while they wouldn't be disowned they would certainly be ridiculed and harassed about it at every single family get-together. Ever hear of George Washington Carver? He came up with like over a hundred different uses for peanuts (peanut butter wasn't exactly one of them, but sort of) AND my sister dressed up as him for a costume party when she was about 13. In black face, gray hair, moustache, the whole nine yards. I eat peanut butter in my ramen noodles and bean and bacon soup. I eat peanut butter on my pancakes. I make grilled peanut butter sandwiches. Today for lunch I had a hamburger...with nothing on it except for peanut butter. I'm 26 years old and still eat peanut butter sandwiches (with Bama apple jelly). I knew I was going to one day marry my wife when she told me she puts peanut butter in her vanilla ice cream. Speaking of, I eat peanut butter on vanilla wafers. My favorite candy is Reese's. I love peanut butter more than I love most things - including a lot of living, breathing, beings. If I found out tomorrow I had a severe peanut allergy, I would just take my chances and if I die, die doing what I love - eating peanut butter. 

Fatherhood: The Blog - Second Trimester!

           Happy birthday kid, we made it! We are now firmly ensconced in the second trimester of Margaret's pregnancy and she has yet to vomit even once. In fact, I don't think I've vomited the entire pregnancy either (impressive, I know). I haven't updated this blog lately but for a variety of very good and convincing reasons. Life has been extremely busy, with friends, family, and other social activities, as well as the same old grind of work, love, and responsibilities. In fact, we've barely even played Halo in the past couple of weeks, so you know we've been busy. I've also been around a lot of children lately, so I'm learning all about what kind of parent I will be - answer: a great one.

            Last week my entire immediate family came over (except my dear wild beast of a brother who is currently spearfishing during breaks from his Special Forces training in Florida) and we grilled out and played yard games (including watching a squirrel fall out of a tree from 40 feet up, land on all fours in my backyard, and look around wide eyed and then run off). My sister brought her three kids, of course, and so I got to hang out with them, watching them play and eat and all of that and frankly - it's quite exhausting. Thankfully we're birthing a child, not adopting a trifecta, so we get a chance to grow into the situation, not have it all just dumped upon us. Since parenthood is obviously boiling water, it's good to get into it frog style, with the heat being turned up a little bit at a time.
           Also my dear friend from my adolescence (we met nearly 13 years ago when I, to break the boring silence, turned to him and said, "I don't know if you know this or not, but I can fly." "Like Peter Pan?" he asked. "No, like Buzz Lightyear." I told him. After that we were BFFs.) who now works on stealth bombers in a secret location in the midwest is in town for a couple of weeks with his wife and 16 month old son. They stayed with us this weekend so I got to experience an even different age of child (5 year old, 4 year old, 2 year old, and 1 year old all within 24 hours (I'm guessing. I don't actually know how old my nieces are)). He was surprisingly fun - he's old enough to actually have a personality, even if he doesn't talk much. He eats regular food (like a monster. I think he ate a pound of bacon Sunday morning) and laughs and climbs on stuff and gives high fives - that's enough for me. The only real problem is that after he went to bed we stayed up talking and watching TV (and generally being guys - we saw Rondo get his elbow bent backwards in the Celtics game and squealed in horror while covering our faces...then spent the next ten minutes watching replays of it, trying to find it online, and covering our eyes and screaming every time we saw it) and I didn't go to bed until after 1 a.m. Mag had fallen asleep on the couch, so after everyone else went to bed I straightened up, did some dishes, and went and woke her up. She did the classic, "Huh? What? I wasn't asleep. My eyes were closed but I could still hear everything." Then she realized that it had been like an hour so we went to bed.

