Go Ask Daddy About Impossible Pets, PATs and Comedic Slips

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I feel like the kicker who signed with the team just before the Super Bowl.

Monday, the book “Clash of the Couples” debuted. It’s the creation of 46 writers on the science (or art?) of Coupledom. This has been an issue since we fellas gave up the rib in exchange for the fairer sex.

This is 300-plus pages of a series of attempts to document the sanity of it all.

After months of planning and beta reading and editing, it made its debut just this week and has garnered glowing reviews.

I snuck onto the train like a hobo.

As editors, artists and writers put the finishing touches on the compilation, Chris Carter of Mom Café blog reached out to me. They needed one extra piece, a retort to Chris’ diatribe on communication between the sexes. Queue up the dude.

Maybe I’m less backup kicker and more kickass closer, entering the game with a sneer and a wicked slider.

Maybe I’m less backup kicker and more kickass closer, entering the game with a sneer and a wicked slider. Or a grimace and half-ass changeup, either/or.

They said they needed it yesterday. I pulled together my best effort to explain how to communicate with a woman without losing your cajones. This is akin to asking a Mennonite to write a guide to Vegas strip clubs.

I’m as qualified as a reasonable human to teach Black Friday shopping tactics.

Nonetheless, I attacked it with my wicked slider. Okay, half-ass changeup.

Let’s look at something I can Google. Like, Anglerfish.

1.     Can you have an angler fish as a pet?

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Some creatures shouldn’t be pets. When I was a kid, I found an injured pigeon at my grandma’s. I kept it in a cage and named it Bishop. He couldn’t have been happy, and not just because that’s a lousy name for a bird. An injured bird named for a chess piece that can only move front/back and left/right?

It’s tragic, because he couldn’t escape.

And let’s not talk about my pet crawfish, Big Hands.

Bishop belonged in the field where I found him. Big Hands should have stayed in the creek where I found him. Therefore, an angler fish ought to stay in the incredible depths of the ocean.

Real angler fish, like those in Finding Nemo, couldn’t live out of the ocean deep, even for an instant. They live under tremendous pressure from a mile of ocean above them. Let’s leave him where he is.

This is why we have the Discovery Channel.

2.     Is it true if you make a bubble, it’ll come out the shape of the wand?

Bubbles come in every shape – as long as it’s round.

Whether a bubble wand is round, square, star-shaped or molded like Paris Hilton’s head, it’ll always come out as a sphere. The bubble’s skin will always assume the most efficient shape to keep the same amount of air inside.

That’s always going to be a sphere. No matter what, bubbles have no corners.

They’re called minimal surface structures. The shape with the least possible surface area is sphere, not a star, triangle, or Paris Hilton’s head.

3.     Do they ever miss extra points?

Rarely. Is it the most boring play in sports? Or, is that an Oakland raiders punt?

The NFL moved the extra point attempt – which happens after a team scores a touchdown – to 33 yards, from 20. They did this for preseason games.

In 33 preseason games, kickers missed eight point-after attempts.

That’s 94.3% success.

What about in all of last season? Kickers converted 94.3% on PATs.

That’s still better than 90%. I could have done that in a college course or two. Then maybe I wouldn’t buy my shampoo-and-body-wash-in-one at the dollar store.

Here are three options for making the PAT an event worth watching.

1-Who scored the touchdown? Force them to attempt the extra point. I’d like to observe  A.J. Green’s kicking form. Or, heck, Bucs defensive tackle Grady Jackson, and his 345-pound frame.

2-Narrow the width of the uprights. They’re now 18 feet, 6 inches apart. How about half that, at around 9’9”? Better yet, move the goal posts back and forth like one of those duck-hunt machines.

3-Move the extra-point line up a yard, to the 1. This will entice teams to try for two. Or require the coach to kick the PAT. Or team owner. Or shortest cheerleader. Or pick a fan at random.

I should be commissioner.

4.     If you catch a baseball but it hits the ground, is it an out or a hit?

I wish they’d let Colorado Rockies outfielders count them as outs.

The batter must reach first base on a ball hit to the field in fair territory. If the defensive player makes an error or chooses to throw to another base, it’s not considered a hit. Did you know that if the ball hits home plate first, it’s a fair ball?

Home plate is in fair territory. So even if it stops on home plate, it’s in fair territory. And it might even become a hit.

Which might should be the Colorado Rockies’ offensive strategy for 2015.

5.     Can you slip on a banana peel?

You could.

I’ve seen baseball players trip over the first-base line. They might or might not have been wearing purple pinstripes.

It’s better, as might be the case with Rockies outfielders, if you put them in layers. As might be with the tastiest banana bread, the older the banana, the better. Older peels becomes slimy, and add to the slipability.

The Mythbusters busted the myth, despite overwhelming evidence that it works.

One banana peel under a work boot doesn’t equal a comedic fall. But 73 banana peels in a controlled experiment? That’s about as sure as my wicked slider.

Or half-ass changeup.

Either/or.