Toys and Sexuality

It’s been quite a while since my last blog so forgive me if I've lost a step or two. Being a full-time parent and full-time employee certainly takes its toll as I find myself exchanging the written rants for the verbal ones. But today, I had a surprisingly profound conversation with my mother-in-law which may have actually changed the way I raise my daughter from here on out.

Now, anybody who knows me or has read my writings knows that I am a fairly strong conservative. I’m the kind of guy who, like Archie Bunker, longs for the days when “...girls were girls and men were men.” And once upon a time, not all that long ago, America was a very conservative country.

Pick up a history book or, for that matter, watch an old movie. From the first days of their lives, girls were raised to learn how to be ladies. They were taught to be well-mannered, submissive and, yes, feminine. Boys were brought up to be tough, strong and dry in the eyes at all times.

What happened next is a bit of a mystery.

Sure, I can point a few fingers at possible catalysts that served to wreak havoc on this male/female dynamic (i.e.: television and the liberal media), but I couldn’t say for sure how many things contributed to creating the ultra f**ked up society in which we currently live.

As I just mentioned, I think it all really started with television and, more specifically, with a certain feisty wife who dared to stand up to her obese, bus-driving husband. His “Pow, right in the kisser” threats fell upon apathetic ears and people laughed their asses off because it was so… well… different. Alice Kramden wasn't a submissive TV wife - not by a long shot. Her posture, language and attitude were gruff, as was the pitch of her voice. She barely even sounded feminine... and given Ralph's large frame, one might have wondered if Ralph could have even taken his own wife in a fight.

So, what’s my point in all of this? My point is that, for YEARS now, I’ve been telling people that sexuality (...like most everything in this world) is LEARNED and not something with which we’re born. Yes, we’re born with sex organs and, as we grow, our hormones run on auto pilot for a while, but we still need to learn what sex is all about, how it works, etc. If I was wrong on this, there wouldn’t be so much as one “how to” book or video on anything related to sex.

Yes, I’m a guy. Yes, I’m into chicks and yes, common sense drives the vast majority of us to ultimately seek out members of the opposite sex, but who’s to say how many of us straight guys wouldn’t be gay if raised in a completely different environment? If same sex relations were the norm and heterosexuality, the deviation from that norm, maybe the majority of people in the world would be gay.

Which brings me to my issue.

My daughter recently turned two years old and, from the time she was like seven months old, she would play with those wooden train sets every time we went to the Children’s Museum. Sure, she’d play in other areas as well, but the train table was never missed. At present, she’s a HUGE Thomas the Tank Engine fan and, yes, as a parent who wants to nurture her interests, I’ve done a few things to bring Thomas closer to home.

I downloaded a bunch of Thomas episodes, showed her a few of them and bought a few of the more popular trains (Thomas, Gordon, James, Percy, etc). Now, not a day goes by where she doesn’t literally drag me to the computer, ask me to sit down and say to me, “Daddy! Choo choo! Watch... choo choo!” to let me know that she’s yearning for her daily Thomas fix. And for her birthday, I gave her the wooden train set table that she runs to whenever we’re at that famous toy store with the giraffe who yearns to be a certain kind of kid.

My wife and mother keep telling me that these are toys that only boys should be playing with and I’ve been calmly waving them off in a “what harm could it do” kind of way. Well, here’s the harm. The harm is that the trains could very quickly turn to planes… or Transformers… or action figures… or Star Wars gear – toys that are traditionally crafted with boys in mind. The Thomas trains just might be her gateway toy to increasingly boyish toys.

With such toys comes the desire to play with like-minded children and before you know it, she's only gonna want to play with boys because she'll have so little in common with the girls. Yes, those girls... who are having invisible tea parties, playing with dolls, cooking pretend food in their "kitchens" and imagining themselves as the princesses they always see on their toys... won't want to have much to do with the girl who plays with boys' toys.

I happen to know of a couple of mothers who so adamantly refuse to conform to societal and gender norms that they go out of their way to dress their girls in anything but pink. They encourage these girls to play with whatever toys they want. One girl plays with toys from both gender categories, but the other girl is decidedly tomboyish and, lo and behold, she has zero female friends.

Zero.

Now, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you these girls are future lesbians, but it certainly wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. I believe that a big reason why we are attracted to the opposite sex as adults is because we spent our entire childhoods in closest proximity to members of the same sex, building brotherhoods and sisterhoods with our friends and sharing common interests. If you’re reading this and you 100% disagree with me, that’s totally cool because I’ll be the first to admit that I have very little professional data to back up anything I’m saying here. For me, however, this is more than just a gut feeling.

When the opposite sex is different from you and your friends, they lend themselves to a degree of mystery and intrigue. The “Vive la differénce” spirit ignites as we boys catch our first quick glimpse at a girl's smooth, bare legs. As boys, me and my friends got curious about girls because they were absolutely nothing like us, yet they seemed to enjoy themselves just as much as we did. I mean, there’s a whole “sexuality” known as bi/curious for a reason. Everybody's curious about sex at some point in their lives, whether it be straight or gay.

For me, I just couldn't figure out how girls could have such a great time without so much as one Transformer in their hand. A life without Optimus Prime and Megatron was, for me, a life not worth living. I had my fellow dudes as friends, we did male things, played war games, superhero games and swapped action figures from He-Man to Star Wars to Transformers to G.I. Joe. It’s what boys of my generation did. Ask any thirty something straight guy if they played with any of the four groups of toys I just mentioned. I’d bet my house that 100% of the guys surveyed will have had experience playing with at least one of those four if not ALL of those four.

