Germans have a pretty long history of combining firearms and beer. I know this because a few years ago my wife and I went over to Germany and spent a couple days with some German cousins of American friends of ours. The better part of one afternoon was spent taking turns shooting a giant zucchini dressed up like a bird off the top of a thirty foot pole while drinking, unsurprisingly, some beer.

It was probably one of the best days of my life.

Another reason I know this is that I’ve lived in Effingham County for over a decade. Effingham County is, historically and contemporarily, something of an enclave of German-Americans. I am half German-American myself, and while I’m not a big proponent of spending weird amounts of time dwelling on ancestry, there is one moment during the year when I am quite willing to embrace my old country heritage.

And that time is known as the Altamont Schutzenfest.

Altamont, as many readers are aware, is a small town on the western edge of Effingham County. Its name basically means “high mound,” and if you know anything about south-central Illinois topography, you also know it doesn’t take much around here to make a mound “high.” The town is predominantly made up of the descendants of German immigrants who moved there in the 19th and early 20th century, some of them straight from Europe, many of them from the Dakotas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Many moved there for the same reason numerous people moved to this part of Illinois: dirt.

Schutzenfest is a German word that means “marksman festival;” a celebration designed to show off a person’s sharp-shooting prowess. The Altamont Schutzenfest was once a tremendous event where hundreds of people, including busloads of out-of-town college students, gathered to show off their trap-shooting skills, listen to ethnic music, eat German cuisine and imbibe on their historically appropriate beverage of choice. People even vote on a Schutzenfest King and Queen; teenagers from the community who brave the potential taunts hurled at them by their more Yankeefied peers by dressing up in traditional German garb.

My daughter, of course, is at least a quarter German-American, and so I saw fit to bring her to the most recent Schutzenfest about a month ago. It was a pleasant early autumn evening, we had nothing else to do, and we’re still so relatively inexperienced at this parenting gig that such an outing seemed perfectly reasonable. At the time.

There is an old maxim about life that basically states, “You will be taught a lesson until you learn it.” The lesson we had already been taught many months ago and yet still, apparently, had yet to comprehend, was this fairly simple scheduling tidbit: Don’t have her out of the house after 7 P.M. unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

My daughter, therefore, is quite like a gremlin in this respect. After seven, she is too tired to function decently in public and she will almost always punish us for keeping her out past this cosmically significant time.

On this particular Friday, once we had parked our car and entered into the Schutzenfest grounds, she wanted to play the “Swing, Please” game. This game is comprised of her mother and I each taking a tiny hand, then, on the count of three, we swing her a few feet toward our destination. This is actually pretty enjoyable for everyone involved for the first dozen swings or so, and I think many of the less-serious psychological issues our society deals with could be at least partially alleviated if we all could be swung in this fashion a few times a week. Granted, it would look silly and we’d have to build rather tall robots, but it would at least be more enjoyable than taking antidepressants.

Regardless, after the twentieth or so swing, the overall inefficiency gets kind of old, and thus the first round of Transportation Negotiations begins. After seven O‘clock, these talks rarely go well.

“You need to walk like a big girl, now.”

“Noooo!”

“Then mommy’s going to carry you.”

“Swing!”

“Do you want Daddy to carry you?”

“NOOO!”

“We need to get some food, sweetie. Aren’t you hungry?”

“SWING!!!”

Sometimes we swing her some more, sometimes one of us just snatches her up like a football, depending on how eager we are to make it to our destination. On this particular evening, with the smells from the nearby grill mocking our empty guts, we rushed the toddler.

We ordered our meal—bratwurst, potato salad, sauerkraut soup—and found a table. She insisted on trying each food but quickly conveyed to us she found it all rather gross and then returned to her crying.

So, we wolfed down food in a few painful moments that was, based on the money and energy spent securing it, meant to be savored over the course of a leisurely enjoyed draft beer. We hurried our protesting darling out of the Schutzenfest grounds, carrying, swinging, whatever, urgently moving toward the car that would take us where we should have been the entire time: home.

At this time of night, we assumed the car ride back to Effingham would surely lull her to sleep for the evening. No good. Remember what happens to those cute little Mogwi creatures when they eat after midnight? It’s not cool. Do you know what happens to a toddler when you keep her up past her bedtime? It’s much worse.

Now, logic suggests that a tired little girl, once given the appropriate environment in which to do so, would merely fall asleep. Unfortunately, logic and toddlers don’t mesh. Now she’s in a state called “over-tired“. That’s not even a real word, but that’s what she is: she’s too tired to go to sleep.

We lie in bed with her, hoping the double security of our parallel presence will be enough to knock her out. No dice. Now she’s rolling all over the bed, slapping our faces, kicking our throats, mocking gravity with weird little yoga moves I’ve yet to see even in a book. We all end up watching a feature-length Strawberry Shortcake movie until almost midnight. You think gremlins are bad? Gremlins don’t insist on watching feature-length Strawberry Shortcake movies until almost midnight.

In retrospect, I think she would have appreciated the actual German version of the Schutzenfest much more. As mentioned, in the Old Country, they make a pretend bird out of something available--in our case a zucchini--secure this fake bird to a thirty-foot pole, and then hoist it above everyone. Participants shoot at the doomed creature with an air rifle until someone finally “kills” it and it plummets to earth.

