A friend once asked me for relationship advice. Specifically, this friend wanted to know how far is too far when it comes to pursuing a love interest, and when is it best to just move on. Even though this was the equivalent of asking a toddler for advice on how to hit a curveball, I did my best.

I said (paraphrasing):

“I can only tell you how I would handle it. Personally, I would climb a mountain in order to be with a girl I considered worthy. I would brave the elements, bears, wolves and even the possibility of falling to my death in order to get to the top. However, if every time during my journey when I stopped to look at the top of the mountain with my binoculars I saw that the girl did not seem interested or concerned, I would stop. I’d pack it in, call it a day and go home.”

It seemed like sensible advice to me. I believed I was doing my friend a kindness.

After all, nothing in this world worth having comes easily. You want something, you have to fight for it. At the same time, you have to know when it’s time to fold and wait for the next hand of cards to be dealt.

But then I read stories like this one of the 550-pound man who died after spending 8 months in a reclining chair.

The man, Daniel Webb of South Carolina, was only 33 years old.

He was a kind, religious man with a loving wife.

He died on the couple’s wedding anniversary.

His wife, Ada, said that while it was the worst anniversary imaginable for her it was the best ever for Daniel because “he’s with Jesus now.”

If you haven’t already, go read the Associated Press article about his death. It’s one of the most bittersweet stories I have read in quite some time.

Sweet because Daniel didn’t die alone. Sweet because he knew the Lord and is walking and running around in Heaven right now. Sweet because he no longer feels embarrassed by his physical state.

But it’s also bitter.

Bitter because the headlines announcing his death will cause some to snicker. Bitter because he was so young. Bitter because he lived the last 8 months of his life slowly dying in a recliner. Bitter because he’s leaving behind a loving wife. Bitter because he’ll never see his child grow up or see his grandchildren; he’ll never get to read them bedtime stories or teach them how to drive a car. Bitter because the world needs as many people who love the Lord as possible. Bitter because I can imagine the sadness and embarrassment he must have felt.

I didn’t know Daniel. All I have to go on are the facts of his death and the quotes given by his wife. But when I read his story, what I see is a flaw in the advice I gave my friend so long ago. The flaw?

Sometimes, you have to go “all in” even when the hand you’ve been dealt doesn’t seem promising.

When paramedics brought Daniel home in March after he had knee surgery, they warned him that if they placed him in the recliner he was unlikely to ever again get out of it.

He told them to do it anyway.

In that moment, Daniel decided to pack it in, call it a day and go home.

He gave up.

He gave up even though the girl at the top of the mountain (his wife) was interested and concerned.

So why did he give up?

Well, probably for the same hidden reasons I told my friend in my mountain-climbing scenario. The possibility of embarrassment. The possibility of failure. The possibility that the next hand dealt will be infinitely greater than this one.

Sometimes, the journey is worth the embarrassment. Sometimes it’s worth the possibility of failure. Sometimes, this hand is as good a hand as you’re ever going to be dealt.

Understand, I do not contend for a moment that Daniel isn’t happier in Heaven. But I do not and cannot believe that the Lord’s plan for his life had him dying in a reclining chair at age 33.

I believe God wanted Daniel to battle on. He wanted Daniel to fight. He wanted Daniel to live a long, happy life that positively impacted the lives of others in infinite ways.

He did not want him to sit down in that recliner.

Eight months ago, Daniel had two paths he could take. He could go “all in” or he could fold.

Daniel chose to fold.

Whether we’re talking about our own life-or-death situation, a relationship quandary or any other big life decision — there’s a lesson to be found here for each of us.

Do we want to climb that proverbial mountain even if no one is waiting for us on top, or do we want to sit down in our reclining chairs?

I didn’t know the man, but it saddens me immensely that Daniel Webb chose the latter.

Rest in peace, Daniel. You’re home now.

At lunch today, I saw something I’ve never seen before in my life.

Something I didn’t think actually existed.

Something I thought only existed in movies and television (and the dreams of teenage boys).

I saw…

An attractive, female police officer.