There wasn’t a miniature tea set, Barbie or Cabbage Patch Kid ANYWHERE in our vicinity and I’m reasonably sure that we’d have kicked the ever-loving sh*t out of any boy in our group if they DID have anything like that. Once in a while, in between trench battles and galactic Empire showdowns, we’d spy a group of girls playing with girly things, having girly conversations and bursting out in girly giggles. We swore them off and spoke of cooties, but honestly, we were all secretly intrigued.

By the time we hit Junior High, the toys started to disappear and we started looking at legs instead. A girl would walk up a row of stairs and if she was wearing even a moderately short skirt, you can bet that at least a few dudes were scoping out the goods. In my senior year of high school, a female friend once asked me about our fascination with boobs and legs. At seventeen, the best answers I could come up with were "They look great" and, in the case of boobs, "Because we don't have any."

At 34, I doubt my answers would be a whole hell of a lot more profound.

We boys weren’t at all confused about our sexualities because most of us were brought up in stable “one mom/one dad” households and were given a pretty clear path to how boys became men and how we should never, EVER hit girls no matter what. Nowadays, couples are splitting up at the first signs of trouble and leaving their children in broken homes. Kids are being brainwashed by their ultra-liberal parents to believe that conformity is a form of oppression and that hugging trees is more important than hugging your parents.

Some kids see their nannies more than they see their own parents and there are no strong role models for them to emulate. It comes as no surprise to me that some people's compasses are a bit off-North. For me, part of being a boy involved my dad taking me aside and telling me that sometimes a boy has to stand up for himself and kick a few asses. Sure, work to resolve the conflict amicably, but if it doesn’t work and you have to belt him, lay the bastard out. Then, Dad gave me some pointers and we bonded as males.

Nowadays, lawsuits appear shortly after a mild bitchslap and ultra-pacifist hippie, hummus-eating parents pussify their kids to the point that a slight frost in the morning will send them into a hissy fit of pansy-ass proportions.

So, I’ve switched gears a bit. Sure, my daughter gets to keep her Thomas trains, but her birthday gifts also included a Mommy & Me doll and a small baby stroller, complete with a pack of mini-diapers and mini baby bottle. And I’m happy to report that she loves this doll tremendously, changes her diaper often, remembers to feed her and even tucks her in to sleep – all with virtually no direction from us.

And yes, the vast majority of her clothing is either pink, red or lavender. We also just bought her another winter coat last week. It’s a very warm, magenta jacket that she loves about as much as we do. Our daughter often sees her mom and me together, giving each other loving attention, hugs, etc., and I really believe this will benefit her a great deal. Coming from a solid and loving home will teach and nurture her in ways that no amount of book-reading ever could.

Lastly, I'm aware that there are some “experts” in the field who believe that one can be born as a homosexual, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that “nurture” has a WHOLE LOT more to do with sexuality than “nature.” And I'll actually back up this claim, citing Volume 146, Issue 20, Page 95 of the November 13, 1995 issue of TIME in an article entitled “New Evidence of a ‘Gay Gene’” by Anastasia Toufexis.

An exerpt from the article reads:

“"Gay gene" researcher Dean Hamer was asked by Scientific American if homosexuality was rooted solely in biology. He replied: "Absolutely not. From twin studies, we already know that half or more of the variability in sexual orientation is not inherited. Our studies try to pinpoint the genetic factors...not negate the psychosocial factors."”

Homosexuals might not necessarily have chosen their sexual tendencies, but they did pick it up somewhere along the line after they left the womb – not while they were in it. Furthermore, they choose to ACT on those tendencies, so don't make it like someone's got a gun to their heads, making them have gay sex.

Anyway, upon finishing up this conversation with my mother-in-law, I resolved to give my daughter more pink clothes, tea sets, dolls and dresses..... not to mention a very loving and stable home.

Hillary and Obama Both Suck

Well, if you’re a John McCain fan at the time I’m writing this, then you’re thrilled to pieces at watching Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton absolutely obliterate any chance the Democrats might have had at taking back the White House. I’m aware that Hillary has her legions of supporters and Obama seemingly has more, but I happen to think they’re both a couple of dumbasses and I couldn’t be happier at watching these two nimrods destroy their party from within.

I mean, c'mon! McCain hasn’t even had to DO anything yet.

Usually by now, the Republicans have their star, the Dems have theirs and the race to 1600 Penn Ave is on. Yet, neither Clinton nor Obama have really been able to put a dent in McCain’s chassis because they’ve been too busy contending with each other. Way back when talks first surfaced of Hillary throwing her hat into the ring, I called it.

I said, “Hillary doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the presidency.” At the time, most of the people with whom I shared that particular opinion thought I was nuts.

I wonder what they think now?

Not long after Bush started his second term as president, I’d heard whispers of somebody named Barack Hussein Obama. Only he wasn’t a terrorist and he wasn’t harboring weapons of mass destruction (…at least I don’t think he was). He was presumed to be a future contender for the presidency.

The United States presidency.