That great marksman is now the Schutzenfest King, making the German version of coronation much more “Old World” than the American. In Germany, the guy who kills the bird—the best warrior—is King and picks his own Queen. In America, the community votes on their pretend rulers in authentic democratic fashion. In Germany, we all danced around the impromptu royalty while “singing” some undecipherable folk song. In America people take pictures of their new leaders to be used as blackmail at a much later date.

Sounds ridiculous? Absolutely, which means it would have been perfect for a two-year-old.

Thus, my daughter’s first introduction to her Germanic heritage was less than impressive. Maybe it was the sauerkraut soup. Maybe it was the polka music. Regardless, she and I will not be attending the Schutzenfest together again anytime soon. At least not until she’s old enough to kill her own zucchini.

Two for One

The Styrofoam cup does not, as a product, have much going for it. Demonized for depleting the ozone, often used for tasks unrelated to drinking-think preschool paintbrush water holder-the Styrofoam cup is a product often taken for granted. For example, when was the last time you read an online column about Styrofoam cups?

Exactly.

With this in mind, then, I can almost forgive what I saw the other day at Wal-Mart.

Almost.

So, there I was, shopping at Wal-Mart for the fourth time in five days, as usual, when I came upon the product. My wife was doing a science experiment for her classroom and needed, unsurprisingly, many, many Styrofoam cups. As a card-carrying member of EOC, (Environmentalists of Convenience) it had been awhile since I’d purchased such an item and was a bit taken aback by what I saw on the packaging.

“Keeps hot drinks hot; keeps cold drink cold; two cups in one!”

Interesting, I thought. This product must think I am a total idiot.

You are many things, Mr. Styrofoam Cup, to many people: bean seed planter, action figure pedestal, sand castle mold for poor children. You are not, however, “two cups in one.”

You are one cup.

One. Cup.

Yes, I understand, due to your harsh molecular configuration you have the ability to keep warm drinks warms and cold drinks cool for an undetermined amount of time based on room temperature.

But two cups in one?

Are you serious?

This is like saying a zygote is two children in one because it can become either a sweet little girl or a loud boy over the next few months. No, sir. A zygote is one eventual human that can become one of two possible genders, just as a Styrofoam cup is one drink receptacle that can either hold hot coffee, cold beer, or, if you’re seven, dead crickets.

Now, the scientific amongst you might be prepared to remark, "Yeah, but a zygote can actually split and become two humans, thus your analogy is kind of dumb." Very true, but keep in mind that the word zygote is much funnier than the more biologically appropriate term, embryo. Regardless, two cups in one? Give me a break.

But, perhaps I’m being an ass. Again. We are, after all, in the midst of pretty bad recession. The Styrofoam people have to pay their mortgages the same way everybody else does, and, as it turns out, they are not the only ones trying to peddle one product by pretending it is two.

The folks over at Doritos, for example, are selling a bag of chips with two different flavors. I’ve never purchased these chips, mostly because the names of some of the flavors confuse me.

After Hours Cheeseburger? That’s your flavor? That sounds like something a fat hooker eats between clients. Stadium Nachos? What, you pour warm beer on them and charge me five times what they’re worth? I don’t get it.

Anyway, I don’t know if the co-flavored chip bag has two separate chip compartments, like an Illinois dormitory, or if the chips are all thrown in together like one of those pagan colleges on the coast. Regardless, I will not buy a bag of chips that cannot make up its mind. Considering how many head cases I deal with during the week, the last things I need to add to my diet is schizophrenia.

A third multitasking product that I actually do use, however, and have found to be of quality is the body wash that can also shampoo and condition your hair. Now, I know as well as you do that this product is no more conditioning my hair as it is mowing my lawn. This product is living a lie the same way as the cups. This is simply shampoo that says it is also a conditioner and, as if that isn’t hard enough to believe, then claims to be a body wash.

This product, then, is the nine-year-old jerk on the playground who begins to tell a lie, realizes he’s caught, and just keeps on going in a hopeless effort to bewilder his listeners.

“So, little Jojo, what did you do this weekend?”

“Well, I went camping. With my dad.”

“Oh? That sounds like fun. What all did you do?”

“Well, uh, we went fishing. And I . . . caught a turtle A pretty big one.”

“Wow. A turtle, huh? A snapper?”

“Oh yeah, a snapper! It bit my dad's whole toe off!”

“What?!”

“Yeah, it was a huge snapping turtle! The bite got infected and dad had to get his foot amputated!”

“Yeah, I just saw your dad this morning. I‘m pretty sure he had both his feet.”

“You suck.”

And that’s that. So, why do I buy a product that lies to me and pretends to be able to both shampoo and condition my hair and, then, as if I’m still paying attention, goes ahead and tells me it’s a body wash, too? That’s easy.

Do you have any idea how much time it saves to just use shampoo to wash your whole body? Do you know how many gallons of water I’ve saved? (As an EOC, that’s pretty important.)

Now, thanks to this lie of a product, I no longer have to feel bad about it. Thanks, Old Spice Shampoo Conditioner Bodywash in One! You are saving our planet’s precious water supplies one disgusting man at a time!

Well, that’s all the time we have for now, folks. Check back in a couple weeks when I’ll probably be offering more unasked for advice. Now that you know how much water I save, I assume you'll be even more apt to listen.