(What? Don’t look at me like that. Am I not allowed to notice pretty girls? This is America, right? Surely you all aren’t questioning my Constitutional right to notice pretty girls!)

What’s the big deal, you ask?

First of all, female cops in general are a rarity where I live. How rare are they? Well, they’re about as rare as acting trophies for Keanu Reeves and whistles from female admirers for Michael Moore.

In other words, they are pretty rare.

Secondly, the female police officers that do exist look like…

(Hmmm. How to put this delicately?)

…Danny Devito in drag.

Except they aren’t as tall, attractive or feminine as Danny Devito.

(Wow, and here I thought it was going to be difficult to delicately phrase it.)

This girl, on the other hand, was the polar opposite of Danny Devito in drag.

(Lots of luck getting that mental image out of your heads, by the way.)

She appeared to be in her mid-20s.

She was 5’9.

She had dark brown hair and brown eyes.

She looked exotic. Well, exotic to me anyway. She sat down at a table with what I assume was her parents and sister. Her mom was Mexican, her dad was white. Her sister looked just like her — “exotic.”

When she entered the restaurant, I was up from my table and walking in her direction.

What was I doing? Well, I can assure you I wasn’t about to rob the cashier, so just get that crazy notion out of your head right now! What do you mean I’m acting paranoid? You are!

Ahem.

Once I saw her walk in (and saw that she was a cop), I quickly tossed away the handgun I was holding for no particular reason. (You know how it is — salad buffets can be really dangerous.)

Caught off guard due to having never seen even a mildly attractive female officer up to that point, I almost couldn’t think of what to do as she walked towards me.

Do I ignore her and continue towards the cashier salad bar?

Do I amuse her with my clever wit?

(“Excuse me, officer. But the Krispey Kreme doughnut shop is down the street.”)

Do I commit a crime of some sort so that she has to arrest me and we get some one-on-one time as she drives me to the police station?

Do I pretend to be a police officer?

(“My name is Sergeant Riggs. I’m your new partner. Try not to fall in love with me.”)

I was sure she had endured each of these a million times before. So, I decided to be original. I did nothing. I did absolutely, positively nothing.

I didn’t give her even a passing glance. Later, when we were standing side by side at the buffet, I ignored her. When we were on opposite sides of the buffet facing each other, I pretended she wasn’t there.

Crazy?

Yeah, crazy like a fox.

She’s a police officer, right? An attractive one at that.

So, in her experience, there are only three types of men who ignore her: Those that are married, those that are gay, and those that are criminals.

She could rule out me being married due to the fact I wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and my finger showed no tan line.

She could rule out me being gay due to the fact I ooze heterosexual manliness.

So, all that leaves is the possibility I am a criminal.

If she’s a good cop, she’ll try to find out who I am. Maybe I just robbed a bank? There’s no way for her to know. She has to do her due diligence and find out.

And what will she find?

That I have a spotless criminal record.

This, my friends, will confuse her to no end.

“He wasn’t married, he wasn’t gay AND he wasn’t a criminal?? Why wouldn’t he look at me?!”

She’ll become obsessed with me. It won’t be her fault — she’s only human, after all. And the next thing I’ll know is I will have an attractive, female stalker who is also a police officer on my hands.

The upside?

Well, if I or any of my friends get a speeding ticket, I bet she could help us out.

Or if my neighbors get too loud, I could get her to arrest them and plant drugs on them or something.

And since she’d likely stake out my house each evening, I’d never have to worry about burglars breaking in during the middle of the night.

One thing for sure is she will be a definite upgrade from my last crazy stalker. I mean, having a girl who works at Subway be obsessed with you sounds good in theory, but after a while the extra pickles she puts on your sandwiches cease to be worth the aggravation that comes with trying to steal lockets of your hair.

Approximately 59% of this blog post is real. Lots of luck deciphering the real from fake, folks!

My mind is incredibly random.

One moment I’m sitting at my desk in my office doing some work. The next moment I’m pondering the possibility of still being single a decade from now. The next moment I’m debating whether or not to let the ant crawling on my desk live. And the next moment I’m reading a ridiculous junk e-mail and thinking of sarcastic remarks I could make at the writer’s expense.