I was like, “Who the hell is this Obama guy and why would anybody be stupid enough to elect a guy with a name like that to our country’s highest office?” I know that the 9/11 tragedy happened close to seven years ago, but the wounds are still there. “I'd never even heard of this ass-clown until like four years ago, so who's gonna actually vote for this guy?” I thought.

Well, apparently quite a few people bought into the Obama fad. I don't know - Maybe it’s my immaturity, but don’t we have any viable candidates with a name that isn’t reminiscent of two of the most evil men of our time? Anyway, once the campaigns kicked off several months ago, I started doing research on this guy. He’s about as far right on the liberal track as you can possibly get as a politician… and I’m fairly close to the edge of the left, so you can imagine what his odds are of scoring a vote from me. He’ll win the state I live in, but I guarantee you it’ll be without my help.

“But as of the date I’m reading this, Barack Obama hasn’t even officially won his party’s nomination. How can you say he’ll win your state?” Because he just will. Because my state is so sickeningly liberal that they’d vote for a potato if it touted the merits of abortion and gay rights.

As I’m writing this blog entry, Obama is just now starting to set his sights exclusively on McCain because his lead in pledged delegates is now pretty much insurmountable. Just the other day, he took North Carolina convincingly while Clinton barely took Indiana. So, going forward, Obama is unlikely to give Clinton a second thought.

But here’s the part that I absolutely, positively LOVE.

Hillary Clinton, so famished for power, simply REFUSES to concede. She has pretty much ZERO chance of winning her party’s nomination, but it’s not penetrating that thick head of hers. And here’s another great thing about this Celebrity Deathmatch we’ve been watching. Clinton’s already done the lion’s share of research and subsequent anti-Obama muck-tossing in a desperate attempt to erode voters’ confidence. She’s gone on the record several times, insisting that Obama just isn’t electable, while speaking of a possible gas tax holiday.

Not only is Obama electable, but a gas tax holiday is pretty much the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard come out of a candidate’s mouth. Either she’s really dumb or she’s really smart and is hoping that every American voter is dumb. Day One of any economics class will cover supply, demand and how price is determined based on the first two. If supply is high and demand is low, prices are low. If supply is low (or steady) and demand is high, prices can be high.

Gas is ridiculously f**king expensive. So, will a gas tax holiday help? Of course not. Any idiot with a semi-functioning brain could tell you that. It’s a perceived aid for an ever-rising problem that will continue to rise because nobody’s chipping away at demand. Our president needs to look at the long-range solution that will WORK.

Memo to Hillary: Focus on alternate sources of fuel, numbnuts!

If we can find and mass-produce altenate fuel sources, that will cut into demand… which will finally lower gas prices. A gas tax holiday is a cheap "tell them what they wanna hear long enough to get me elected" tactic that only the biggest idiots would ever consider tossing into a presidential campaign because the majority of upright Americans will see right through it.

Meanwhile, McCain has barely needed to lift a finger or spend much money. Having locked down his party's nomination ages ago, he's been able to campaign at his pace and spend at his pace. That'll all change soon enough, but luckily for McCain, he's got plenty of fodder ready to fire - thanks to Hillary and Obama. These two fools are already tearing each other apart and revealing their stupidity at nearly every turn.

But the bleeding won’t end yet. Oh, no no noooooo! Clinton won’t concede. She’s not only flat-ass broke, but she's now MILLIONS of dollars in debt… and yet she keeps limping forward, uttering annoying catchphrases like, “Full speed ahead to the White House.” Yeah, full speed with no brakes. Luckily, the White House is gated, lest she plow through the pillars at the front.

It’s no wonder that, nowadays, her campaign speeches begin with requests for more money. She's gonna have to write another couple of brain-numbing books if she ever hopes to crawl out of that hole. I'll be honest here - I hated her when she was a power hungry first lady, but seeing her true colors in this campaign, I've learned to loathe her all that much more.

So clear is the fact that she’s irrationally desperate for power that even some of Hillary’s “supporters” are switching sides. Without a doubt, she was confident coming into the fray – so confident, in fact, that she all but assumed that securing the nomination would be like a quick knock out blow as opposed to a twelve round split decision. She certainly didn’t prepare for such a long haul, evident by her poor campaigning strategies and her inability to pull in the volume of campaign funds that the Obama crew did.

Who the hell would trust this daffy freak with nuclear launch codes? For that matter, who would trust a dude with a name like Barack Hussein Obama with our nukes? But, at the very least, I gotta give this Obama guy credit. Sure, he can’t bowl for sh*t, but he stayed cool, calm, collected and non-confrontational for most of this campaign. He never looked desperate or famished for power. All he really did was to put forth a quiet air of confidence and a steady hand.

Meanwhile, virtually every still bug-eyed shot I’ve seen of Hillary on the net would be enough to scare little children into hiding under the covers. No wonder Bill looks like complete hell.

So, unless Hillary manages to uncover the biggest scandal of all time against Obama in the next few days, she’s toast. Even then, I think that anything less than Obama having ties to al-Qaeda wouldn’t do anything except hurt his chances against John McCain in November. And thanks to Camp Hillary, McCain’s already got plenty of free ammo to fire at Obama. In short, the only chance Hillary Clinton has at becoming the president in 2009 is if she is offered and accepts the vice-president’s spot on the Obama ticket, they win and she has him rubbed out.

Beyond that, she can kiss the Oval Office good-bye.