         THEN, by 7 a.m. I could hear the baby's fat legs running around the house so got up to watch Fraggle Rock (and the first 20 minutes of Waterworld) with he and Jake. We went to Zoo Atlanta with them that morning/afternoon and I was ready for bed by about 5 that evening. Of course I had to stay up until 10 p.m. so I could watch A Game of Thrones, so I got to experience a little bit of the exhaustion of parenthood. The zoo was busy, as mom's get in free on Mother's Day, and there were a ton of parents and kids there. My personal opinion is that Mother's Day should be celebrated by the mom not having to be a mom. The dad should take the kids to the zoo and the mom should go to the spa or something. A mother is a mother every day of the year - give her a break for one day in appreciation of her being a mom. The zoo was fun and Margaret fell in love with the Red Panda (I argued with myself all day over whether it was in the bear family or the raccoon family but couldn't remember. I looked it up and it used to be in the raccoon family, then was moved to the bear family, and now is in it's own family). Therefore, when she was distracted later, I sprinted across the zoo, taking steps three at a time, hurdling strollers, shoving old ladies to the ground, and finally bursting through the front glass of the cleverly titled, "PANDAMONIUM" gift shop. I purchased the last stuffed Red Panda, donated a dollar to Panda Research or some such b.s., and caught up with Mag, handing her a paper bag and declaring, "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!" I told her I was giving her a gift to give our child - unfortunately she's slept with it in our bed every night since. My god, what have I done?

                Now, back to our own child. There are a lot of feelings that one experiences when fatherhood is impending - joy, anticipation, anxiety, excitement, and...terror. Absolute terror. While Margaret was out of town for a conference two weekends ago she started experiencing a sharp pain in her side and a few other strange symptoms. She texted me about it and I looked it up online. It didn't seem to be any big deal really - just some minor common pregnancy complications. But I found out one thing that I'm sure many other future parents have discovered - the Internet is a horrible place. You might find nine sites that say, "It's nothing, don't worry about it." but you will always find one that says, "It's a sign of a miscarriage! Your baby is dead!" Logic flies out the window and that hand of horror grips you by the spine and you feel the ice begin to spread up and out. Your body functions slow down, making breathing suddenly seem difficult, as your brain kicks into overdrive, thinking a thousand different thoughts in a thousand different directions and never even finishing a single sentence. It's like when you can't reach a family member who normally responds to your calls or texts and for no real reason your brain starts thinking, "Are they okay? Was there a car wreck? What's going on?" There are a lot more reasons to assume their phone isn't charged, rather than that they drove off of a cliff, but we aren't always reasonable. Of course I just told Mag that the Internet said everything was fine, as there is no reason to spread The Fear, but that we should probably tell the doctor about it on Monday.
                So, on Monday she calls the doctor and the doctor says that she wants her to come in that very morning for an ultrasound, or sonogram, or whatever (is that the same thing?). By this time it's been a good 40 hours and my brain has reasoned with my emotions to convince myself everything is fine, but now my emotions kick my brain in the balls and say, "AHA! You thought you had me, but look at my new weaponry!"   I rush to get off of work in time for the newly scheduled appointment. Mag beats me there and I rush, skidding around corners, running red lights, splattering hobos, using conveniently placed tow trucks as ramps, and fly into the parking lot of the OB/GYN, doing a shoulder roll out of my truck as it crashes into a series of parked cars. I stand up, brush myself off, and walk through the door. You see, I don't think my presence will change the news, whatever it may be. I don't imagine the doctor will pull me out of the room and say, "We couldn't find a heartbeat" and then I'll break the news to Mag. I just don't want them to tell her and then for her to have to call and tell me. No mother should ever get bad news about the baby in their belly, but I can't control that. No mother should ever have to tell bad news about the baby in her belly though, and that's the only thing I can control in this situation.
                      Mag is already in the back, and the office has some stupid cell phone blocking powers so there's no way of contacting her. I tell the bimbo at the front desk why I'm there and she stares blankly around for a bit and then I have to tell her again. She asks me if I'm sure I'm at the right place (because I'm sure a lot of men accidentally stumble into the OB/GYN office) and finally Mag walks out of a door with pictures of our healthy, happy, extra-large baby. We sit on a couch in the waiting room and cuddle for a bit while looking at pictures of our little minion.