Wait, I should back up.

When I started writing conservative political articles for Examiner a few weeks back, at first I included my e-mail address in my bio.

It made sense at the time.

If people liked what they read, they could write me and tell me so.

If people hated what they read, they could e-mail me and I could make fun of what they said here on my blog.

It was win-win.

However, I had forgotten about the dangers of having your e-mail address displayed in text on the Internet. Spiders, crawlers or whatever they call it these days grab these addresses. Next thing you know you’re on spam e-mail lists getting all sorts of crap delivered to your inbox day after day.

I modified my bio to minimize the damage, but it was too late. I’m on lists. I receive between 2 and 5 e-mails a day that try to scam me into revealing my checking account information.

Not sure what I mean? Here’s an example:

My dear,

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of Eleven Million united states dollars (11,000,000.00) USD in a Commercial Bank here in the federal republic of COTE D’IVOIRE. Recently,I was confirmed to be suffering from Cancer and the Doctors informed me that i will not last for the next two months.

They’re pretty much all like this one.

Each is written by someone who’s first language isn’t English. Each has some convoluted reason for why they’re offering me the chance to get my hands on millions of dollars. Each seems to call me “dear” at some point.

Silly scammers.

If calling me “dear” was all it took to get me to give up my banking info, my grandmother would have raided my account and been swimming in twenty dollar bills years ago.

Still, reading these ridiculous e-mails brings back memories.

Memories of a time where I would deliberately bait people into trying to scam me so I could cripple them with my quick, sarcastic wit.

Once upon a time, America Online (or “AOL” as the cool kids called it) ruled the web. Never mind the fact it sometimes took up to twenty-five minutes to sign on using a dial-up connection, AOL was the bee’s knees.

I was a crazy college kid. It’s what we crazy college kids did back then.

Instant Messaging, or IMs, was how I spent most of my time on AOL.

It’s thanks to IMs that I learned to type fast. I went from 5 words a minute to 60 in just a few months.

IMs are also to thank for my (mostly) good use of grammar. I quickly realized on AOL that the only ways to differentiate between smart people and morons were typing fast and typing well.

If you were slow and had lots of typos, you were an idiot.

If you were fast, spelled properly and used punctuation, you were Albert Einstein.

Of course, Instant Messaging on AOL back in the day had its dangers.

There were AOL thugs who had programs called “punters” that could knock you offline. It would send you IM after IM that said something lame like “You have just been ICED by the Punter Ice Machine 2.0!”

The never-ending barrage of IMs would freeze up your computer. The only way to make the insanity end was to sign off from AOL. It sounds like an easy solution, but remember: It sometimes took half an hour to sign back on.

“Why would anyone punt you offline,” you ask?

Well, to be mean.

Of course, so long as you didn’t enter any of the random AOL “chat rooms” and make enemies, AOL users who owned these punting programs would never know you even existed. You’d be free to live in peace.

Unfortunately, I was a trouble maker.

I would join random chat rooms on AOL, but I wouldn’t participate.

What’s the point?

I was waiting for someone to IM me.

No, I wasn’t lonely.

I was baiting people.

I was waiting for someone to IM me asking me for my AOL password.

I was waiting for someome to IM me making fun of my screenname.

In short, I was just waiting for someone I could have some fun with.

(Yes I was bored. Wasn’t that clear?)

It wouldn’t take long before someone would IM me pretending to work for AOL.

I’d play along, of course.

Sometimes I’d play dumb and make them try for 20+ minutes to convince me they really worked for AOL. Sometimes I would turn the tables and tell them I worked for AOL; that I was an undercover agent. Sometimes I would pretend I was a small child; they’d be asking for my “mommy’s password” and I’d be asking them to read me a story.

My tactic was always different, but the outcome was always the same.

I’d drive these guys crazy.

Gosh, I miss that.

Today, I read these ridiculous e-mails that promise millions of dollars will be transferred to my checking account and I think, “I wish I could interact with this idiot.”

