Additional Archives Summaries

December

12.15.10
"I know there's nothing funny about domestic contentment, but you need to understand, I live in a house now. It has a yard, and a basement, and neighbors that never tell each other to go to hell."

November

11.26.10 - Or my name isn't what?
"Left to its own devices, microwave popcorn will kill you."
 October

10.22.10 - Never, ever. . .

"My daughter, therefore, is quite like a gremlin in this respect."

10.1.10 - Two for One

"Stadium Nachos? That's your flavor? What, you pour warm beer on them and charge me five times what they're worth? I don't get it."

September

9.11.10 - Just Say What?

"If a society might be judged by the sustenance of its public service announcements, I fear we may in be for a rather rough century."


August 

8.17.10 - Fast Times

 "Teaching in a junior high school can often be like working in one of those old fashioned insane asylums without access to tranquilizers. This week I report back to the institution."

8.5.10 -This Little Light

"The Internet is not new. It’s been around awhile, and making important decisions because of what you see on You-Tube or read from someone’s blog is like choosing your prom date based on the detailed information you read on the wall of a public restroom."

July

7.19.10 - Are You Ready to Explore?

"Two weeks ago we discussed the potentially harmful effects of excessive television watching and used a particularly popular children’s show, Dora the Explorer, to emphasize the point that it’s OK when I do it."

7.4.10 - Is This the Right Show?

"Dora the Explorer keeps my daughter engaged, and, particularly important at this stage, it keeps her in one place for fifteen minutes so I can find my socks."

June


6.7.10 - Just One Small Step

"Or, worse, what if they weren’t workers at all, but instead members of a vast Al Qaeda sleeper cell, synchronized to leave all carnival rides running full blast throughout America until their demands were met?"

May

5.18.10 - Just Say "NO!"

"Apparently she’s uncovered one of the great existential epitomes of her life: namely, she is not of us. She is her own person, not a hapless extension of her mother or me or anyone else in the room. One would think such a discovery would be elating. Instead, she’s chosen to demonstrate her uniqueness by disagreeing with nearly everything we ever say."

5.1.10 - Mojo's Cafe

"It’s taken us a long, long, time to get here, but in a couple weeks, we will leave this tiny apartment, with its thin walls, stinky odors, and verbally abusive tenants, and move into a house we have purchased with the bank’s very own money."

April

4.15.10 - Out of Africa

"Now, a giraffe is a sizable creature, even when chopped in half, so I do respect the ingenuity the owners took when situating the remaining animal to look natural in such a strange setting."

March

3.29.10 - You Have an App for That?

"Recently after school one day I came upon a student unrolling a roll of toilet paper. Fortunately, the toilet paper was not real. He was actually unrolling a pretend roll of toilet paper on his IPod while other students watched. Curious, I opted to investigate."

3.13.10 - You're Not Welcome, Mr. Kotter

"As many of you know, I am a school teacher, and, like most school teachers, I hope to someday retire and never teach school again."