My Bank of America Counter-Attack

I’ve never been all that fond of banks, but it’s clear that we have a basic need for them and, as such, I’ve been a customer of Bank of America for a number of years now. Yet, once in a while, their business practices kinda piss me off, particularly when it comes to overdraft fees and their need to put holds on large checks for several days more than what it would take to make a call to the bank from which the check came and confirm sufficient funds.

Yet, I’ve put up with this stuff for years prior to this most recent occurrence. In short, I filed jointly with my wife as usual. She and I agreed that she'd take last year's refund and that, this year, we'd split it 50/50. I already had the money in my account to cover half, so about a week or so before receiving the checks, I transferred half of our return to her account. Once the checks came in, we both agreed that I'd toss them into my account.

So, I deposited said tax refund checks into my personal checking account. The state check seemed to clear without issue, as did the federal check, although it took slightly longer for the federal check to clear. Yet, all funds were made available to me in a few short days and the funds remained intact for about eight days. Then, out of the blue, I had been made aware of a hold that was placed against my account when a supermarket purchase was denied authorization. I’d come to find out that some mysterious hold had been placed on my big federal check and that Bank of America had allowed four previous purchases to go through with a $35.00 overdraft fee accompanying each one.

I received letters in the mail about a week later to advise me of this, which as you can imagine is about as useful as receiving a parachute a week after you’ve hit the ground following a 25,000 foot skydive. I was pissed off.

Very pissed off.

And make no mistake about it – I resolved to walk into that bank and have it out with whomever had the misfortune of getting in my way. The account hold couldn’t have come at a worse time, too. I was hours away from taking a train to New York City with my 15 month old daughter and simply wasn’t going to have the time I was gonna need to deal with this bullsh*t, so I decided to have this fight after I returned to Boston. My wife lent me what little money she had to ensure that I’d have enough to keep my little one properly fed.

I got back the other day and arrived at my bank. And yes, I came to fight. I came to be belligerent and I had every intention to be sarcastic as hell whenever the mood hit me. Why? Because it's high time that somebody stepped up to these a$$wipes and lay into them for some of the devious tactics they employ to squeeze more money out of us to line their own pockets.

For simplicity’s sake, I decided to bring a pocket recorder so that I could transcribe the exact words of the bank manager as well as my own vicious words. And for anybody out there thinking to themselves that what I did was illegal, know this. It's only illegal if you plan on using the recording as evidence in court and you fail to advise the other party that you are recording their words. Not only did I have no intention on bringing this to court, but I erased the recording shortly after transcribing what you're about to read.

So, here’s how our battle of wits played itself out. If my words seem at all rehearsed, they absolutely were. I wanted to be ready to fire out a rapid response for every conceivable excuse with which I was bound to get hit. I literally wanted to have an answer for everything and I did my best to anticipate everything I was going to hear once I was inside. I mentally prepped myself for this confrontation during my time in New York, right at the point where my blood was at its boiling point. And if it’s not blatantly obvious, I’m playing the role of the Pissed Off Banker:

Bank Manager: “Sir, do you need help?”

Pissed Off Banker: “Yes. Yes I do.”

BM: “Okay, how can I help you?”

POB: “Well, a shade over ten thousand of my dollars has gone missing and I’d really like to have it back.”

BM: “Okay, well I can guarantee you that I didn’t take it.” (laughs)

POB: “Well, that’s a start. One down.”

BM: “And about nineteen million to go, right?” (laughs again)

POB: “Well, hopefully not.” (I pulled out my paperwork; a recent account history, plus a scanned copy of the government check I received for $10,386.00). “As you can see here, I deposited two checks into my account on March 10^th.”

BM: “Okay.”

POB: “By March 12^th, the funds appeared in my account and remained there for just over a week, leading me to believe that all was well. Here you will see the 57 transactions that followed which represent various purchases, automatic bill payment withdrawals and “Keep the Change” credits… all made subsequent to the checks having cleared.”

BM: “Um, hum.”

POB: “On March 20^th, the bank saw fit to put a hold on my government check for $10,386.00 which, as you can see, means taking the money out of my account and denying me access to it. Note the negative balance here. And here are four purchases I made after the hold was placed and right next to each purchase, you’ll see a nifty little $35.00 overdraft charge accompanying each transaction.”

BM: “Well, sir. What I’m showing….”

POB: “The fifth purchase was not authorized, which alerted me to the fact that there was a problem.”

BM: “Right, well what I’m showing on your account is that the hold on your account has been lifted as of this morning, so your money is now present, accounted for and ready to use.”

(I'd checked my account in the early morning hours of that day online and my account was still in the red, so seeing that the money was back in my account admittedly took a little bit of the wind out of my sails. But I wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.)

POB: “Well, that’s obviously good news and I’m thankful for that because now I can purchase petty contrivances like food and diapers for my infant daughter, but the fact that the bank’s business practices have caused a serious breach of trust is still unresolved, not to mention the overdraft fees that have yet to be refunded.”

BM: “Well, there’s not a lot I can do about the overdraft fees, but let me ask you a question.”

POB: “Well, then kindly fetch the bank manager for me.”

BM: (slightly annoyed) “Sir, I am the bank manager.”

POB: “Then we are unfortunately off to a very bad start because I know that there’s actually a LOT that a bank manager can do about overdraft fees, but… go ahead. Ask your question.”