Of course, since e-mailing them back would surely put me on even MORE spam lists, I will instead call them out here on SKOS.

I encourage the owners of the following spam addresses…

• mr.franceskofi247@gmail.com
• mr_franceskofi247@live.com
• mikeofori_icb@anit.az
• dania01@cantv.net
• marrypierre@centrum.sk
• josephtevans001@yahoo.com
• sanisu.l@sify.com
• officefile169@yahoo.in
• wwwupsc@sify.com
• sararisa@ymail.com
• bank.intercontinetalbankplc.in@gmail.com

…to leave a comment thanking me below.

Why should you thank me?

Because I have put each of YOUR e-mail addresses (assuming they are even valid) on the web for OTHER scammers to find.

Isn’t that wonderful?

Now each of you will enjoy the splendor that is receiving numerous ignorant, lame, scam e-mails day after day.

You’re welcome, people.

Newsweek magazine, apparently unable to hide its bias, has sparked controversy by choosing a most peculiar photo of Sarah Palin for its latest cover.

The controversy?

For the cover, Newsweek used a photo of Palin wearing running shorts that show off the former governor of Alaska’s legs.

Why did Sarah Palin pose in running shorts for Newsweek magazine, you ask?

She didn’t.

The photo was taken for an article Palin did for the August 2009 issue of Runner’s World.

Palin, of course, is outraged. Said Palin on her Facebook:

“The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now.”

If this controversy seems familiar, it’s because it is.

In October 2008, Newsweek sparked controversy by putting an untouched closeup of Palin’s face on its cover. The unflattering image showed Palin’s wrinkles, pores and lip hair in all their unflattering glory.

The left, of course, is giddy. Unapologetic critics of Sarah Palin’s, liberals believe she deserves to be taken down a peg or two or ten.

They’re all hypocrites.

Can you imagine what would happen if a magazine like Newsweek put an undoctored closeup of Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi on its cover? How about a photo of the trio wearing tight running shorts?

I’ll tell you what would happen.

The left would be livid. Barack Obama and every talking head in Washington would be denouncing the blatant sexism.

And you know what else would happen?

I would vomit.

I would take one look at Obama, Clinton or Pelosi’s undoctored closeup and vomit.

Whatever I had eaten that day would leave my system.

Whatever I had eaten the previous day would leave as well.

Others, too, would begin to vomit. Those who had seen the hideous photo would vomit as a result of seeing said hideous photo. Others would vomit because they saw said people vomit.

The vomiting would spread like wildfire.

In a span of minutes, every person in the world would vomit.

It would be a mess.

Once the vomiting ceased, some people, inevitably, would remember the photo they had seen just a few minutes prior.

And then they would vomit again.

Eventually, the vomiting would stop.

But that night, while asleep, I would have a nightmare about the inexplicable photo.

And I would vomit.

People all over the world would have similar nightmares. They, too, would vomit.

With all the vomiting going on, no one will feel like going to their jobs.

For several days, every business in the world will shut down. The lost productivity will be cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Would we ever recover?

Doubtful.

By this point, the stock market would have crashed. Everyone in Wall Street will have shot or poisoned themselves.

Many businesses will have to shut down, forcing millions to lose their jobs. With unemployment so high, no one will have money to spend. Other businesses shut down as a result. The economy will crumble.

Chaos will reign.

Want to survive? You better have lots of guns and bullets and a “kill or be killed” attitude.

Me?

I’ll be carrying around a copy of the infamous Obama-Clinton-Pelosi magazine.

With it, I’ll be able to incapacitate anyone who crosses my path.

Of course, if the person is wearing reflective sunglasses, we will both be incapacitated.

The moral?

There is an upside to the media being so liberal. It means we never have to worry about an undoctored or “sexy” magazine cover of Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi starting a vomit apocalypse that wipes out civilization as we know it.

I’ll sleep easy tonight with that knowledge.

A calm, peaceful, vomit-free sleep.

Since I’m fairly certain the only remaining readers I have live in correctional facilities, I figured it was time I updated my blog. Making those guys unhappy is a bad idea.

Here are three topics that have been on my mind lately. Enjoy (and please don’t hurt me).

