Seek and Ye MIGHT find

I would like to report a situation.  This is something new so I know that most of you will not have ANY idea what I'm talking about here.  But I wanted to warn you because I fear it's spreading.  For some reason (and again this is a RECENT development) men can't seem to find missing items.

I can tell by your silence that you don't believe me.  I'm telling you the truth!  You MUST trust me on this one.  I wouldn't lie to you about something as serious as this.  And (not to scare anyone from my blog, but...) it's probably coming to a home near you.

I don't know how this will begin in your home.  But here's how I noticed it in mine.  My wife asked me to get some typed of canned vegetable do go with dinner.  I went to the cabinet where we keep the canned veggies (spell checker says that's a real word).  I looked through ALL of the cans and there were NO VEGGIES. (Which is fine for me because I'm not a big fan of veggies.)  I let my wife know and she told me there was something in there.  I told her I looked through all of the cans (which I did) and there were no veggies.  I inform my wife that we will NOT be having any veggies today because there are NONE in the cabinet.  I reiterated that I looked through ALL of the cans and there were ZERO veggies.

For the men who didn't know
what I was looking for.

So, what does she do?  She goes over to the cabinet, moves 2 cans and there it was... a can of corn!!!  WHAT???  Where did that come from???  I was just in there a minute ago and I looked in the exact same spots and I PROMISE there was no corn in there before.  What kind of Harry Potter Cloak of Invisibility can of corn is this?!?!  And so you have borne witness to my realization that there is a problem.  It's not MY fault.  I have a disorder.

If I had thought about it, I would have noticed it before.  There were other times in the past that I had been looking for something and this disorder presented itself.  Those previous times I just passed it off as normal.  Well this is not normal!  And the sooner we defeat this the better.

I realize that most of you haven't experienced this with the men in your lives. But he may or may not still have the disorder.  So let me give you a few warning signs to look for just in case.  If you see ANY of these issues please stay calm and attempt to work through this (if he's worth it).

1. The initial symptom is that something is lost in the house (duh) and the 2 of you are looking for it.  After 10 minutes of not finding it, you find him back on the sofa watching TV, playing Play Station 3 or on the computer (whatever he was doing before you started looking for the lost item). He doesn't REALLY want to be there but the trauma of not finding the lost item has taken its toll on him.  So the best way for his mind to get centered is to go to a Happy Place.
2. He seems distracted while searching.  If you ask him what's on his mind.  He will tell you nothing.  Again, this is not his fault.  He is really thinking about the Fantasy Football Draft he has this weekend.  Now, he knows one of the kids has an event this weekend too.  But at the kids event all he has to do is watch.  In Fantasy Football, he's the OWNER.  He has to make decisions that will affect the fantasy lives of real players on FAKE team and control their FAKE destiny to win a FAKE championship.  This is serious stuff!
3. He REFUSES to look in the same place twice.  If you ask if he has looked in {insert name of most obvious spot missing item could be} and he tells you 'yes' but you go there and IT'S THERE... This one is a biggie (spell checker likes this one too).  Odds are he looked there but didn't see it.  And he will NOT go back there for the same reason I didn't go back for the veggies. If that item magically appears in that same spot we just looked then it does something to our mind.  We can't mentally handle that.  We feel that someone (maybe the can itself) is playing a joke on us and it's not even remotely funny.
4. Also, you'll notice that the chances of him finding the missing item change depending on the external factors around him.  The chances of failure are doubled (in the case of thinking about fantasy football) or even tripled (in the case of vegetables (especially lima beans)) depending on these external factors. (My disorder is so bad, I can go through an entire grocery store while shopping for the family and not find a single can of those nasty lima beans.  It's not my fault.  It's the disorder.) 

After describing these symptoms, some of you may just now realize that you are living with someone with a little known disorder.  This is a very serious issues and should be treated as such.  It doesn't mean that life a you know it is over.  It just means that things can be almost normal if you identify there is an issue and work around it.  'How can I do that, Dr. Que?' Well, I'm glad you asked.  Follow THESE few and simple rules and you won't even notice there is a problem.

