Honea Express

Archive for the ‘humor’ Category

This is my best post. I’ll tell you that right now. You might smile. You might sigh. You may have to step away from your computer and touch something to make sure this is real. That something is your focal point. This post is your anchor. I am the captain of your ship and we are sailing on an ocean made from the tears of so many children.  All children cry. Yours, because you don’t love them enough. Mine, because I love too much. All tears taste of salt. All tears flow to the sea.

I’m trying something new. Do you like it? If you do then please paste this on your car bumper. Page a friend. Yell it from the assorted rooftops. This is me excelling in a new direction, and the direction is up. It is like the rapture, but with more hype.

I am a giant redwood among the pines and oaks of daddy blogging. Other dads cut holes at my root, because they cannot reach my heart. They drive their cars through me. They are part of a fast-food forest. I am a seven course meal and the wine is an “h” short. Dessert is layered in metaphors. It is nearly as sweet as my words, but without the linger or the bite.

I will not rewrite this post, which makes it even better, because it is raw. It is trending.

I know things about parenting that you do not. You have told me so with your actions. Save your words for Scrabble and friends. This is sticks and stones territory. This is tough love. There is no reach around. There is no spoon.

Some of you may not get this. It may seem too deep. It may seem too powerful. If that is you, then congratulations, you just Googled directions to where love lives. There are hugs nearby.

If this post makes you angry then you are reading it wrong. If it makes you cry then you are probably Glenn Beck. Or me. Let it out. That’s how love flows. It sounds like Kenny G on a train in the distance.

There is a box and you are in it. I am on the outside, thinking of ways to help you get more traffic. It starts when I open the lid.

I’ve already posted twice today about the same subject. I’ll just give you links instead of striking out here.

Is Your Child’s Schedule Stretching You Thin? (BabyCenter)

The Springtime of Our Youth (DadCentric)

Bonus: Ellen is Bearing Down! Go, Wildcats!

And a plea: Please do whatever it that new Networked Blogs/Facebook box in the sidebar is asking. It would be nice if my mom saw that someone else liked me. They really liked me.

In the meantime please enjoy my new favorite thing to watch on the internet that isn’t pornography:

Sponsored By

Cheerios® is giving you the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, your ultimate family vacation. As part of a paid promotion for their “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes, Cheerios® is sponsoring my post today about what my ultimate family vacation would be. Read mine, Enter the Sweepstakes for a chance to actually win your own fantasy family trip or one of a bunch of other great prizes.

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I knew a man in the military. He was an Admiral. His name was Hills. He loved a good tune. You might say that Admiral Hills was alive with the sound of music. He loved art and he worked mostly in oils and Garfunkle. His presence was a thousand glasses toasted and his absence whispered in the sounds of silence. He rose above the world like a bridge over troubled water. Some people loved him like a rock.

I haven’t seen the man in over 40 years. I thought about sending him a message in a bottle — an SOS, but my bottles are full of ships and beer and sink heavy when empty. I’ve thought about taking a trip to wherever he lives — an ultimate vacation of old friends and their families. But where would I go? What would I do? What family members would I bring along?

I don’t know.

I could climb every mountain, search high and low. Would I find him in Belize, floating in a warm sea and sipping drinks made with exotic fruit and sweat-laced liquor? Would I search for him in Switzerland, skiing the Alps and being more or less neutral about all of it? They are so many silver white winters and so much melting into spring.

I could follow every highway, every path I know.

Any of these places would be perfect for a man and his wife, two boys and their dogs. Admiral Hills was a man of good cheer, and he always said that a family vacation is in the dreams and the plans, and the journey of maybe getting there. We should all pack accordingly.

We’ll get there someday.

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Don’t forget to enter the “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes, for a chance to win your own ultimate family vacation. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Hello, and welcome to a new feature which I’ll most likely only do once, the Wednesday Review! The Wednesday Review is where I review some products that were sent to me for said reviewing. I have a whole policy on this, which you can find here, but mark me, I don’t review something unless I like it. If I don’t like it then I wrap the item in newspaper and pass it off as a gift to one of my backup friends on their respective birthday and/or religious holiday. Unless it really sucks, then I’ll tell you all about it, because that’s my obligation to you, the reader.