I Guess Cause They’re Such Easy, Big Targets?

On Wednesday, Venezuela made the news when it destroyed more than 30,000 guns it had seized during police raids.

On Friday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made news when, in a televised speech, he said there were “lots of fat people” in Venezuela. He went on to urge Venezuelans to lose weight by eating healthy and exercising.

After reading these two articles, I have come to the following conclusion:

Venezuela criminals must like to shoot people who are overweight.

The Cow Ad Campaign is Working

Three times during the past two weeks, I’ve had a dream involving Chick-fil-a chicken biscuits.

In one, I leave work at 9:50 AM in order to swing by Chick-fil-a before they stop serving breakfast. Instead of taking a right, I find myself trapped in a left-turn lane. Figuring I’ll just turn around later, I take the left turn.

Unfortunately, there are no good places for me to turn around. So I keep driving in the opposite direction from Chick-fil-a. And keep driving. And keep driving.

Next thing I know, I’m turning into the parking lot of Turner Field. I get out, change into uniform, and go play 1st base for the Atlanta Braves.

I keep wishing for the game to end as soon as possible.

Why?

Because in my dream only five minutes had lapsed and I still had time to get to Chick-fil-a before it stopped serving breakfast.

In another dream, I’m debating how many chicken biscuits I should order. At first I only want one. Then I decided I wanted two. Then I decided I wanted three chicken biscuits.

When the dream ended, I was up to the number thirty.

In my final dream, I was on a date at a restaurant with a girl. She ordered a chicken biscuit. Apparently, I was unaware you could order Chick-fil-a chicken biscuits at this restaurant, and for some reason I couldn’t change my order.

Instead, I spent the entire date staring at her chicken biscuit. And no, that isn’t some weird euphemism.

And Finally…

Unless it’s Fox News, Of Course

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hilarious that Obama is in China right now telling the country that censorship is unhealthy.

The AP quotes the hypocritical jerkwad as saying the following:

“I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable,” Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China.

“I’m a big supporter of non-censorship,” added Obama.

Are the creators of The Onion now writing Obama’s speeches? This is satire at its finest.

Seriously, what’s next?

Bill Clinton giving speeches praising the sanctity of marriage?

The reanimated corpse of Adolph Hitler denouncing antisemitism?

The parents of Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan ridiculing the parents of “balloon boy” for being bad parents?

The irony of this speech to China is so delicious, I want to get a butter knife and spread it all over a Chick-fil-a chicken biscuit.

It is with a heavy heart that I must inform all of you, my dear readers, that things did not work out with Nhelyn and I. It turns out she was a spammer and not a woman interested in having me as a companion.

How did I find out?

Well, before I could e-mail her, as she had requested, I received another e-mail from the same address. This one was from the “The MSN Microsoft Corporation Seasonal Award Cash Grant” congratulating me for being one of twenty recipients of a $2.5 million prize.

So, on the downside, Nhelyn isn’t “the one.”

On the upside, it appears I am now a millionaire. Which is nice.

Insert Segue Here

I’m an optimist at heart, but there are some days where I think life would be much simpler if I embraced being single and stopped “looking.”

Could today be the day “Miss Right” bumps into me rounding a corner or texts/e-mails me out of the blue? Perhaps, but it’s more likely today will not be that day. Or tomorrow. Or the day after.

I’ve always believed God created someone for each of us. But what if that isn’t true? What if some of us are meant to be alone?

Last month, a friend told me about three female friends in their 40s/50s who have yet to find someone. These are good, kind, Christian women. They want and deserve someone, but it hasn’t yet happened for them.

Am I destined for a similar fate?

I try not to dwell on such thoughts, but sometimes they are the 800-pound elephants in the room you can’t ignore. You can throw peanuts at them or put Dumbo into the DVD player to placate them, but you can’t ignore them.

(I have no idea what the above means either. I was just on a roll and went with it.)

So, optimist that I am, I think it’s high time I looked at the upside of “single.”

1) Better Sleep

Studies suggest married men live longer than single ones, but I believe I would be an exception to that rule.