1. Don't EVER ask him to help you find anything.  If you want it found, go look for it yourself.  Remember, it's not his fault.  It's the disorder.  Plus, odds are you will find it first anyway. (The rest of the rules are only for those who try to defy the only rule you really need.  And I'm sure some of you will.)
2. Don't ask him to help you find anything if he's in the middle of doing something important like playing Madden 11 on the XBox or playing World of Warcraft on the computer or watching Desperate Housewives... I mean... CSI (any of them).  You are just setting him up for failure.
3. If he doesn't find something (which he won't), don't get upset with him.  Remember, you are mad at the disorder not the individual.  Just make sure you give him encouragement, support and most of all... LOVE.  Let him know that he is still the M.O.T.H. and it was a nearly impossible task that couldn't be accomplished by even the greatest of heroes.  Then send him back to the Xbox.
4. If you DO ask him to help you find something, make sure he has an attachment to it.  (For example: All of the ingredients for grilling out.  He can find those.  Regular everyday cooking ingredients... not so much.  He can also find a present you bought for him that you can't seem to find.  He doesn't even need to know what he's looking for on that one.  He WILL find it.  Also, birth control...  He can find that even if you encased it in lead, drove 40 miles away and hidit 10ft deep in the back yard of a stranger.  I'm not exactly sure why, but it will be found as if it had a GPS locator on it!)

Because of the seriousness of this issue I've decided to start a charitable foundation.  I WILL be accepting donations for Men Against Deceptive Disorders Ending Niceties (or M.A.D.D.E.N. for short).  It will be a subsidiary of Wildly Interesting Investments (or W.I.I.). With this foundation I will be committing to a cause that is close to my heart.  So lets work together make this world in which our little boys are not afraid or ashamed to grow up to be wonderfully raised semi-productive men.  (I'm taking donations today.... as soon as I finish playing World of Warcraft.)

Playing to Win or Just Plain Playing?

It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game (for some reason, I can't find the originator of that quote... probably a loser).  We have been told this little gem since we were tiny.  And, though, I do believe this statement has a lot of merit... I really think it only applies when you are a kid.  That's not to say that being a good sport is not important when you get older.  It's just to say that sometimes in life it's just is important to "win" as it is to play well.

If you don't believe my above statement to be true, let's go do some interviews with my Dallas Cowboys (who got stomped in the playoffs a few weekends ago) or my Tennessee Titans (who didn't even make the playoffs).  I'm sure you will never hear: "Well... It really doesn't matter what the score was.  What was important is that we were great sports when we got stomped."  That person would be off the team that evening (as well as be drug tested before being allowed back into the league).  But I would only assume they would take it in stride... being a good sport and all.

Now... I say all of that to ask this question.  When is it OK to start transitioning your kids from gracious losers to even MORE gracious winners?  There's nothing wrong with playing to win.  I do it all of the time.  And I'm proud of it!  If I'm playing against you in something, and the goal is to win, then I plan to beat you.  Now, I'm not one of those that must win at all costs.  But if I'm playing against you, you'd better bring it!

When we have family night at the house there is usually some game going on.  We are either playing the Wii (Sports, Fit, Mario Party) or playing Monopoly (Classic, Deluxe, Planet Earth) or Uno (uh... just Uno).  Just to be honest here... I usually win.  Why?  Because I'm the only one playing that sits at the table with the idea that WINNING is the first goal (having fun comes in at a close second).  I think this is part of the male psyche or something.

When I'm playing Monopoly I don't just want Boardwalk and Park Place.  I want those little scrubby purple places too (Baltic and Mediterranean).  And if I could, I would buy the jail and charge people to visit AND to stay there (no free rides here).  Speaking of free... FREE PARKING????  What is that?  I need that spot for a parking garage for all of the hotels I own.  And I hide my money too.  You don't need to know how much money I have.  You just need to make sure you have enough to pay me when you land on my railroads.  I want to own the trains AND the tracks!  You see my point.  And if I don't win, I just spent 2 hours donating to someone else's happy dance.

Now, my wife is better at this stuff than me.  So I usually let her talk to kids about competition.  There are a lot of times I want to tell my oldest that it is OK to strive to be the best at gymnastics.  But it would probably come out something like, "Do you even know what a vault is?  I know you can do better than that!"  I want to tell my 4-year old that she should really focus on getting better at Wii Golf so she has a chance to beat me next time.  That's a much better approach than telling her, "In YO face!!!" every time I get a birdie (not that I would EVER do ANYTHING like that.  She's 4).  And the 1-year old...  We don't compete against each other in many things but if we did... I'm sure there are a million things I would have to hold back from saying as well (even though it wouldn't hurt to give her a baby "in yo face" every now and then).