If you read the fine print on the side of the box you will also undoubtedly be aware that this first, and possibly only, edition of the Wednesday Review! also includes tidbits and news! Contents may have shifted, but probably not.

First the tidbits and the news. I’m not really sure how to tell them apart, so tidbits and news will be lumped together for your reading enjoyment:

• I got a new job! Actually, I got more than one, but only one is live and it’s a big deal (especially to my previously starving children). I’m now on staff over at BabyCenter as part of their FameBaby site. As a matter of fact, I just welcomed myself. In public.
• You may recall me talking about my friend Troy Olsen and his new single.  Well, he’s doing great. Since my post, but not because of my post, he has been featured on iTunes twice. He’s also been all over some country charts and his Summer Thing video is popular on CMT.
• The lovely Dan Hughes and his band of merry men and women are currently underway on their epic walk for a cause. The Hadrian’s Walk is an amazing undertaking and I’m truly sorry that my finances prevented me from being a part of it.  Yes, I know, we’re taking the family to Walt Disney World this summer, but a) the total cost of airfare, park tickets and accommodations for the four of us going to WDW is less than the airfare alone would have been for the two of us to fly to England, and b) holy crap, this vacation is biting me in the ass.
• Adventure Time With Finn and Jake is freaking killing me. It’s probably not good for kids, as they talk about death, kidnapping, farts and being sexy, but I let mine watch it anyway. They can’t hear anything over my laughter.
• I sell wine! Well, not me personally (although I used to sell wine personally at Cost Plus World Market many moons ago), but rather the Clever Girls Collective, of which I am a member — this despite my being neither clever or a girl, but I am collective and WINE!  There are deals and grapes and fancy descriptions and if you buy 3 bottles the shipping is FREE! Yes, free.

In closing (of this part), I have super, big and awesome things in the works that I can’t expand on at the moment because super, big awesome things didn’t fit in the title of this post, however, trust me, they are all that and more and I’ll be spilling as soon as possible, or as the kids say, ASAP.

This is turning out to be a really long post.

Okay, reviews! Reviews of stuff that I received for the sole purpose of reviewing! But only the things I like! Yes! You’ll see the crap I didn’t like on your birthday. Wrapped in newspaper.

Games from Hasbro: True story, until a few months ago we had a version of Chutes and Ladders that featured Dora the Explorer. The kids loved it and then subsequently broke it through a series of high kicks. We never had a version of Operation, but the neighbors did and the kids called it Surgery and it was good.

Enter the good people at Hasbro. They sent me two (2) games to review, a Toy Story 3 (and here’s my thought-provoking review of the film, free of charge) version of Chutes and Ladders and an Operation game that features Shrek. Needless to say, they’re a big hit.

The ladders go up, the chutes go down and everyone has a friend in me.  Also, Shrek has eaten things that would make the dog blush.

Please note, while I did not receive it there is also a Toy Story 3 edition of Connect 4, which can only mean one thing: sequel!

Okay, this is the part where you’re going to think I’m just angling for Hasbro to send me their entire Star Wars line (which would be awesome), but it’s the truth. Can you handle the truth? My kids freaking love these games, and here’s the weird part, we play them together as a family and we all have fun and there is NO TELEVISION REQUIRED, but sometimes we keep it on to watch the Daily Show.

Take that, video games and sexting!

And now for something completely different.

Man-bathing from Dove: No, they didn’t send me an actual man bathing, rather they inspired me to be one. Dove sent me a collection of their new (and first!) product line made exclusively for men: MEN+CARE.  To be clear, this is for men only, and if my wife is reading this she should consider herself warned. MEN+CARE has been known to grow hair on test animals. Of course those test animals were hairy men, but still, it could happen.