Size of my baby

                  It is a strange feeling, looking at the weird mass of cells that are nestled in your wife's belly, and that are beginning to form your own child - carrying your own DNA, and vestiges of your own personality, and it's own random hopes and dreams. I didn't really experience any wonder or ultra sensational feeling though - really all I was feeling at that moment was relief. I've studied the pictures since, of course, and the kid actually does look like a human, albeit a curled up giant-headed weird one. They say his/her spine looks just marvelous, and that he/she is also bigger than expected - in fact they said if they were in the business of moving due dates they'd probably move it from 11/11/11 to 11/08/11, but that we'll just let the prediction ride. Speaking of the whole him/her/it conundrum, Mag solved it in her own corny way. One night we were lying in bed as she (always remarkably in tune with her own body) felt our baby flutter about in her womb (and I think this was the day of the ultrasound, as the tech told her that our baby was moving constantly and making photo-taking difficult) and said something about, "Chill out little Flipper!" Well, Flipper is just gender neutral enough to work, and Flipper O'Dell sounds a bit like Digger O'Dell (some obviously kooky fellow from a half-century ago who used to bury himself in cars or phone booths or whatever and let people watch him live his enclosed life through a periscope. Hopefully I am in no way related to him.). I was annoying Mag by singing lullabies my grandfather used to sing to me (that make no sense - "when you awake I'll bake you a cake and a whole lot of pretty little horses." ???) so I switched from, "Go to sleep little Margaret," to, "Go to sleep little Flipper." It's nice to have a name - no matter how silly it may be. It makes my child feel like an actual being, as opposed to an, "it."
   
         Flip well, dear Flipper, and don't ever scare me like that again.

Picture of Margaret's belly

Next week on Fatherhood: The Blog - bathing suit shopping with a pregnant woman! There's no way it can be anything but a smooth and emotionless experience! 

Clayton's LV/H8 of the Week ( / Season)

 I admit, it's been a minute or two since I posted a LV/ H8 blog. Sometimes it's difficult to put into words just how much I hate humanity; things that seem simple like driving to work, waiting in line at the grocery store, or taking out the trash spark my ire and ought to ignite a plethora of blog posts, but the rage spreads from my overwrought brain to my eyes and, Cyclops-style, sears all thought and motivation from my mind. Then I hear a song I love on the radio and forget about what it was I hated and the blog never gets written. Welcome to my daily life.


 HATE #1: Bumper stickers.

After this picture I take back that entire paragraph.

   A week or two ago while going through the daily tragedy of driving, I encountered a middle-aged Jeepish contraption (I'm terrible with car identification) with a daring bumper sticker. In an attempt to get a ticket for following too closely, in the vein of a dear former roommate, I sped ahead and craned my neck to read the sticker. "Fear the Government that Fears Your Gun," it read. Now, I realize that I live in Georgia, but are we being serious right now? The quotation is trite and stupid enough to begin with, regardless of one's opinion on gun control, but to put that idiotic statement on a car reaches untold levels of ignorance. It made me realize that I don't fully understand the concept of bumper stickers. Are cars anonymous enough that we feel safe spouting our narrow opinions without fear of having to defend them? Is it a pussified way of voicing ourselves? Do we buy bumper stickers because our bumpers are too unadorned without them? I don't know. I don't care. I just hate.



 Hate #2: "Young man."
  Obviously a dichotomy exists between generations, especially when generations are distanced from each other to the point that one generation was raised in the Depression and another existing generation was raised on Madonna. As youth, we have been taught to respect our elders (though each generation seems to learn this less and less). As elders, I don't know if we're taught to give respect to younger generations, because I've never had the benefit of being an elder. I admit that I don't always show the deference to elders that I ought. It seems that almost every time I make an effort, though, I get the ironic response of being called "young man." Okay, people of the world, listen up. I am 23 years old. I've lived in four decades, graduated from college, paid my car insurance, watched R-rated films, signed rental agreements, kissed vampires, and done other grown up things. Obviously I am younger than your condescending self, but I am old enough to realize this without you constantly reminding me. It would be rude of me to call you "old man," so don't tempt me (Frodo!) to do it. Besides, why even call me anything? It's always fine to say "Hi ^_^" or "HEY YOU," or, ya' know, call me by my GOD-GIVEN AMERICAN CITIZEN NAME.