As I’ve discussed before, I tend to have difficulty falling asleep. A wife who snores or moves around a lot in her sleep would cause me to, by my own estimation, lose approximately 82,057 hours of sleep during my lifetime.

If I’m not sleeping well, I won’t have the energy to stay active and exercise. So, I’d be sleep deprived and physically unfit. Plus, as tired as I would be, the odds are pretty decent I would do something stupid like try to make toast while in the shower (thereby electrocuting myself) or thinking a red light was green (thereby getting run over by a semi-truck).

In short, being single means I get to be alive longer.

2) No Disney World

As a teenager, I loathed Disney World.

The lines are long, it’s incredibly hot, and everything is too expensive. (Yes, I was frugal even as a teen.)

When you’re a parent, taking your kids, at least once, to Disney World is a requirement. It says so it the parenting handbook.

So, if I never marry and never have children, I never have to go to Disney World.

You can’t put a price on that.

3) Mo’ Money

Kids are expensive.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it costs a quarter of a million dollars to raise a child from birth through age 17.

Just imagine if you have two or three kids!

If I stay single, think of all the money I will be able to save.

Add it All Together

There are other pros I could list, but this is a good starting point.

Just think of it.

I stop looking for someone and instead focus on accumulating wealth and staying healthy.

In 50 years, I will be rich and fit, and there will be thousands of eligible widows for the taking.

I could have my pick of the litter.

Seriously, who would be my competition?

I would have no relationship baggage. The other old geezers will have had been through divorces and/or the death of their own spouses. They will have grown children and grandchildren.

But not me.

I would be able to walk up to some hot, young 72-year-old lady and say:

“Baby, I’ve waited my entire life for you. I’ve never married, I have no children or grandchildren who will despise you for not being their ‘real’ mother or grandmother, and I have enough money in the bank to buy you all the denture cream and ‘Murder She Wrote’ DVDs your heart could ever desire.”

What old geezer could compete with that? Seriously.

And then, in my 80s, I could finally settle down and get married. And, best of all, none of my previous concerns would be an issue.

Sleep?

At that age, odds are neither of us would want a physical relationship. So, there really would be no point in sharing a bed. We each could have our own bed, so she could kick and move around all she wants. It wouldn’t bother me. And since, at that age, I’ll probably be hard of hearing, her snoring won’t bother me in the least.

Disney World?

At that age, neither of us could possibly be expected to take her grandchildren or greatgrandchildren to Disney World. And if she wanted, for some inexplicable reason, to go to Disney World, I could just tell her:

“We went last week, remember?”

Money?

Well, by this time there will really be no need for me to worry about spending money. One, I will have plenty of it to last me the rest of my days. And two, I will have no children or grandchildren angling for an inheritance.

What about her children, you ask? No way will they get a penny of “The Kev Fortune.” I haven’t yet met them (plus they haven’t yet been born), but I’m pretty sure I will dislike them.

In Closing

I’m not ready to give up yet. The pessimistic nature of this blog post aside, I truly do believe “she” is out there and I won’t have to wait until I’m a senior citizen to find her.

But if I do, at least it means I’ll never again have to go to Disney World.

“They” say love finds you when you aren’t looking for it.

I say “they” are fools!

Why? Because I’ve been looking for love and it still found me.

Yep, that’s right. Miss Right has found me. Just when I thought I might be the last single person of marriageable age in the entire world, an angel comes and sweeps me off my feet.

I present to you all the e-mail I received last night:

Hello

I am Miss nhelyn I came across your profile today and became much interested in you I will like to have you as my companion, from here lets see if our dream towards each other will became a reality I will also send you my pictures after I have received your mail direct to my box. I will be glad to receive your mail (Remember the distance or colour does not matter but love matters allot in life) Send an email to my email address (address removed to protect her privacy) so l can give you my picture for you to know who l am.

Thanks
Miss nhelyn.

See?! Isn’t she amazing?

I like a woman who knows what she wants. And what THIS woman wants is yours truly as her companion!

I know what you all are thinking.

“Kevin, this is all happening so fast.”