Perhaps you’re familiar with their “Wakey, Wakey” ad. Please note, there is no implication whatsoever that “wakey, wakey” should be followed by “hands off snaky.” You see, Dove is trying to market to men, not break them.

The items sent to me include the Active Clean shower tool, which is dual sided in case you’re entertaining, or even if you’re kind of boring. This isn’t your wife’s shower tool.  Insert crude joke here.

They also sent me Body and Face Wash as well as the Body and Face Bar. If you’re so dense as to have to ask the difference between the two, the wash has MICRO MOISTURE, duh. How the hell did you read this far? I swear.

The point is, the MEN+CARE line is made for men and it cleans deep and smells good. For the first time in years I can walk out of the shower not smelling like caramel butter and coconut mango. The guys in the locker room are ecstatic.

In fact, I just used it. Lean in and take a whiff. That’s man clean, baby.

And so, four hours into this post and I still have items left to discuss.  I think that I’ve guaranteed the return of the Wednesday Review! Or maybe not.  I like to keep you on your toes (and reaching for the stars).

Thanks for playing.

According to people that know such things, 40 is the new 30, green is the new black and LeBron James is the new Michael Jordan. They are the new they, same as the old they. They may be right. I may be crazy.

And then there are the lunatics you’re looking for. Or four, as the case may be.  You see, the one stat that they don’t share, possibly due to its lack of pizazz or perhaps its frightening truthfulness, is that four is the new two.

Hello, and welcome to the frightening fours.  They suck.  No refunds.

Two? Two was puppy dogs and ice cream.  Two was barefoot on the beach, fresh flowers in every vase and your favorite team winning the championship.  It was bliss and the fact that they said it would be terrible only added to the majesty of it all.

Enter Four.  Now exit, please, as fast as you possibly can.

Four is screaming and not sleeping and the inability to use one’s arm for feeding one’s self yet somehow maintaining the upper body strength to fling said arm in wild, exaggerated gestures to emphasize said point (which, in case I’ve lost you, was the inability to use said arm).

We sent Two a thank you card.  Every holiday season Two gets the family newsletter.  My wife knit Two a sweater and she doesn’t even knit.  Two will never be cold or want for affection.  When Four is said and done we’re sticking it with the bill.  The only thing I’d willingly give Four is a rash.  Maybe a cold sore.  Maybe a kick in the pants.  Don’t let the door hit you, Four.

Our youngest son was once happy and innocent.  He was a soft, cuddly cartoon bunny with dimples and the smell of bacon and cinnamon.  Then at age three he built a cocoon, disappeared into it and came out like Mothra on a bender.

Sure, he still has moments of sweet cuteness, but that’s just Darwinism at its finest.  Darwin knew what he was doing when he sewed thumbs on monkeys.  If you want to throw crap at people and still continue to evolve you need to be mobile. The thumbless can’t hitchhike. It’s survival.  What allows Four to survive is the laughter, the dimples (damn the dimples!), the wonder and the peace one feels once Four goes to bed –  until it wants a drink of water or the pillow is no longer comfortable.  This usually happens about four in the morning, or as we call it, the witching hour.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my four-year-old son more than anything. I’ll just love him more once he’s five.

I’ve done some research, i.e., what I do online when not surfing porn, and it seems like I only have two options to get through this trying period:

1) Patience
B) Exorcism

I don’t know that I can afford either.

Perhaps you think I’m exaggerating, but consider this list of people that have been four:

• Adolf Hitler
• Joseph Stalin
• Ted Bundy
• OJ Simpson
• Kim Jong il
• George W. Bush
• Lady Gaga

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the heptagon of evil, or H.O.E., which kind of sugarcoats it, but is still evil in a venereal disease sort of way.

What can you do?

There’s only one thing that you can do to help us, and by association, yourself, and that is the power of prayer.  Prayer and money, but mostly money.  Like 99% money. Through your kind contributions my family and I can live out the remainder of Four on a beach in Hawaii, because only sand and grass skirts calm the savage beast.  Darwin knew it and they know it.  In fact, they are the ones that suggested it, and they are never wrong.

Usually.