BM: “Uh…. okay. This check that was put on hold, was it deposited through a teller or in an ATM machine?”

POB: “ATM.”

BM: “And was this a remote ATM location?”

POB: “Well, if you call that ATM machine over there remote, then yeah.” (I pointed to the ATM machine at the entrance of the bank). “I deposited my two refund checks about 30 feet from where we’re standing.”

BM: “And did you deposit these checks in a joint account or your own account?”

POB: “I deposited them in my own checking account.”

BM: “Well, that’s the problem because, as you can see, the check was made out to both you and your wife, so if she didn’t countersign it, either we or the feds could have put up the red flag.”

POB: “And that would make sense, except for the fact that I’ve been filing jointly with my wife now for four years, we’ve deposited checks in the same fashion for those years and this is the first time anything like this has ever happened.”

BM: “But sir. Any check that you deposit that is made out to two people needs to be signed by both parties.”

POB: “And that would also make sense, except for the fact that this check from the State is made out to the both of us and nothing’s happened to it.” (I showed her our state refund for $2,838.00).

BM: “Well….. let me see the check, please. Okay, this is under $10,000.00 so it probably went unnoticed.”

POB: “Oh, well that’s really comforting.”

BM: “Well, what I mean is that we can’t possibly look at every check that comes through this bank. We just don’t have the staff for it. So only checks with a dollar amount over a certain value ever get that second look.”

POB: “I find it interesting that so many businesses will use that “understaffed” excuse, yet there are tens of thousands of people in this state alone that are looking for jobs.”

BM: “Regardless of that, had your wife countersigned the check, there might not have been a hold put on the check in the first place.”

POB: “Might not have?”

BM: “In all likelihood, probably not.”

POB: “Well, I’m sure you can understand how I could be led under a false sense of security here, given the fact that, in four years, this is the first time this has happened.”

BM: “Only because the check is so big.”

POB: “And that would make sense as well, except for the fact that in our second year, I deposited a check even larger than this with only one signature and everything went off without a hitch.”

BM: “But we get complaints from both ends all the time. On the other side, we’ve had complaints from angry wives who were mad at us for allowing their husbands to cash checks that were made out to both of them.”

POB: “Yes, but you know as well as I do that those are domestic issues that are not your responsibility in the first place.”

BM: “But that’s what I’m trying to say. See, we’re gonna have arguments on both ends and we’re the bad guys no matter what.”

POB: “Fair enough.”

BM: “Now, if you have this daughter of yours, do you really want to risk gambling with your own money, especially if you need to buy food and diapers for her?”

POB: “I’m sorry. Gambling, did you say?”

BM: “Yes, you’re much better off just having checks of this nature countersigned.”

POB: “Well, I didn't realize that banking with Bank of America was tantamount to gambling, but I’ll be sure to keep that in mind for the future. My point here is that you have to see this whole mess from my perspective. I cashed these checks in the exact same fashion for several years without an issue. Last year, my wife took the refund checks and she deposited them into her checking account as the lone signatory, again without a hitch.”

BM: “But, if you sprint across the street four times without getting hit by a car, does that make it safe to try it a fifth time?”

POB: “Do you really wanna make that analogy?”

BM: “Sure. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

POB: “Well, I find it enlightening that you equate doing business with Bank of America to getting hit by a two ton vehicle, but hey, if it makes sense to you....”

BM: (chuckles nervously) “I’m afraid you’re missing my point.”

POB: “Then fear no more because, trust me, I got it. However, I suspect that you might not be understanding where I’m coming from. See, I could’ve just put my money under a mattress once the funds cleared and been done with this headache, but I choose to go to a bank because there’s supposed to be a level of trust and security. I’ve done my part and I’ve deposited scores of checks here over the last few years. Does that monitor you have in front of you keep a record of how many of my checks have bounced?”

BM: “Well sir, I’d need some time to research that, so I don’t think….”

POB: “Then let me save you some time. None. Zero. Every check I’ve ever deposited here has been valid. I’ve established that I can be trusted, but what does it say to you that, this most disturbing event has caused me to lose trust in Bank of America?”

BM: “Sir, I’ve explained to you that your funds were put on hold due to…..”

POB: “Put on hold as of March 20^th! But prior to that, the funds had cleared and the money was available to use within my account for over a full week! So, either the bank held the funds as an act of malice or they completely dropped the ball and placed the hold on way too late. And between being evil and being incompetent, I would imagine that being reviled is the lesser of two evils.”

BM: “But we're neither... because now the funds are available to use. Here, see for yourself.” (she showed me the screen displaying the available funds).

POB: “And again, that’s great and I’m happy to see that, but now we need to discuss these bogus overdraft fees and what you can do to reimburse me.”

BM: “Sir, you as the banker have a responsibility to know how much is in your account prior to making any purchase, so if your account showed a negative balance and you continued to make purchases, then you are liable for those overdraft charges.”

POB: “But don’t you think it’s unreasonable to expect me to go to an ATM machine before making every purchase when I have no reasonable cause to believe that a near ten thousand dollar balance won’t be quite enough to cover the cost of a box of Tic-Tacs?”

BM: “Well, perhaps, but you didn’t have a near ten thousand dollar balance, did you?”

POB: “I did... until Bank of America stole my money!”

BM: “Well, I wouldn’t use such strong language, sir.”

POB: “What strong language?”

BM: “Stole. Nobody stole anything from you.”