I don't want to make it sound like my wife is not competitive.  She just holds it in front of the kids better. The next time you see my wife walking funny, ask her why her back is hurting.  And if she tells you anything less than she was trying to (unsuccessfully) beat my Hula Hoop record in Wii Fit then she is lying!!!  And I can't tell you how many times she has reminded me that she won her first season playing in my Fantasy Football league.  I'm sure I won't ever hear the end of that (or that her trophy is much bigger than mine (I'm not even going there)).  So she has her moments too.  It's just that her "holding back" skills are better when it comes to the kids.  So I guess there IS something she can beat me in (Hee, Hee - Hula Hoop anyone?).

I do think, however, it is time I start teaching my kids that winning IS important as well. I want to be a parent that explains to my daughters that it's ok to be a happy, humble loser but 10 times better to be a happy, humble winner.  I want to be a proud papa when my daughters are giving their valedictory address at their top universities because they understood the value of winning.  Whether we like it or not, life is a competition.  Somebody wins and somebody loses.  And if you are content with being content then life will be fine.  But if you are going to play against me in the game of life... you'd better bring it!

Next post will be about my life-changing game against my 4-year old playing the Wii Bowling (she brought it).

Houston... Wii have a problem

I have done a lot of hard things in my life.  I had to stand up to the neighborhood bullies (in the neighborhood I grew up in there were several (and I think they worked in shifts to make sure every hour was covered)).  I learned how to divide and multiply fractions (a skill that is coming in handy when helping my oldest with her homework).  I have even had to be in the room while my wife was giving birth. (Side note on the child birth experience... That is one thing that looks COMPLETELY different on TV than it is in real life.  Don't get me wrong... it is a beautiful and wonderful thing... in theory.  I'm just gonna leave it at that.)

But I survived all of those and many more things with only minor scars (minus the whole birthin' thing.  It takes a lifetime to measure the full effects of this one). I have even learned to take some of the proverbial lemons and make some proverbial lemonade.  And in some cases, I have taken the lemons, sliced them up a squeezed them into some much nicer drinks!  Those cases are rare but they do happen.

Now more recently, I have undertaken something that, at first glance, I thought was going to be easy.  I was mistaken to the nth degree.  I have 2 equations for you: E=MC(squared) (I would have put the little 2 in the correct position but apparently the equation is too tough even for blogger.com) and the other equation is HB+Sy@b+Sy@f+LGoB=X.

The first one is Einstein's famous Mass-Energy Equivalence theory.  Basically, the theory states that Energy (E) is the product of Mass (M) times ((the Speed of Light (C) times the Speed of Light (C)) in a vacuum).  Now see how easy that was?  And even if you don't get it you will soon get the point to what I am writing about.  You wouldn't think of trying to explain this equation to a 4-year old.  But I promise you I would have had more luck explaining THAT to the 4-year old than the second equation.

Here is the second equation explained: HB+S@b+S@f+LGoB=X.  (It's a lot scarier on paper than it is in real life.)  That stands for Hold the B-button + Swing your arm back + Swing your arm forward + Let Go of the B-button = Strike.  For those that don't have a Wii, that is the simple formula for rolling the ball in Wii Bowling.  At least I thought it was simple until I tried to get my 4-year old to understand it.

We had a blast with the boxing game.  Just punch left and right as fast as you can.  We even had fun with the baseball game.  All you do is swing your arm to throw and swing your arm to swing.  She didn't hit the ball, BUT WHO CARES!?!  It was fun.  Wii laughed.  Wii played. Wii enjoyed ourselves... until...

Wii Bowling!!!  There was a lot of WHOOMP!  That's the sound of the ball not being "rolled" properly.  There was a lot of "I can't do it, daddy!" That's the sound of a 4-year old getting frustrated because she keeps getting the WHOOMP sound.  Then came a lot of "Let's just play something else!"  That's the sound of daddy giving up on the second equation because he is tired of hearing the 4-year old say she can't do it when she keeps WHOOMP sound (OVER and OVER and OVER again)!

