Scott Cramer wrote this.

Cosmic Catch-22 – A married man taking care of a baby is the most desirable to a woman. Same man, no ring or baby, is just another guy who wouldn’t stand a chance with her.

Explain that one, Darwin.

So, we go into a fancy restaurant and the receptionist asks how many in our party.

“Two, and a baby,” I reply.

The waiter asks that we follow him and we proceed to walk about twenty miles to the back of the restaurant in a corner room – filled with several other couples with babies, and a few teenagers in shabby clothing. A kid’s menu and a high-chair were already at the table when we got there.

Back of the bus – again.

Every year that goes by it seems my electric shaver gets more and more use further away from my beard.

My beard is a little tough anyway, so much that I considered rigging a gas-powered weed-whacker as a substitute shaver – except the handle would hit the shower stall and I’d only finish about half my face. Besides, if the nylon cord in the weed-whacker snapped every time I hit gravel (hey, there are weeds to whack in gravel) then it wouldn’t stand a chance as my shaver – and they just don’t make diamond-tipped steel trimming wheels. Maybe something with kryptonite…

Anyway, this whole thought process started when I had to trim some hair from my auricular areas (get a dictionary you pervs!) this morning and I asked my wife if they did electrolysis on ears (if you missed it, auricular = ears… pay attention).

She said, “If they do it on your pubic area they’ll do it on your ears.”

Pubic areas? I didn’t ask about pubic areas – heck, I didn’t even use the term “auricular” out loud! Besides, I get squirmy when the barber uses the electric shaver to trim my neck!

If I did go for this possibility – on the ears, jeez – it would be my luck to be flying out of country (because, well, that happens so often) and, in the middle of nowhere, my plane would go down and strand me on a desert island. It happened to Tom Hanks in Cast-Away so just play along.

After a couple monthes I’d be nothing but a pile of hair – and two glaring white naked ears.

Anyone stumbling across my little island would be laughing so hard they’d probably forget to rescue me.

The Pop-Tart breakfast consortium got me again!

Insidious, I tell you. A grown man walking out of the grocery with a double-pack of Power Puff Girls Pop-Tarts – purple frosted with brightly colored candy stars and characters on top.

And I didn’t even get the cool magnet in the box! @#$%^&

They taste good too… but that doesn’t stop me from imagining the inside jelly is actually melted Power Puff Girls. Bwahaha! If I’m going to eat cutsey cartoon super heroine breakfast pastries, at LEAST I’m going to be the super villain. Mmmm…

If an alien spaceship landed on the road in front of you and the occupants stepped out and approached you to join them on their return into space, would you go?

Remember “Close Encounters of the Third Kind?” Richard Dreyfuss’s character took the opportunity. What became of him? He had a family and kids. Aside from the fact he ruined the living room with a giant mud sculpture of a mountain and convinced all the neighbors he was stark raving mad with his other worldly visions, I’d think they would miss him quite a lot – the family that is; neighbors would gossip the same either way, that’s just what they do.

In any case, would you step away from family and friends (coworkers and the boss, no problem) to become a missing person statistic, or the subject of some sleezy supermarket tabloid?

I can make the decision easier on most of you.

Scenario One – The aliens are slimey wart covered beings who smell of sour milk. Your answer is a definitive “No”. Your excuse, “I’m sorry, I have family and a close network of friends whom I’d miss and who would miss me. Although the opportunity tittilates me intellectually, I sadly must turn down your offer.” You rationalize afterwards that it all had to do with anal probes anyway.

Scenario Two – The aliens look like Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and you can smell flowers when they come close to you. You stutter, forgetting your name, sure of the fact you are an only child, orphan bachelor (despite the band on your left ring-finger), who leads a hermit existence and doesn’t have a job anyway. If you could remember how to speak you might answer, “Yes, for the good of science with little regard to my own personal sacrifice, I will join you on your mission!”

Scenario One – You go home and try to convince your friends and family you didn’t fall asleep driving, hit a tree, and lapse into delirium. Nobody believes you and you eventually convince yourself it was all just a dream.

Scenario Two – The aliens, taking into account your incoherence and drooling problem, retract their offer. The last you see of them, they are leading a cow into the mothership. You go home and dream of anal probes.

