Is Your Breakfast Cereal Poisonous?

Probably not, but who knows?  In our very recent past Americans were happily stuffing their faces with sugary, salty, greasy foods packed with saturated fat; we had families all over the highway who didn't know how a seat belt even worked; we raised our families in houses packed with asbestos and lead paint... And don't even get me started on baby stuff.  Rubber nipples, BPA laden plastic bottles, walkers, crib bumpers, stuffing our babies' faces with highly allergic food... Need I go on?  I mean, for that matter, the fall of the Roman Empire has been speculated to be blamed on poisoning from the use of lead in their make-up and attire.  Human existence has struggled to stay afloat since the beginning and has somehow succeeded so far strictly on a trial and error basis.   It's unsettling at best.


But at some point all of these things were considered perfectly safe.  Which leads us to an obvious conclusion: Certainly there are things we're doing and eating right now that are horrifically life threatening.  Some day our grandchildren will shake their heads and say, "I can't believe they used to watch TV without radiation filtering eye goggles!  Were they stupid?!"


So I decided to make a few predictions about some products that might be someday proven to be deadly or at the very least- a really crappy idea.  Only time will tell of course, and these predictions are based solely on speculation.  But isn't that what the Internet is all about?  Long past are the days of being limited to getting your information only from well informed, educated people!  Just think of all of the doors that opens up!  So unless you're one of those elitist snobs that gets hung up on "credentials" and "facts," listen up.  I've got some predictions to make.



#1

Let's start with those silver paper sleeves we use to heat up hot pockets.  They're just too weird. I don't think anyone knows how they work.  In the directions you're warned sternly not to use them more than once. Or what? What would happen?  Would it affect the space-time continuum?  And for that matter, how would it even know how many times you used it?  Can that thing count?  I'm telling you, there's something weird going on there.  It's disturbing enough that we're still not totally sure about whether or not the microwave itself is giving us cancer. 

#2

I know this subject has been worn out, but I have to quickly mention it: cell phones.  It's probably not as bad as some of the early reports, and no, it turns out they actually cannot pop popcorn, but I'm still not totally convinced we're in the clear.  My phone has so many signals going in and out of it at any given time (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G...), it certainly wouldn't be a shock to find out at least one of those is farming lumps on my cerebrum. 

#3

Next on the list: "Safety Toys."  Kids' toys have been made so ridiculously safe, that we have a generation of kids growing up right now that are not ready for the dangers of the real world.  There was a time that if you cut yourself on your rusty Tonka truck, you went to the hospital and got a tetanus shot.  It hurt like shit and that's the day you learned not to be stupid and cut yourself on rusty metal.  We fell off our bikes without helmets and pads and decided that being reckless isn't an awesome idea because bruises, scrapes, and broken bones suck.  My son has a plastic truck.  They carefully designed it so that you can't possibly fit your finger behind the wheel and pinch it or get stuck.  You know what I learned when my finger got stuck or pinched in a toy?  Don't stick your idiotic fingers into small, dangerous areas.  And don't think for one second the toy companies care about your kid.  It's all about law suits, risk assessment, and the bottom line.  Let's not get side tracked though.

#4

Last and probably scariest: Zhu Zhu Pets.  Yeah that's right.  I said it.  Those stupid little robot hamsters that were all the rage last Christmas were quickly accused of containing toxins and yanking Jr.'s hair right out of his adorable little head.  Well that, and they were clearly strategically marketed by the U.S. Government to spy on us.  Come on people.  Open up your eyes.  Don't wait until it's been turned into a Will Smith action movie.  Those little bastards crawl all over our houses collecting information and reporting back to some secret government organization probably using our own cell phones for transmission.  I know what you're thinking: what about the people who don't have phone reception at their house?  Why do you think there were so many recalls?  That was the built-in backup plan.  They sent these furry little eaves-dropping, special-ops fuckers right back to headquarters loaded with all the information they needed.  The kicker?  These people even paid their own postage.  Double ouch. That's "The Man" stickin' it to ya twice, and he's sure as shit not gonna call you the next day either.  He should have at least been a gentleman and bought you dinner.

Okay, I've said enough.  Too much maybe.  My phone just rang and I have a sneaking suspicion the calls are coming from that black van out front.   I'm going to turn off my lights and lay low for a while.

Babies - The Free Ride Has Gone On Long Enough

The life of a baby is, overall, pretty great as far as I can tell. People make your food, they feed it to you, they carry or cart you around from place to place, they bathe you while you play with toys and splash them in the face, they dress you, buy you lots of toys to keep you entertained... you get all of this, and what's more? You're not even expected to show the smallest amount of gratitude. No baby's first words have ever been "thank you," and they never will be. Why? For the same reason you don't go outside every morning and thank the garbage man: he's just doing his job. My point? Babies have it good.

Well then, you say, what's all the whining and crying about? Okay, to be fair, there's another way of looking at it. You have to eat whatever your parents decide to feed you, you have to go wherever they want to go and play with their friends' stupid babies that pull your hair (and never get in trouble for it,) you have to get in the bathtub whether you like it or not and during more than one bath will undoubtedly have humiliating and socially compromising pictures taken which will quite possibly at some point be lost in the basement but will almost definitely turn up by the time your prom date is waiting for you in the living room sixteen years later, you have to play with all those stupid overly complicated, light-up, noisy toys they buy you, when all you really want to play with is measuring cups and Tupperware... I suppose it might be rough sometimes, but it beats working a shit job and being suffocated by debt, responsibility, and the conscience for social niceties. I mean, come on! You don't even have to pay taxes!