“But Kev, you don’t know anything about her or what she even looks like yet!”

“Kevin, are you an idiot? This is clearly a spam e-mail. She isn’t real.”

Mock our love if you must, but hear me now: This is “the one.”

Look at how well matched we are as a couple.

She believes that “love matters allott in life.” I think so, too!

She will be “happy” to receive my e-mail. I will be happy to send it to her!

She likes to write ridiculously long run-on sentences. I like to critique people’s grammar!

I even adore her name.

“Nhelyn.”

Doesn’t it just roll off your tongue?

Nhelyn. Nhelyn. Nhelyn.

“Do I need to pick up anything from the grocery store on my way home, Nhelyn dear?”

“Oh, Nhelyn. You have such an elementary understanding of the English language.”

“Why are you going through my wallet, Nhelyn? And where did you get that gun? Oh, Nhelyn. You’re so funny.”

Yep, this is a glorious day for ol’ Kev here.

I’ve finally found someone.

I hope she’s hot.

Want to congratulate me and Nhelyn? Just leave a comment or two or ten below. If you’re lucky, you all will be invited to the wedding. It will be located in whatever city/state/country Nhelyn belongs to.

As I’ve written once or twice before, I rarely dream. And yet, I’ve now had two memorable dreams this week. The first one, of course, was silly and odd. That is, unless you do not consider a dream where I am trying to make amends with ex-girlfriends I have wronged and having one of them try to kill me by running me off the road with a semi-truck to be silly or odd.

This latest dream was actually normal. Actually, it was more than that. It was lucid. And it had a moral message.

Seriously, it was as if this dream was written by a producer of an after-school special.

In the dream, I am the coach for a high school baseball team.

We’re having practice.

I am working with the infielders (hitting them groundballs) while my assistant coaches (I have FOUR assistants, for some reason) are working with the other players in the outfield.

As I’m hitting grounders, my shortstop, who is my best player, keeps making mistakes. These aren’t “I am doing my best” mistakes, they are mistakes from being lazy. He wasn’t getting his body in front of the ball. He wasn’t bending his knees. He was, deliberately, missing the balls.

And when I tried correcting him, giving him pointers on proper technique, he would argue with me. He would complain.

He disrespected me, his coach, in front of the other infielders. One of the infielders, a first baseman, followed his lead and began complaining, too.

I called all the players to gather around the pitching mound for a team meeting.

I asked all but one of my assistant coaches (one I trusted apparently) to give me and the players privacy. One of the other assistants, you see, was the father of the defiant shortstop.

I didn’t hold a meeting so much as I verbally chewed out the shortstop while the rest of the team (and one assistant coach) watched in shock.

I brought the lad to tears. I told him that his behavior would not be tolerated. I told him he would be immediately cut from the team unless he apologized to me right then, apologized to his teammates for the way he acted, and promised he would never be defiant again.

Sobbing, the player did as I asked.

Then I added an addendum. I told him I was now going to walk over to his father, my assistant coach, and tell him precisely what he had done. And that unless his father agreed to support me, to hold him accountable, he would still be cut from the team and his father would be removed from his duties as assistant coach.

The dream ended with me walking over to speak with the father.

The dream is a variation of a real-life incident I encountered with a father of one of my players when I was the head coach for a junior varsity baseball team. I previously wrote about it in my Generation: Enable blog post two years ago.

Our exchange went down like so:

“A word coach,” a parent asks me.

“This really isn’t a good time,” I respond. “We’re about to start the second game (of the double header).”

“I hear you aren’t starting (my son). Is that true?”

“Yes, that’s true,” I reply.

“Can I ask why,” the parent barked at me.

“You already know why. He didn’t hustle. He forgot how many outs there were. Then he didn’t hustle again.”

“This is completely ridiculous,” the parent complained. “He’s your best player. This is why we get our butts kicked. I’m trying to recruit players from other teams to come to this school, but it’s impossible with (crap) like this.”

“You’re right,” I respond. “It is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous that your son didn’t hustle, but instead of supporting me and telling your son to hustle you’re attacking me. Quite frankly, if these players you’re trying to recruit exert the same amount of effort on the field as your son did today, I don’t want them.”