One whole grocery aisle dedicated to potato chips. Another for colas (or pop, or soft drinks, whatever you like to call them). Yet another just for breakfast cereals – many of which come out with special “limited edition” packaging named after the cool cartoon or movie in the public popularity spotlight. Several yards worth of frozen pizza brands. Freezer after freezer of ice cream – including twelve kinds of vanilla (c’mon folks, there’s only so much you can do to a vanilla bean!) all the way up to glow-in-the-dark choco-nuggets in every bite! Okay, maybe not quite on that last one, but close. I did see pop-rocks (you remember, the candy that explodes when you put it in your mouth?) mixed into a new flavor – I just can’t figure out how they keep the containers from blowing up when they start to melt.

And this is just at the local gas station quicky-mart.

I always know what year it is.

So long as it’s not within a few days of the beginning or end, I know the month.

Oftentimes I’m confused as to what day it is.

If I didn’t wear a watch I would only know the time by the presence or absence of sunlight.

I forget how old I am. I have forgotten to eat for an entire day because it just didn’t occur to me at the time. I never seem to leave on time. I’m alway late or, at best, barely on time. I believe that the laws of physics don’t apply to me – if I try hard enough I can make the drive in five minutes, not twenty. My fourteen month old daughter was born just yesterday. Christmas Eve still lasts an eternity – especially when quiet descends and you are waiting for morning!

People call me Mister and Sir, and when I look in the mirror I still see a naieve wide-eyed little kid.

“adult”, noun, One who has attained maturity or legal age.

Well, I guess I can get into bars…

Reality TV shows…

I’ve never been to bootcamp. I’ve never had to survive being stranded on an island or stuck in the Australian outback. Temptation Island? Yeah, right.

Unless you’re Angela Lansbury it’s doubtful you’ll really be solving a murder in smalltown America.

And for everyone who believes those Big Brother people aren’t just following the script… well, all those “hand written” advertisements in the mail with your name at the top (don’t mind that it’s been inserted in a totally different font and size), those really are personalized just for you.

Oops, gotta go! Jerry Springer’s on!

Okay, so I let my backyard grass grow a little high. There were fox-tails waving in the wind and my dogs looked like they were roaming the African veldt when I let them out to do their personal doggie work. It started out that I was busy, then it kept raining at the wrong times, or I was too tired, going out for the evening, leaving for the weekend, a good show was on television, alone at home with the baby, and finally, the ultimate in procrastination excuses – I kinda liked the way it looked!

It was kind of neat to call for the dogs and see the greyhound’s head pop up from somewhere in the middle of the yard – kind of like that whack-a-mole game. The little dog, well all you could see of him was the tip of his tail at the top of the grass moving toward you as he ran for the back-door, blades parting before it like water parting around a shark’s fin. Truthfully the entire backyard looked cleaner too – mostly because you couldn’t see that it needed trimmed. Not to mention the fact that the dogs would have to dutifully do their duty in the same spot for a week in order for it to be seen over the grass-top. Considering I don’t own a Great Dane I felt pretty safe on that count.

So I let it grow.

It finally came down to taking out the garbage one week… I was leaving a trail of crusty breadcrumbs in order to find my way back again to the house, when I noticed half-way between door and alley that my trail was gone. I spied the tail-end of what appeared to be a kangaroo-sized mouse diving back into the side wall of grass. I couldn’t see the house. I couldn’t see the alley. Lucky for me I’d just put new batteries in the lantern or I’d have been really screwed. Even in brightest daylight I’d have been lucky to get a few rays at ground level. I told myself not to panic – even though I could swear I heard drums beating in the not too far off distance. I plodded onwards – eventually I’d reach a fence, the garage, or something! After a few minutes I tripped over something. Looking down I saw it was a clipboard. “City Electric” was emblazoned in blocky bold type at the top of the page. Scribbled underneath was a message. It read, “Lost for days in this heart of darkness… If found, deliver these meter readings to City Electric. -Kurtz.” I guess that explained why we hadn’t received an electric bill recently.

In any case, I’d make it out! I had planted the very seed for this grass – it would not be my undoing! It was then that I heard it – a faint calling, but coming closer. I yelled back in reply.

It rang out again, louder this time, “Marco?”

“POLO!” I cried out.

Within minutes my wife appeared through a nearby thicket of crabgrass, a gardenhose lifeline stretched tight behind her. My saviour! She started to speak and I was about to cut her off and tell her how much I appreciated her concern when she noticed I was missing and how brave and devoted she must be to single-handedly forage out to rescue me!

But before I could utter the first syllable, she thrust a bag into my hands. “Here. You forgot to take out the recyclables.”

Ah yes… My hero.

I’ve heard they’ve got spray-on tans now. You go into a booth and spray nozzles hose you down in a golden shower (of tanning solution). I wonder if they make little touch-up bottles that you can dab on an elbow when you bump into someone in the elevator and chip your paint-job…