Schmucks. How easily can you pick one out of a crowd?
I got the chance to examine the whole culture of Schmuckosity this week in a guest post on Marcia’s blog at Menopausal Mom. Because you know, schmucks and menopause go hand in hand.
It was an honor to broach the subject on her page. I keyed in on the sideline variety of schmuck, the kind of dude your kid might get saddled with as a coach. I’ve coached against a couple.
It’s hard to know which I dislike more. Is it the kind of dude who lets one kid score seven goals against my U6 Poisonous Tree Frogs (how’s that for the nickname of the century?). I had a talkin’ to with that clown in the handshake line.
Or is it the short fellow with the accent who thought it’d be cute to play keep-away in the snow with an 8-0 lead on a U9 club team I coached.
It’s all subjective. One thing that’s absolute?
The answers in this week’s delivery of Go Ask Daddy. They’re iron clad and backed by the good faith of Google, the International Olympic Committee, the Edward Snowden for Town Council Movement and the Free Syrian Army Toys for Tots Drive.
What’s on the kids’ minds, you ask?
1. What is the highest scoring basketball game?
It didn’t involve the Poisonous Tree Frogs OR Edward Snowden. It did involve my favorite NBA team – on the losing end, of course.
On Dec. 13, 1983 – imagine me, at age 12 – The Detroit Pistons beat the Denver Nuggets 186-184 in triple overtime. Defense, as they say, was just a rumor. Kiki Vandeweghe (yes, this post includes Poisonous Tree Frogs AND a dude named Kiki) scorched Detroit for 51. But three others also scored at least 40. Four players actually played this game without scoring a single point. But we won’t mention them.
The NSA knows who they are.
2. When you turn off your car, does the music pause?
No, and it’s a good thing it doesn’t – the Yeah Yeah Yeahs might still be playing in my 2003 Pontiac.
Believe it or not, radio stations keep the tunes rolling 24/7.
When my car is off, the radio just stops picking up the signal. So if I get home at 6:30 p.m., and get back into the car at 7:30 a.m. the next day, I’ve not only missed all those BBC updates on NPR, but I’ve missed approximately 6,329 airings of Katy Perry’s Roar and 8,392 instances of that Florida Georgia Line stinker called Cruise.
Thank Jesus and Kiki Vandeweghe for that.
3. Do they have bars on the back window of squad cars?
Not usually – but cops in Douglas County, Illinois probably ought to look into them.
The day after your birthday this year, Grace, police there arrested a fella they’d pulled over for a loud muffler on a Chevy Impala. No, that’s not illegal, but driving around with a loud muffler, pockets full of drug paraphernalia and a warrant for failure to appear in court is. They cuffed him and slung him in the back of the squad car – and he escaped somehow through the back window and disappeared into a corn field.
He turned himself in that night, still handcuffed, to police. Rumor has it they ferreted him out by playing Roar and Cruise over and over.
4. What if there are lice on hair for Locks of Love?
Nothing in the Locks of Love policy covers the infestation of lice.
Locks of Love is a non-profit that collects hair donations to create wigs for children who’ve lost their hair as a result of a medical diagnosis.
They collect hair in 10-inch bundles. Their policy covers everything from perms (accepted), hair cut years ago (accepted, so long as it has been kept in a ponytail or braid), and colored or bleached (not acceptable). Dreadlocks are also on the no-no list.
But that list says nothing about lice.
Your big sisters, mom and, aunt have all donated to Locks of Love. At my last haircut, I estimate my bangs were dangerously close to Locks of Love-worthy, too.
5. Do you have to be a certain age to play Wipeout?
You have be old enough to remember Kiki Vandeweghe.
Wipeout, the popular ABC game show in which you rush through a series of obstacle courses featuring such opponents as Octopushy, Miami Pound Machine and Sugar Smacks, looks like kids play, but it’s not.
ABC.com says you have to be at least 18, and a legal resident of the U.S. – unless you’ve been harbored by the Russian government to avoid arrest in the U.S. on espionage charges. It’s OK to have dreadlocks, but you must be able to swim.
You must be “fun, strong-willed, outgoing, and have a great sense of humor” – but the guidelines say nothing about your ability to play defense in basketball or escape from a squad car while handcuffed.
And it’s OK, apparently, if you have lice.
So long as you’re not a schmuck.
Just a dad ... 
The thought of lice make my receding, grey locks quiver. I’ve seen lice in woman’s hair running back and forth through the parting. They may not have been playing basketball, nor were they handcuffed. I’ve seen crab lice in a prisoner’s eyebrows when I worked in jail, he also had them in his armpits and nether regions. Now I’m really itching. Locks of love can send me their leftovers and rejects, I miss my hair.