Now I did my due diligence.  I tried every possible way to explain how the bowling thing works.  It just wasn't sinking in.  She had the swinging arm part just fine.  It was that stupid B-button!  It was digging grooves in both of our souls (for different reasons, of course).  My only solution to this problem was to hold her hand while she was bowling.  This made her go all Exorcist on me.  She couldn't understand why I was showing her how to swing her arm.  She had that part.  But I was trying to explain to her that I had to move her arm so "Wii" could press and let go of the B-button at the right time.

Finally, that sank in.  Wii were bowling in no time flat.  A strike here.  A spare there.  It was great.  But this created another problem.  She decided that she wouldn't ever try on her own.  I had unknowingly become her right arm. So when I wouldn't help her there were even MORE "I can't do it" daddies than ever before.  Daddy had to help her or this B-Button would defeat her.

This story has a happy ending (sorta).  We defeated the evil B-button!  It took a while but the deed was done.  I would like to think we were better people because it but in the end it was just a game on the Wii.  For some reason, however, I personally feel that I have given her another tool to be successful in life (she can add that lesson to THIS one as well as THIS OTHER one).  It's like teaching her to tie her shoes... only electronically... and with a Wiimote.  OK. It's not really like teaching her to tie her shoes but this is my moment.  You look at it how you choose to.  But in the end she will never be afraid of the B-button or any other button for that matter.  And I will always be able to look back at this shared moment and say that Wii did it.

But next time... I'm teaching her physics.  It has no B-button.

Changes to Man Night

What???  So, was anyone going to send me an email or something?!?!  I'm sorry.  When I heard "Man-Night" I was thinking something different. Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it or have fun.  That's just to say that I need to make some changes to my blueprint if that's the way things are going to be moving forward.

The first part was what I expected. I was late getting to the "get together" because I had to wait for the wife to get off of work so there would be someone here with the kids.  Personally, I think I could have left them home alone 30 minutes earlier.  What trouble could they have possibly gotten into in 30 min???

Anyway... I go to the Man-Night spectacular.  I get there right before the kickoff of the Cowboys/Saints game.  I would make a sports statement right now but I'm going to leave it alone... for the moment.  But this is the start to what I expected.  We had football.  We had beer.  We had wings.  We even had pizza (I love me some Papa Murphys!).  I wasn't expecting that but I completely embraced it as the way it should have been all along.  This easily carries us to halftime.

So what do we do for halftime.  Beer and Pool (or Billiards depending on where you came from).  That was fun too.  But since I suck at pool (as well as the person I was playing against) the ONE game lasted the entire halftime.  As I knock the 8-ball in (yes, I won) it was time for the kickoff of the second half.

We are going to fast-forward a little bit because the next hour and a half of football was exactly the same as the first hour and a half (Football, beer, wings, pizza, dip... yada, yada, yada).  The only thing I will mention is that my team won.  So I won at pool and my COWBOYS stopped the Saints undefeated run. Also, I am fully aware that I lost half of my readers just by mentioning I am a Cowboys fan.  But the game ended and I'm 2 for 2.  What next?  This is the coveted male Holy Grail.  Surely, we have something else to do.

I know... Let's play Mario Kart for the Wii!  Wait... Did I just say we should play Mario Kart for the Wii? The odd part of this is that it seemed like the right thing to say and more so it seemed like the right thing to do.  So we agreed.  Mario Kart it is.

And though this was fun, I can't help but feel like I just lost my MAN card.  Is this what MAN Night looks like now?  Have I forgotten what it's like to do manly things (I'm sure Spuds is going to jump all over this one)?  But between me and the friend that was hosting this there are a total of 2 men and 7 women!  The guy-to-girl ratio is WAY off.

Most of the time I try to write something funny but this time I have a genuine concern. I'm not really sure what I was expecting out of Man Night.  I was, however, expecting something to happen that I would have to explain to my wife.  And I don't mean that in a Tiger Woods kind of way.  But I was thinking that I would at least have a YouTube video with me dressed in a chicken suit running down the highway doing the Macarena with bells on.  I guess I will have to save that until the next Man Night.

In the meantime... if any MEN have any ideas as to what I can plan for the next Man Night, just let me know.  Women, no offense... but I already get enough of YOUR ideas.  But thanks anyway. :)