POB: “You know, maybe you’re right. So, let's see. I HAD ten grand in this account, I didn’t withdraw it, didn’t spend it, didn’t move it and didn’t misplace it… yet the money was removed from my account without my knowledge or consent. Now if I can just think of a verb that could accurately embody the description I just gave.”

BM: “Sir, you don’t have to be sarcastic with me. Besides, the funds are right here, so what do you call that?”

POB: “Uhh, I don't know. Thieves' Remorse? Victim Compensation? Justice? Am I getting warm?”

BM: (laughs) “Sir, please understand that I’m only trying to help.”

POB: “Great, then have a look at the four overdraft fees you guys hit me with, each for $35.00 on an account that had plenty of funds to cover the purchases. Thirty-five times four is 140, so if you’d be so kind as to put the $140.00 back into my account, I’ll be on my way.”

BM: “I can probably refund you one overdraft charge, but…”

POB: “Well, that’s obviously unacceptable, seeing as how Bank of America willingly allowed me to incur FOUR times that amount before putting a stop to it. Why is that, incidentally?”

BM: “Why is what?”

POB: “Why does Bank of America allow for continuous overdraft fees to incur instead of just stopping the first attempt to purchase something when no funds are apparent?”

BM: “Well, the short answer is because it costs Bank of America more money to deny authorization of a purchase.”

POB: “So, instead of costing the multi million dollar entity a few dollars to do its job, the customer is forced to pay the price instead?”

BM: “Again, this goes back to the customer’s responsibility of making sure that he or she has enough funds to…”

POB: “I think I’ve already proven beyond any reasonable doubt that I had the funds to cover it, so why don’t we just stay on-track with this issue? Simply put, if Bank of America has the ability to deny authorization on the fifth transaction, then it has the ability to deny it on the first which is precisely what should have happened. After all, the Bank had to cough up the money to stop the authorization anyway, so now we’re just looking at the four unnecessary overdraft fees.”

BM: (sighs heavily, clearly exasperated at this point).

POB: “Okay, while you’re taking this time to breathe heavily, I’ll lay it out for you. I see this going one of two ways. The way it goes will be entirely up to you. Either you refund the four overdraft fees and I leave moderately happy or.... you don’t refund the fees, I pull every nickel out of my account today – in cash - get my wife to do the same, recommend to all of my friends to do likewise and I file a formal complaint against this branch of Bank of America to the Better Business Bureau with an option to submit a written version of my story to every major news station, hoping to God that one of them decides it might be worth looking into and, who knows, maybe even doing an exposé. The choice is really up to you. I’m fine with either option at this point.”

By this time, it was evident that the bank manager couldn’t hide the anger in her eyes, so she started typing sh*t onto her computer. After a few seconds, it became clear to me that she was doing a refund with “reason” being typed out as “extenuating circumstances.” She put $135.00 dollars back into my account - $35.00 for the first overdraft fee and an extra $100.00 manager override. Yes, that left me five bucks shy, but I had most of my money back and decided to leave before the temptation to utter profanities hit me.

She told me of the refund and showed me on the screen. She even suggested that I could check the ATM machine just outside if I wanted to see it for myself. She gave me a receipt and a copy of the “New Customer” booklet that all newbies receive when they open up an account with Bank of America. I was gonna let her off the hook, but this was clearly her own little "f**k you" to me without actually using the words, so I decided to deliver the parting shot.

I reciprocated by telling her that, now that I know that balances of under $10,000.00 are barely looked at for at least a week, I'm tempted to tell all of my friends to deposit a slice of bologna into their account for $9,999.99 and be sure to cash it out before Bank of America picks up on the fact that they're paying a small fortune for rancid deli meats. By this time, however, she just kept her gaze focused on her screen and, through gritted teeth, asked if there was anything else she could help me with. I thanked her for her time and left without any bloodshed.

Sure, I'll admit that I was a total a$$hole on this day, but if they expect to keep their customers satisfied, they're gonna have to start looking out for the customer's interests before their own. And if they need extra hands on-deck..... hey, I'm looking for work. Let's talk salary, just don't ask me to do direct deposit.

I'm just not in a gambling mood.

Heroes of Mediocrity

I have a near fourteen month old daughter and it’s my obligation as a father to endure mind-numbing programs once in a while for the sake of her education. Obviously, watching an entire program that centers around, say, counting… won’t exactly entertain me, but I do it for my daughter’s benefit (…and at my wife’s behest).

And since pretty much everything I enjoy on television is violent or otherwise inappropriate for my little princess, TV pretty much sucks these days. As it stands now, football is my only refuge… and with Super Bowl XLII coming up in just a couple of days, TV’s gearing up to suck even more once the season is officially over.

So, my weekday mornings are all about the Disney Channel. My daughter sits mesmerized and I silently criticize everything in my mind. Here’s what I’ve figured out so far.

Winnie the Pooh and Tigger are absolute retards, the Wiggles are gay, the Doodlebops are gayer, Handy Manny never pays for anything, Mickey Mouse is narcissistic, the Little Einsteins need my help with everything... and every ass-clown over the age of nine in Higglytown is a f**king hero.

Things like echos, whistling, melting snow, loose teeth and growing flowers really baffle the sh*t out of Tigger and Pooh and, if not for the little girl (who’s always the one to figure sh*t out first), these retards would probably be dead by now. And yet, no show annoys me more than Higglytown Heroes.