Hate #3: 100-Calorie Anything.

I promise this is real.

Since America is fatter than every third world country combined, there has been a push in the past few years towards consuming less (I won't even begin to rant about what a misguided and lazy response this is to the very real problem of national obesity). This Law of Lessened Consumption materializes in what I have dubbed The Religion of A Hundred Calories. Is your favorite snack sweet, unhealthy, and full of sugars, yet the portion is small enough to be just a hundred calories? EAT UP! Have you already eaten a huge fast food lunch (with a Diet Coke) but crave more, and that apple just isn't enticing? A handful of carb-ingested crackers are only a hundred calories so toss that apple out! The concept is dumb and lazy, but if by some stroke of illogical fortune it does save our nation from the danger of obesity, we'll die of pollution instead! 100 calorie snacks essentially are a big bag of the same snack that has been repackaged into dozens of smaller bags for people with no self-control. Instead of littering my beautiful neighborhood with one box of Cheez-Its, you're not littering my once-beautiful neighborhood with fourteen bags of Cheez-Its (and the box it comes in). But thank goodness it was only 100 calories!



That Thing I Love: *Natural* Tanning.

 Now that it's May, the Georgia heat has hit the upward swing. This, compounded with my early morning work schedule, has given me the benefit of being able to lie in the sun and tan on the occasional days I get off on time. Most years I tan only at the beach and just lie out throughout the entire vacation and burn myself to the point where, once the red fades into a tan, I manage to be tan for about three weeks. This year I've been taking advantage of friends' sisters' apartments' pools, beach weekends, and backyards to soak in the sun and turn a delicious shade of... tan. And honestly, though a lot of it is about getting rid of the pale white skin I wear throughout the winter, the part I most love about tanning is the act itself. Lying and soaking in the sun, only to bleed it back out through my too-huge pores in noxious sweat, is one of the most empowering feelings known to mankind. It makes me feel like a part of nature itself, going through a cyclical motion of soaking and emitting, all with the added benefit of making myself implausibly more beautiful. Tanning - it's just something I love.

Cinco de Why-o?

          Back many months ago there was an event called, "The Super Bowl" which I claimed was, "The second-most American holiday, after Cinco de Mayo." In the weeks and days since many things have changed - my wife and I conceived a baby, Osama bin Laden was killed (OR WAS HE), baseball season started, some other stuff probably happened somewhere else in the world, and my productivity kept pace with my alcoholism - both have diminished significantly. This is to my everlasting shame, as I thought that perhaps drinking less would actually make me more efficient. All of this is an excuse for why all of our loyal reader(s?) have been precariously balanced on the edge of their seats for an entire Spring awaiting my blasphemous explanation of how a DAMN MEXICAN holiday could possibly be considered more American than something like Thanksgiving. I wanted to post this Thursday, but that proved impossible as I didn't write it until right now, on Monday. Diez de Mayo. Sit down (Beatrix) Kiddos. History can be fun.


WHAT IS AMERICAN?

Enough said.

            This is a question that is nearly impossible to answer just among the neighbors who live on your own street, or in your own apartment building, much less by the nation as a whole. If we considered the opinions of the entire world (which I think we can all agree is a distinctly UN-American thing to do) we would arrive at a different conclusion entirely. There are probably a few traits that most people would define as, "American" however, though they may disagree on how positive or negative those traits are. Independence, religion, recklessness, wealth, career driven, friendly, very nationalistic. To call a holiday the, "most American" we have to have some sort of baseline on which to judge what is and is not American, so let's use those few traits I just listed as a generalized description. We all have our own idea of what to be American is (hint: obese) but I think we all know what I'm talking about here.



