Waits Family Annals

Check out my post about the dangers of too much media on Byte Sized Miscellanea. Please share your thoughts.

So I have a tendency to make jokes about people and things I probably shouldn’t. Every now and then, it comes back to bite me. My foot is not that delicious, but I eat it anyway.  In my youth and college days, I was frequently the one that would end any line of jokes. More often than not, I would say something and everyone would turn and look at me as if I had just peed on a sacred relic, then shake their heads and walk away. It’s okay, don’t pity me. I got used to it. Now I tell the jokes in my head. I wish there was a way to just stop them from coming to mind. But, hey, at least I found my filter. Right? It’s extra mentholated (Wow. Who knew “mentholated” was even a word?). The following recently came up over a dinner conversation, and I felt it important to get out there. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. I kept mine, because I’m no innocent in these matters.

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In 1996, I was Freshman at International School Bangkok (ISB). I wish I could say I was one of the cool kids, but I don’t think I can… and that applied to just about everywhere I went to school. ISB did house my largest group of friends. It must have been the hat I insisted on wearing to school (it had a +9 toward attracting friends and chicks)… or the troll on my shelf (+2 against Jerks who made me cry). We had our share of shenanigans. Good shenanigans, but shenanigans nonetheless. Perhaps I will write of them here one day. Unfortunately, I know my parents silently lurk in the Interwebs, and I don’t want to cause anyone’s premature death. No, today I wish to relate one of the most intense political battles I can remember. Michael Moore (yes, that Michael Moore) once told me as we walked to the bus that he was going to make a documentary about this race and my involvement in it. He did, and it won him an Oscar. Two of them in fact.

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I have a thing about Pooh. It’s not that I think Winnie the Pooh is annoying, it’s that I think his influence on society is detrimental to progress. Winnie the Pooh, and all the characters in the 100 Acre Wood teach its followers to be lazy, indolent and disregard consequences. Industry is scorned, idleness is praised. And not the gentlemanly idleness spoken of by Tom Hodgkinson, but the insidious laziness taught by the likes of Shaggy, Ghandi and Matthew McConaughey. If you sit around long enough, things will inevitably be different. Even Cobra Commander from the popular 1980’s cartoon GI Joe had the initiative to organize hundreds, if not thousands, of people to become terrorists that fight against the American Way and Dick Cheney (He was mentioned in season 2. And he served two terms as President of Acting of the United States of America. Seriously. Read the article). If Winnie the Pooh wanted to start a new world order, he would wait until someone else did it and eat honey in the meantime. Winnie the Pooh is the reason my generation does not go out and vote. He is the reason why batteries only last for 8 hours. He is the reason why our world languishes in mediocrity and science fails to progress. If it wasn’t for Pooh, perhaps more women would be involved in Computer Science. Going through the key characters I will show you why Pooh is the second worst influence on society behind James Cameron’s Avatar– they teach us to strive for pedestrian banalities rather than true success in life, art, and relationships.

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Whew! That was painful. The soreness in my arms has gone down, but my abs are still rebelling against my goals. I had Liz watch my form last night and she says I am dropping to a good depth, but I may need some unbiased feedback. My set today was not as invigorating as Wednesday’s. I did the minimum requirements: a set of 11, a set of 15, two sets of 9 and a “Do as many as you can do” set of 13. My abs are numb right now. I have been stretching every day to try and loosen my muscles, but right now I feel as though I have been suspended upside down by my toes and all the blood has rushed into my arms and hands. Hopefully next week gets a little easier.

So my second day of push ups has come. I’m going to be honest here. I did not want to do push ups today. At all. As I make my daily commute, every bump feels like some punching me. Hard. In the pecs, bi-ceps and abdomen. The cobblestone road is the worst. Anyway, I did a set of 12, a set of 10, a set of 3 (I collapsed, and started over), two sets of 8 and a do-all-you-can set of 21! That’s a total of 61. I’ll come clean here too; I think I need to drop lower in my push ups. It’s not looking exactly like the image here.

Well, I started. My arms don’t hurt so much as don’t have any feeling in them. I did a set of 10, a set of 12, two sets of 7 and a final “Do As Many As You Can Do” set of 12. I collapsed. But, hey, I did a total of 48 push-ups today! Granted, not all in one go (which is the ultimate goal), but that’s more push-ups than I think I have done in the previous 28 years of my life . Thank goodness tomorrow is a rest day.

Right off the bat, I want to be clear about something: that picture is not me. However, something strange has happened between my 27th and 28th birthdays. The metabolism which kept me at an emaciated 140 lbs growing up has decided it’s worked hard enough in my life and is taking a vacation. It has allowed this alien lifeform to attach itself to my midsection. Evidently this new globulous mass dislikes waistlines and comfort. In order to maintain itself, it requires vast ammounts of Southwestern Egg Rolls and Ranch Dressing. It also does not like me walking up hills or stairs. It hates stairs. For the past year I have been meaning to do something about it. Today marked me actually starting something.

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When I was but a sweet lad of six or seven, an idea entered my head that led to some pretty severe consequences. I plopped a quarter into a gallon of milk. I only wish I had insight into my child’s mind as to why I thought this was a good idea. Perhaps I thought to thank the milk for its creamy deliciousness with a tip (which at $2.28 a gallon in 1987 was a generous 11% gratuity). Another option was the thought that if milk made me grow, perhaps milk would turn make 25¢ grow into 50¢– Cramer would be so proud. Maybe I was just trying to clean the quarter.

My mother saw me drop the quarter into the gallon of milk. As a family, I believe we drank approximately 2.5 gallons of milk per day in 1987. That and boatloads of lentil soup. I can understand my mother’s reaction. Immediately, she reprimanded me. Harshly. I believe my father later gave me a overhead-projector based lecture about the dangers of putting currency in community and individual beverage containers. My mother desperately wanted to know why I had done this and destroyed this gallon of milk for the rest of the family, and why I had tossed a perfectly good quarter away. I was probably wondering the same thing, as there is no good reason.

I do clearly remember one thing. My punishment. My mother did not simply throw the gallon away and tell me to never do this again. No. That would be dismissing my actions– teaching me there were no consequences in this world. Instead, that gallon of milk became my personal gallon of milk. I was to drink and use no other gallon but the Quarter Gallon until it was gone. No one was to touch my Quarter Gallon. I had to drink the entire gallon by myself until the quarter came out. I was deathly afraid I would accidently drink the quarter, choke and die. Sometimes I wonder how close she was to making me chug the whole Quarter Gallon right then and there.

Okay, well it took us long enough to get this blog going again… yeah, about a year. We made the switch from Blogger to WaitsFamilyAnimals.com in September of last year. Once we did that, we did what all aspiring blogger do. We stopped blogging. In that time much has happened:

• Semiotic Technologies work slowed to a stop.
• Liz changed salons to A Peace of Eden.
• Todd started working with Skill-Life making CentsCity.
• Liz and Todd got Pregnant!

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