Next time I get a haircut, I’mna send you the salt-and-pepper remnants, brother. You’ll look debonair.
That’ll be fine Mate as long as it’s off your head we’ll be sweet.
No words. Seriously, my husband loves ABC’s Wipeout, but totally brings a whole new meaning to that show now!! 🙂
I love how the freeze the frame at just the moment the spine contorts like a bendy straw.
And I thought I was the only one on the planet who hated “Crusie” – it’s the worst.song.ever. So, I’ve learned two things from this post: You AND I hate “Cruise” and it’s ok to have lice for pretty much anything. Perfect!
I altered the words a bit:
Baby you’re a song
You make me want to poke my ear drums out and lose
If I could navigate one infestation of lice in exchange for burying that song under a rock, wrapped in burlap with broken glass glued inside and out … I’d gladly take on the itch.
For all humanity.
I’m with you and Allie. They play “Cruise” non-stop on the local top 40 & country radio stations. It must be my penance for something awful I did in a former life. Now that I think about it, that zoomed-in pic of the louse might just be penance too. Ewwwww.
I’d rather work for the healthcare.gov help line than hear that song again. If this is penance for something we did in a previous life, I wonder if we were Bonnie & Clyde – or at least Milli Vanilli.
I wondered if I should run that louse photo, but I considered it a public service. They’re kind of majestic. I wonder why the louse is not any team’s mascot.
Trying this again! I was just wondering aloud if lice want to stick around on hair that is no longer on your head…I’m thinking no. We haven’t had them here and I pray we never do! And I did not know I can not donate to Locks to Love either…I guess they don’t want my colored greys.
Glad WordPress finally let you in.
I think all that good greasiness probably dries up when the hair gets cut, so they find a new neighborhood. I won’t implicate any of my children by name, but we’ve had the itch.
They should have a bin at Locks of Love for the seconds, those hair contributions that fell short of the stringent guidelines, for the less discriminating hair needer.
I love that you provided a visual for the lice!!!
That B-Ball score is insane!
And, my car radio doesn’t stop until I open my door.
I’m educational, not just entertainmental.
Figures my Nuggets could score 184 – and lose.
I’m with you on the radio, sister … but mine’s always tuned to NPR. Heart you, Lizzy O’Leary!
I’m certain that Des has bangs that may quality as ten inches long. I also know that my hair has never been dyed, never been liced (is that a word?) and is precisely 217 inches long. That’s a lot of wigs. Maybe I should go all J-Law and chop it all off.
I bet there’s a strong market for baby bangs. Your hair really is 217 inches long? Do you also live in a treehouse and use your hair to get down to the ground?
J-Law pulled that off really, really well, didn’t she?
I think she could pull off a mullet, though. Honestly.
love playing and dancing to wipeout.
That’s the safe version – try doing the one with the Big Balls and many moving parts designed to stop you in your tracks. Almost feels like a metaphor for parenthood, when you think about it.
so true, eli, so true )
LOL! Okay, so for the Locks of Love don’t you have to donate through certain hair salons and such? The only reason I ask is because if your beautician checks your hair at places like Great Clips and other chains and you have lice you are sent away. Therefore avoiding the dreaded lice in your Locks of Love. But if you can just throw your hair into a bin. ewe.
I’d turn myself in to if I couldn’t get the handcuffs off after 24 hours. At some point you need to eat and pee. 🙂
Yes, and it’s becoming harder to find those salons that do it. So you’re telling me girlfriend checks me for lice before the snips start?
That’s kind of smart, though. Luckily, I’ve never been afflicted, but those I love have.
The constant reminder that I will need to eat probably motivates me to never ever get arrested more than anything else.
That lice photo gave me flashbacks of the third grade Lice Incident – it was horrible. Shampooing the head, picking the nits…I think I’d rather listen to 24 hours of Cruise nonstop. Maybe.
If it’s capitalized, it has to be legit. Honestly, I think I’d rather have nits picked off my head than be subjected to Cruise for even an hour.
Both are detrimental to your health, but at least the lice go away.
good gracious – that doesn’t look like a very fun game. has anyone actually died? cause I am not sure bodies are meant to bend, snap and crack like that. Are they real live humans? Or is it Gumby’s descendents or something? I cannot fathom why anyone would want to play that. I fall UP the stairs – no way you’ll catch me there!
Hubby once had some guy get into the trunk of the cruiser, from the backseat – still handcuffed.
he should have auditioned for that game show.
It’s great fun – for those watching it. But someone died of a stroke suffered during competition, and there’s plenty of separated shoulders, fractured spines, and the like.
We in America like to watch *others* contort for our entertainment.
What do you say when you escape from the backseat of a car and wind up in the trunk? I don’t think these people should go free because of the effort, but they should get an extra slice of bread in jail. Something.