THANKS FOR NOTHING! 
               When you ask your average every day neighborhood super hero, "Which holiday is the most American?" he or she will invariably answer with either Thanksgiving or Independence Day. If they answer with anything other than one of those two than they are obviously an idiot, as all our other holidays are celebrated around the world and might have unique American spins on them, but aren't exclusively American holidays. Independence Day is a strong contender, in that garish, jingoistic, brass band sort of way, but Thanksgiving certainly is not. While we think of Thanksgiving as the whole cutesy Pilgrim and Indian thing (and then make sure to ignore the fact that that feast was merely an ironic prologue to the story of White Man vs. Red Man and a pretty horrible decision by the Indians), Thanksgiving wasn't made an official national holiday until 1863. Sound familiar? That's right, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving during the middle of the Civil War to celebrate the fact that the tide was turning, the Union was winning, and that no foreign powers had interfered in the war. He basically said, during his speech, "All in all it's been a pretty good year for America, ignoring the whole rebellion thing."

"HAPPY THANKSGIVING!"

               I'm from the South and all, and we all know Mr. Lincoln could be a bit of an unconstitutional dictator, but I generally like the guy and don't have any problems with him declaring a day of Thanksgiving. But it's hard to give the award for Most American Holiday to a holiday that was officially instituted while the nation was at war with itself, causing death tolls still unmatched by all of our other wars put together, and that speaks more to the Federal power vs. State power question than it does to anything to do with Pilgrims or Indians.              


CINCO DE WHY-O? 

               Ask your same friendly neighborhood Spiderman what Cinco de Mayo is and he or she will tell you, "Mexican independence day!" or more likely, "I don't know!" It's a pretty good guess, since we call our Independence Day The Fourth of July, why shouldn't them Mehicanos call theirs The Fifth of May? We all know they want to be like us, anyway, right? Well unfortunately this explanation just isn't true, or is only very slightly true. Mexico has a long and troubled past, full of war, racial bigotry, corruption, slavery, and constant conquering and re-conquering. It's no coincidence that they speak Spanish in a country that is across the ocean from Spain. In 1861 (a couple of years before Thanksgiving, for those keeping track) after a long string of wars that Mexico mostly lost (including to America in the 1840s) the Mexican government found themselves plumb out of money and announced, "Descansamos un rato en aquel pago entero de nuestra cosa de deudas, Europa." or, "We're taking a break on that whole paying our debts thing, Europe." Europe wasn't too happy about this, and France, figuring that Mexico had a history of losing wars, and France had a history of guys named Napoleon, decided to invade. Things were going swimmingly (for France) until, you guessed it, the fifth of May, 1862.

                 On this day there was a great battle that ended with the French army (double the size of the Mexican army) doing their whole French thing and tucking their tails between their legs and running squealing back to mime school. This was really just a small blip on the radar, because after re-upping on bon-bons the French army returned and crushed the Mexican army, installing a French ruler over Mexico and reigning for three years (I told you Mexico was conquered and re-conquered a lot). What does any of this have to do with the United States? Well I'm certainly glad you asked! If there's one thing that we hate as Americans, it's the god damned French. We hate them so much that we seized upon this relatively minor victory by the small Mexican underdogs against what was then the best army in the world, and we're still celebrating it 149 years later. They don't even celebrate it very much in Mexico (their real independence day is in September) but we here in America act like it is the most important Mexican holiday ever.
                See, that's another thing that makes us distinctly American - we love to take one holiday from another country and twist it into something sort of American and then pretend like we're culturally diverse. Mostly we celebrate these holidays by promoting caricatures of whatever nationality we're mocking (I mean, celebrating) and then drinking ungodly amounts of booze until we pass out, and wake up the next day American again. This is why we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, and this is why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

                  So why is Cinco de Mayo more American than Independence Day, or Thanksgiving? Any country would celebrate the day they achieved their own independence, but only in America would we co-opt another people's victory, get the history completely wrong, use it as an excuse to drink to excess, and still celebrate it a century and a half later as a giant middle finger to the French. That ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm proud to be an American. 

"We're just celebrating Independence Day!"