“The A. D. (Athletic Director) will hear about this,” the parent threatened.

“What are you going to tell him? That I treat all my players the same, no matter how good they are? That I expect my players to hustle and give 100%? Go ahead, he might give me a raise.”

I’m curious as to why this dream popped into my head. I haven’t coached a team in over four years now.

Of course, then again I’ve never had an ex-girlfriend try to run me off the road with a semi-truck, but that didn’t stop my brain from dreaming about that…

Have any of you had odd dreams lately? Care to share them with the class?

I rarely have dreams. When I do have them, I rarely remember them. When I do have them, and I do remember them, they are usually very weird.

Last night’s dream was no exception.

Begin dream sequence!

I climb into the passenger’s seat of my Mustang. A girl is behind the wheel. She asks me something to the effect of, “so how did it go?”

Before I could answer, I see a giant semi-truck pulling out of the driveway of the home I just exited.

I tell the girl to step on it. The semi-truck was coming after us.

She takes off, but apparently not fast enough for my satisfaction. I keep telling her to drive faster. The semi was gaining on us.

The truck pulls up beside us and veers into our lane.

It hits us.

The laws of physics would tell you that my little Mustang would be no match for a giant semi truck, but somehow the semi is unable to knock us off the road.

I am, however, worried about my paint being scratched.

The semi bumps into us again. And again. I tell the girl to drive faster.

We lose the semi. It appears as though we’re out of the woods. But then, out of nowhere, a Hummer is driving beside us.

Inside the Hummer is the girl who lived in the house I exited at the beginning of the dream. Apparently, I had made her (and whoever was driving the semi) very angry.

Like the semi, the Hummer tries to run us off the road. Again, I worry about my paint being scratched.

Eventually, I spot a police car. I tell the girl to drive towards it. I am, after all, a genius.

We pull up to the policeman, who had parked his car and was, for some reason, just standing in the middle of the street.

I get out of the car to talk to him, but the girl I was with beats me to him. Before I can even get a word out, she had begun telling the policeman about our situation.

She was a bit too excited for this policeman’s tastes, evidently, because he threatens to arrest her.

I intervene.

I explain to the policeman that this was my girlfriend (my brain has quite the imagination when it dreams, apparently).

I showed him a piece of paper with a list of about thirty names. I tell him that these were the names of ex-girlfriends I had wronged and that I was visiting each of them, one by one, to make amends.

The most recent ex I talked to, I explained, didn’t forgive me. I then explained the whole semi-Hummer high-speed pursuit.

The policeman seemed satisfied with my explanation, but he didn’t seemed too concerned with the fact we had almost died and there was a crazy ex-girlfriend (and her accomplice) out there who needed to be arrested.

End dream sequence!

I’m not what you would call a dream interpreter, but I am a dream critic. So, I will now begin critiquing this dream.

How I had not previously noticed there was a semi-truck in the driveway is beyond me. And how did the thing even fit into the driveway?

Why am I, even in my dreams, a micromanager and backseat driver?

Why did I have such a long list of ex-girlfriends? And what bad thing(s) had I done to them to warrant my needing to seek them out and make amends?

What kind of current girlfriend am I with in this dream? What kind of girl not only encourages, but HELPS her boyfriend seek out and talk to his exes? Did she used to be my psychiatrist or something? Aren’t psychiatrists prohibited from dating patients?

Was that a real policeman, or a crazy person wearing a policeman’s outfit for Halloween?

Why did I bother showing him “the list” and telling him the back story? All he needed to know was there was a Hummer and semi-truck out there driven by homicidal maniacs.

I wonder, if I had been able to fast forward the dream a few months or years, if the current girlfriend in the dream would have made her way onto “the list”? Methinks, if getting her involved in high-speed car chases was a regular part of our relationship, I will have had much for which to make amends.

Silly brain. You have such silly dream plotholes.

What did all of you think of the dream? Can you actually interpret it? Are there any other critiques I forgot? As always, do leave a comment or two or ten.