Holy sh*t! Mediocrity is celebrated no more fervently than in Higglytown Heroes; a computer animated show. Imagine a city full of living Matryoshka nesting dolls with the plotlines centering around four kids and a talking squirrel (…all of whom can nest into whoever the next largest kid happens to be). Now, when I think about heroes, I imagine Superman saving Metropolis from Doomsday or, for real-life heroes, I think of the rescue workers of 9/11.

What I don’t think of are hall monitors, mechanics, physical therapists, plumbers, gardeners, artists, waitresses, librarians, window washers, museum curators and cows.

I sh*t you not, I said “cows.” I mean, holy sh*t, EVERYBODY’S a f**king hero on this show!

Then again, I figure that everybody is a hero in these kids’ eyes because all four of them are f**king stupid. Seriously, they can’t figure anything out for themselves and it’s truly pathetic. The girl of the group comes up with all of these crazy-ass ideas you'd swear she could only get from a seriously f**ked up acid trip. The best part is that, in every episode, her theory of the day is shot to hell by a f**king squirrel. And this squirrel delivers an even bigger "f**k you" when she winks at the camera before cutting "Twinkle" down because even a primate knows how ridiculous this girl's ideas are.

And not everything that they fret over is even a big deal. Remember the “cow hero” I alluded to a second ago? Care to know how a cow could possibly be a hero? Well, the disaster for this particular episode was a farmer’s inability to make ice cream because he didn’t have any cream. One kid (in a stroke of pure brilliance) suggested that they could use ketchup in place of cream to make their ice cream. As you can imagine, they’re not exactly setting the bar very high.

Based on how easily these kids are stumped, I can only conclude that they’re borderline retarded. The cow provides the cream necessary to make the ice cream and the day is saved. If I were a nesting doll on this show and the four-eyed kid started fretting “What are we gonna do?” like he always does, I’d probably smack him upside his head and tell him to stop sniffing markers in class.

BLOG LINKS

Since August of 2006, I’ve very much enjoyed www.blogger.com as it’s given me an outlet to do something that I really love to do – writing. Though these blogs are available to the public, I don’t presume that everybody will love everything I write. In fact, I’m often inclined to write opinions with which I daresay the majority of liberal America would disagree.

My writings are a mixture of personal anecdotes, religious and ideological beliefs. I believe in One Supreme God and His Son, the Lord Jesus. I believe what is written in the Bible and I use the Bible to help guide me to do what’s right. I also realized that, not including this brief blog, I’ve written a total of 35 blogs since getting started here… and it’s getting tougher to find all of the links. So, I decided to hyperlink and summarize the stories I’ve written thusfar to make locating and reading some of these past blogs a little easier

Just click the title of whatever you think you might want to read and enjoy:

Free Will vs. Predestination: My very first blog article, inspired by a friend who asked a perplexing question: How can humans have free-will if God already knows how everything’s going to end? In my inaugural blogger article, I attempt to explain one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith. Whether I’m right or not, only God knows for sure.

Superman Returns (2006) – My Review: Pretty self-explanatory. I’m a huge Superman fan and I was anxious to put my two cents in regarding the latest theatrical release starring the Man of Steel.

ATTENTION: Agnostics & Atheists: At the time I wrote this piece, I had gotten wind of a few incendiary comments that people were saying about me behind my back, regarding my faith. Written partially out of anger, I addressed my detractors directly and, in so doing, addressed what I believe to be the TRUE reason why we have so many people in this country who refuse to believe in Jesus.

I Can Fly: In this blog, I discussed a personal accomplishment of mine within my own subconscious – the ability to partially manipulate and control my own dreams.

The Dumbass Media: A short article on how our media shoots our military might in the foot by giving away our position at every opportunity.

Mary, the Mother of JESUS: My attempt to figure out why Catholicism can’t seem to forgo a semantics issue to bring the various Christian faiths closer together. I also take a closer look at false syllogisms here and how they affect the beliefs of others.

My Pisiform-Triquetral Travails: A short anecdote on a very stupid thing I did one fine day at work. This article is basically me poking fun at myself and making light of a ridiculous occurrence.

Credit Card Companies Suck – My Rant: An all-too-true account of the ruthlessness of credit card companies when they have you indebted to them. This is a tale of survival and a tale of a hard-learned lesson in life and finances.

Nuts Over My New Bike: Another personal anecdote, meant to give the reader a chuckle or two. This is the true story of my first weeks on a brand-new bicycle and the ensuing damage it did to my… self. Let's just say that the title makes more sense once you've read the story.

The Spectrum of Airline Intelligence: A therapeutic rant I wrote in response to what was probably the most frustrating airline experience I’ve ever had. Even at my most perturbed, I did what I could to interject a bit of humor into the mix.

Gender Roles & Hardwood Floors: This one brings back memories as it was the last big home project we undertook prior to the birth of my daughter. This article for more for me than anything else as I wanted to preserve the memories of those last months of my wife’s pregnancy, plus pay homage to a good friend who did a great thing for us.

What’s With the Lisp?: The question that’s been bugging me for quite a while now. In the hot debate over whether homosexuality is learned or if you’re born with it gets interesting when considering the origin of the lisp.