The Mother I Could Be

 Today is the greatest holiday in the world, if you were to ask most mothers. It's the one day out of the year they can sit back and do nothing other than bask in the glory of having birthed a generation of greedy little wenches who will one day sit back and bask in the glory of having birthed a generation of even greedier little wenches. I find it hilarious that Mother's Day is the most eaten out holiday because it proves that even in 2011 mothers still cook. As families the only way we know how to let mothers get a day off is by taking them out to eat. Don't worry moms, one day we'll learn how to cook!

 In honor of Mother's Day, I decided that the best blog I could write is one about me. My mom mothered me to be a self-assured and overconfident young individual who thinks primarily about himself, and this is best illustrated in a Mother's Day blog about no one other than me. So to all you mothers out there, enjoy this blog describing to you why I, Clayton O'Dell, would make an incredible mother.


 I love doing dishes. There are plenty of household chores I dislike, but as any man born before 1980 knows, the woman's place is in the kitchen. For the 364.25 non-Mother's Days throughout the year, a mother ought to be in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, and doing the dishes. I know that the job of being a mother is fairly difficult and not the most enjoyable thing in the world, so the fact that I actually like to do dishes would make me a great mother. Plus, dishwater would keep my delicate hands neat and clean.

 I like minivans. Being a mother wouldn't be a tough job if mothers were allowed to keep their angelic little heathens at home, but eventually reasons to leave the house crop up: soccer games, school, grocery runs, visits to check and see if daddy's really working late or is out getting wings, etc. Children are apparently required to sit in carseats, and most kids require water and books and toys and other completely unnecessary items that necessitate a vehicle larger than the hot little two-door that pre-moms were allowed to drive. Well, unborn children of the world, fear not! I would make a great mother because I love minivans. I think they're stylin' and luxurious, and nothing gives me more pleasure than flooring it in a minivan and speeding past a wannabe sports car with a dopey grin on my face. Though maybe the fact that my driving skills are more geared toward showmanship than safety makes me a better dad than mom.

 I'm the best subtle hater ever. We all know the archetype of the overbearing, boastful soccer mom who will stop at nothing to prove that her incompetent child is better than your competent one. Unlike father dynamics where guys air their grievances with one another and sometimes get drunk enough to punch each other (but never press charges), there is an unwritten rule that mothers can only fight with words, and even then can never let it be public that they're fighting. Well folks, let me tell you that I am a sarcastic young man who's been granted an overabundant dose of sarcasm and subtlety. If someone thinks they can lie about their kid being better than me, I can cut you (not your child!) down in front of the other moms without ever saying anything exact enough to get me in trouble. But if it ever does come down to a fight, I can pull hair with the best of them.

 I don't really understand technology. It took me over a month to discover how to put captions on the pictures I uploaded to our blog (but it wasn't my fault!). I have consistent trouble with my cellphone. I have only used an Ipod once or twice in my life, at most. I can use technology in a functioning manner, but there is no possible way I could understand how to double-check my kids' browsing history or track their texts. As a mother, it would be my duty to make sure my kids were doing what I want them to do (fathers don't believe in such) so perhaps it's bad that I don't fully understand technology, but every kid needs an outlet that mom can't comprehend, right?

 Mommy can read! I suppose dads do it just as much, but I have been recognized on three separate occasions with statewide awards for Best Children's Book Reader. There's nothing better than sitting in bed and having your parents read you to sleep, unless you're a mother reading your child to sleep. I do need to reexamine my book choice, though, since I don't believe most children would appreciate listening to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as they fell asleep. Oh well, they'll learn.



 You know, now that I think about it, being a mother isn't all that easy. I may know how to take care of a child for an afternoon, an evening, maybe even a weekend, but for eighteen years?!? I couldn't mother someone for eighteen years, but mothers go even further - a mother's job is never done. I'm 23, Andrew's 26, yet our mother still takes care of us (and our cacophony of siblings) and works hard at it. A mother's job is never done, and there's no way I could outmother the mothers I know. Keep up the good work, ladies. (: