Giving Me the Bird
I've had an horrendous spring. I won't go into the details, but a barrage of non-work commitments has frayed my nerves to the bone (is that metaphor possible?). I was looking forward to a nice long Memorial Day weekend, with nothing to do except hang out with my children.
But my wife botched it. She's leaving with six of my seven children. As far as my nerves go, it's a good thing. For quiet living, getting the punks out of the house is good. Problem is, I start to miss them terribly, then the weekend is no fun anymore. And she's leaving for an inane reason: a weekend of bird watching.
I've gone to "bird camp" three times. It's one of the most brutal things ever, ranking just behind my trip to Hell to wrestle Cerberus and just ahead of the mock execution I underwent while visiting Cambodia with Chuck Norris. But my in-laws love it. Birding. Freakin' birding. I can only shake my befuddled head, and now they have sucked in my children. My wife doesn't like to go, but my children love it, and she capitulates every year.
The whole thing, of course, alienates me from my children. They exclaim, "Dad, how can you not like bird camp?" which my mind intuitively translates as, "Dad, how can you not like getting punched in the genitals?" My wife has succeeded in making me an outcast in my own house.
But that's alright. I feel less pressure to provide for the ingrates. When I ship their college tuition to the Audu-freakin'-bon Society, they can remember their pagan trips to bird camp (where they sing hymns around the campfire, with references to Christ replaced with references to saving the planet--no joke). When I leave their inheritance to the Audu-freakin' bon Society, they can grimace with the pain they caused me all these Memorial Day weekends. REVENGE WILL BY MINE! I WILL SPIT IN THEIR FACES AND CURSE THEM FOR VIOLATING PATERNAL HONOR! THEN I WILL BREAK MY STAFF ACROSS THEIR BINOCULARED FACES AND SCOFF AT BUSHNELL.
Okay, so maybe I'm a little bitter, but (trust me) it was by coincidence that I ran across this little piece:
While I am unsure what the most common phobia experienced throughout the world is, I think I have an idea. Soceraphobia. That's right, the fear of your in-laws. . . . Most women believe men are commitment phobic. I beg to differ. It is soceraphobia which cripples, perhaps paralyses entire generations, forcing even the bravest and the strongest to make that life-altering decision. Do we stay and fight? Against the odds, risk losing our dignity for the sake of our pride? Or do we run and survive only to die a lonely alcoholic in a one-bedroom tin shack somewhere along a derelict stretch of the old Pacific Highway?
I like that option: dying a derelict on a derelict stretch of the old Pacific Highway. The piece was written in Australia. How much does a plane ticket to the land down-under cost? Nevermind. I have a 529 Plan to pay for it.
BTW: I once knew a women who almost died from exposure to bird excrement. Put that in your feathered pipe and smoke it!
Addendum
I assume long-time readers of TDE are acquainted with my occasional sarcastic rant. If not, rest assured that the vitriol is intended as a joke. I don't like bird watching, the whole bird camp adventure baffles me, and I wish I had my children this weekend, but my in-laws are good people and my kids should spend time with them. The humor behind this type of post is to take something that bothers me, and then hype it up past all reasonable levels of emotion.
Yes, I wish such things didn't need to be explained, but if I didn't, surely someone would stumble across this post and wonder what kind of psychotic cad writes at TDE.
Notre Dame Musing
The MSM gushed with Obama's three-quarters standing ovation at the Notre Dame graduation ceremony. Three-fourths of the people there stood. I don't find it hard to believe: I suspect some kids, the more devout kind, felt compelled to skip the graduation ceremony.
And there, I think, is the biggest tragedy of all: Jenkins forced students to make a lousy choice . . . on an afternoon that should have been one of the most special days of their lives. Did a handful of devout Catholics miss their graduation ceremony? If so, why were they put in such a bad position? So Jenkins could play Mr. Broadminded? He can say what he wants, but surely he must realize that people who may have stayed away from the ceremony were making an honest decision to show respect and obedience to Catholic teaching.
Does Jenkins' type of lofty arrogance know limits, or is it so smug that it deftly deflects even the most piercing and cogent criticism?
(If you read closely, you'll notice that I don't know for a fact that some ND seniors skipped their ceremony. I'm merely guessing, but I'll put money on it that some did.)
