🥒 Go Ask Daddy About Pickle Properties, Bony Behemoths, and Ballot Busters

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I’ve gone to preach it on the mountain, y’all.

Coach Daddy is on the road, and on the pulpit. Can I get a witness? Sandy Ramsey asked me to guest post this week on Mother of Imperfection. I proposed the topic “How I Quit Yoga, and Still Manage to (Mostly) Manage Stress.”

I tried yoga at work, but from the window, I looked like armadillo roadkill among a troop of foxes. So I had to find another way.

Hint: My solutions are heavy on Krispy Kremes and disc golf. It’s like I’m the lovechild of Deepak Chopra and the Cake Boss. Go read the gospel – after you’ve seen what the kids had on their mind this week.

1. Who was that football player who drank pickle juice on the sideline?

He’s Boise State’s Jay Ajayi, and his pickle-juice guzzling ways have made him a YouTube sensation. Jay had just rambled off two touchdowns against Air Force and unwound with a Costco-sized jar of Mt. Olives.

Pickle juice has electrolytes and combats leg cramps. A quick check of the nutrition label reveals one pickle contains 210 milligrams of sodium. That’s 70 milligrams more than a suggested serving.

Still, it’s better than some dumb Seahawks player who celebrates touchdowns with Skittles. Pass the pickle juice, Jay.

2. What would happen if I put this in the microwave?

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What, the jar of pickles?

This isn’t a great conversation to have with an experimental third grader. Because microwave pizza comes with that metal-ish box you nuke with the pie, right? It’s aluminum lined, and designed to soak up microwaves. These turn your crust brown just like in a pizzeria. Ish.

You know how you can have one beta fish and everything’s cool. But, if you add one, there’s a fight? It’s like that with metal in a microwave. Your spoon disrupts the distribution of electrons.

Reflected electrons lead to an electrical potential that exceeds the dielectric breakdown of air.

That could blow a hole in your microwave, or break it. Then you’re in a pickle.

3. Do sunfish live in the ocean?

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Boy, do they.

Ocean sunfish win the award for the sea’s biggest bony fish. They’re about 2,000 pounds each.

They like to float on the water surface and flap their dorsal fins. Why?

In reverence to air travelers, is one theory. Or, they might bask in the sun a bit after deep dives in cool water to hunt for jellyfish.

Another theory is that they wave their dorsal fin to attract seabirds to eat parasites off their skin.

Or maybe it’s just a marine form of the yoga pose sun salutation.

4. Does baseball have plays like football?

The only difference is there’s tobacco juice and not pickle juice.

Baseball is more situational than football. Plays for third-and-9 and second-and-1 differ, of course. But baseball follows conventions that dictate what you should do in certain situations.

With a man on first base and three-run lead late in a game, defense won’t hold the runner because his run doesn’t matter.

You’ll hear infielders call out “the play’s at any bag!” or “infield back!” to prevent an extra-base hit. The score, the inning and even whether a batter is lefty or righty can impact convention.

Or, in the case of my poor Colorado Rockies, the game plan is to swing hard – just in case you hit it.

5. How old do you have to be to vote?

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In the U.S., you must be 18 to vote in a primary election.

That’s just a suggestion, because some people feel you shouldn’t have to show an ID at the polling place. Somehow, it’s un-American. So, Elise, at 16, if you want to, you should vote. Twice, if you’d like.

And to vote on American Idol, there’s no age limit!

At age 18, you can get a tattoo, work full-time, buy liquid white-out, get married (or divorced), go on a cruise, skydive, get a Blockbuster membership (what’s that??), donate blood, get a non-prepaid mobile phone, smoke a cigarette, become an undercover cop, buy Nicorette gum, work in a place that serves alcohol, work at Wal-mart, pay a utility bill, get a credit card, get licensed to buy a monkey, order something on QVC, operate machinery at work, work at a convenience store, rent a port-a-potty (or a house), deliver newspapers for the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, start a business, drive a company car, and make many of your own decisions, such as whether to put a spoon in the microwave.

But if you’re smart enough at 18 to read my posts … you’ll know better.