Alright adults, before you get all worked up and start making your picket signs demanding equal rights for every age group, I want you to put down your poster board and markers and remember this: we are the enablers. As with many of today's major problems and epidemics, it all starts at home. We've all been micromanaging these drooling little leaches for way too long in this country. And the result? Infantile laziness. Did you know in many areas of China most people have a job by the time they're six months old? It's true. Let me tell you, those kids appreciate a bottle of milk. Ya know why? Because they bought it with their own money. It's called "self-reliance," all you American babies. Look it up. Oh that's right- you can't read yet, can you? Well who's fault is that? Most babies in India learn to read in the womb and many have even published several works of their own before birth.

All I'm saying is, maybe I'd be a little further up my career ladder now if I had been instilled with the kind of solid work ethic that you can only learn from sewing khaki pants for the Gap when you're three. It's time these babies started pulling their weight. Change is in the air! I can smell it! Ummmmm... or maybe that's a dirty diaper.

Parenting and Piano Bars

I lean over to the drunk young bachelorette who obviously needs to tell me something that she apparently can't convey adequately on the request forms that are piled in the middle of every table. It looks pretty important too.

Bachelorette: Hey! Can you play that song... ummmm .... it's like - daaa daaa daaaaaaa - something, eyes and your hips...

Me: Hm. It's not ringing a bell.

Bachelorette: Yeah, it's like - unnnnn naa naa - eyes and your hips... Come on! You know it!

Her breath smells like the vodka and grenadine she been sipping through the plastic penis-straw that's become a "must-have" with every bachelorette party. Of course, when you're wearing a silver plastic, jewel encrusted tiara decorated with six hot-pink penises and the word "Bachelorette" across the front (in case anyone mistook the occasion for a tupperware party,) the penis straw is definitely the obvious, no-brainer accessory. Oftentimes bachelorettes will proudly stroll in with the 6 foot inflatable weenie under their arm. Because when you're really attention starved, a boring old penis necklace is just so... understated.

On a side note, in my eleven years in the dueling piano bar business, I've yet to see a bachelor party adorned in sparkling plastic vaginas and jeweled boobie crowns.

So, anyway... back to cosmopolitan-breath: Naaaa naaaa da, daaaaa hips... I know you know it! John Mayer does it!

Wow. And some lucky guy is about to commit and make babies with this fine specimen. Good call. I know a keeper when I see one.

Me: That's awesome. Hey, your friends are calling you. I'm going to play a song now for the other 200 people in the room.

I call my friend Zach to the stage to play drums with me on some Lady Gaga to make sure the bachelorette party forgets about any disappointment I might left them with over this nasty John Mayer incident. I follow that up with some Miley Cyrus for good measure, just to be thorough. The other piano player ends up playing drums for me instead of Zach though. Why? Zach (who is a bar-back) never made it to the stage because he had to escort a gentleman out who decided while he stood at the bar waiting for his drink, he would go ahead and relieve himself (the word "gentleman" in this instance is clearly only used to denote gender and not to imply social grace or stature of any sort - ironically, kind of like the sign on the restroom door.) Now, in this guy's defence, the restroom was clear on the opposite side of the bar.

Pretty typical stuff, believe it or not. By the time I get home, it's almost 3:30 am. By the time I eat and do a little reading it's almost 6. The sun's coming up as I'm winding down. I change into some comfy sleepwear and just as but hits the side of my bed, before I even lay back I hear my 11 month old son, Jagger, waking up through the monitor next to the bed. Sigh. Turn it off. No use disrupting Aerin's sleep. She never gets enough. I'm already up.

I go into Jagger's room and he's standing with his hands on the crib rail and he smiles, squeals and bounces up and down when he sees me come through the doorway. How can I possibly be annoyed at this point. Tired as crap, yes, but now I have a big stupid grin on my face. He has a stinky diaper, so I figure I'll change him, maybe read him a book, then put him back to bed. I put him on the changing table and clean him up. It's especially stinky, even for him. These days he likes to stand up on the changing table so we let him air-dry like that while we hold his hands. It's his favorite place to dance. So I was singing while he was shaking his little booty when he decided to relieve himself all over both of us and the changing table. Somehow it was less offensive when he did it. Maybe if the guy in the bar had been wearing dinosaur pajamas it would have been cuter. Incidentally, I don't know what it is about my singing that makes people pee.

By the time I get him back to bed it's almost time for my 10 year old daughter to get up for school. Well, no use in getting Aerin out of bed at this point. I'm already up. So I cook up some omelets, we do the morning routine and I drop her off at school and I get to bed at about 8:20. Jagger wakes up for his morning bottle at 9:30. My wife, Aerin, gets up to feed him after enjoying that one hour of time that we spent together/slept through. Then she does her best to keep her eyes open while Jagger tries to eat everything that will fit in his mouth. Again- all of it, pretty typical stuff.

Strangely enough, I learn things from my kids that help me to deal better with drunk people at the bar. Actually, watching over drunk people can be really similar to taking care of a baby at times. I mean, you constantly have to stop drunk people from doing things that could hurt them like, "Hey! Get down off the table!" or "You have to put your shoes back on. You could step on broken glass," or "You should probably wait to cross the street until that huge truck goes by." They also throw up on themselves, babble incoherently, and in some cases make boom-boom or tinkle in their pants (Yes our poor doorguys have actually witnessed this a 4 or 5 times while helping people to the door that have had a little "too much fun.") And like children, they get more irritable and defiant the later it gets. I guess the main difference is when your children aren't following the rules, you can't just tell them to leave. Kids are like drunks that you're forced to live with. On the bright side, when they're old enough, they mow the lawn.