Observations of a New Dad: One of my favorite blog articles as it very accurately preserves those early memories of what it was like to care for a very small infant girl. The time flies so fast and I’m glad I wrote something about those early days. This article was meant to point out the more humorous aspects of rookie parenthood.

Saddam’s Lousy Decembers: My brief look at the last days of Saddam Hussein (he was executed three days following this blog) as well as my defense of the Islamic faith.

Luxuries I Missed While in Brazil – Part 1: Originally written on January 27, 2006, this article pre-existed my Blogger account, but I’d decided to post it because I was fresh off of another trip to Brazil and I thought it’d be good to keep these together.

Luxuries I Missed While in Brazil – Part 2: The sequel and probably the funnier of the two “Luxuries” blogs I posted. Life in Brazil can be pretty good, but it just takes some getting used to. Enjoy the rants.

How I Met My Daughter: An endearing true story of how my relationship with my little girl began. This is a great blog for expectant fathers as I dole out a lot of decent tips for how to be Super Dad even before your baby is born. Also chronicled in this blog is the moment when I knew I’d make a good dad for my baby. This is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it.

The Allure of Parenthood: This one kind of works off the vein of the blog that preceded it. Here, I speak of the purity and innocence of a newborn infant and the enormous responsibility we take on when we become parents. Also included are a couple of quick memories that I failed to mention in the previous blog.

The Quiet Car: A humorous and true story of my trip to the Big Apple to pick up my mother-in-law at the airport and take her back home. Let’s just say that folks aren’t always as considerate as they could be.

My Top 20 Favorite Movies: A complete and comprehensive list of my all-time favorites of the big screen. Sure, nobody else might care what my favorite movies are, but what can I say? I enjoyed thinking this one out and deciding for myself which ones ranked among the best ever in my heart. This one’s more likely to interest fellow movie buffs who just might have a few movies in common with me.

People Who Need to Get Punched in the Head: Looking back on this one, it reads like a stand-up comedy routine. Yes, I wrote it primarily for laughs, but I drew my inspiration for each example using events that actually happened in my life. Again, it’s a rant, but it’s also a light-hearted rant with no real anger behind it. Have a look at if if you have a minute. You might get some chuckles out of it.

My Take on Ephesians 2:8-9: Inspired by a vision I had in a dream one night, I wrote this blog to see if I could provide a clear illustration for a difficult Biblical idea. There are people who believe that good works must be done to earn Heaven. There are others who believe that faith in Jesus is all it takes to earn Heaven. My example attempts to illustrate who both are necessary.

Racial and Religious Hypocrisy: This one takes a closer look at the incident that cost Don Imus his job, as well as the tirade that destroyed Michael Richards’s career. It’s my take on the matter and my frustration at how very few people are out there to defend Jesus with the same fervor used to defend the African-American community.

Kauan: A tragic true story of the death of a six-month-old boy named Kauan. He was my wife’s cousin’s son in Brazil. He’d been cursed from the very beginning of his life and, due to doctors’ incompetence, his life was cut tragically short. This death hit me especially hard, primarily because my daughter was only a month younger than Kauan and, as a parent, this is pretty much your worst nightmare. May God rest your soul, Kauan.

Do Any Boston Cab Drivers Speak English?: Another all-too-true story about my recent encounters with foreign-born cab drivers and the linguistic hilarity that often ensues. Though the situations I wrote about were frustrating at the time, I tried to interject humor wherever I could.

Transformers (2007): My Review: Having been a die-hard Transformers fan for as long as they’ve been in existence, I had to see this movie as soon as possible… and had to type out a comprehensive review. Though I made out Pro and Con lists, I really loved this movie. It’s now one of my prized HD DVDs and even the bonus disc is awesome to watch.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – My Review: This is the first time in the history of the Guileless Vituperator that I’ve ever reviewed a book, but given the hype surrounding the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series, I couldn’t help but contribute my two cents. I waited a number of days before posting this to give the die-hard fans of the book a chance to read it before reading my spoilers.

The Return of Def Leppard: This was my wife’s first American concert and she loved it. This blog tells the story of Def Leppard’s performance at the Tweeter Center on August 11, 2007.

How to Make a Day Suck: Just an all-around crappy day for everybody except my daughter. This was more of a therapeutic rant than anything else. And yes, I felt a LOT better after writing this one. Who knows? You just might find things to laugh about here.

ABORTION: What I Believe: The title pretty much tells the story. It’s my view on abortion and if I were ever to get hate mail for any of my blogs, it’d likely be this one. In this blog, I explain why I consider abortion to be a crime and a sin, regardless of the reason(s) it is performed. I run through the most popular excuses and break them down one-by-one. I knew it’d be controversial, but I felt it needed to be written and I stand behind what I wrote. I don’t appreciate hate mail, but I do welcome opposing viewpoints and constructive criticism. And this will NOT be the last time I tackle a controversial topic, so be warned.

Waltham High School Lamentations: This story is about my recent high school reunion and the memories it sparked. High School was enjoyable, but looking back, I realized that I could have gotten so much more out of it, had I kept my head up and taken a look around every once in a while. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

Cancún, Timeshares and the Hard-Sell: The true story of our Cancún trauma is told here. Again, this was a frustrating moment of my life that I can now look back on and laugh. This story was written to pull a few chuckles from the past and to bring the world of timeshares to light so that others can determine for themselves whether or not losing 90 or so minutes of your life is worth a few free waffles.

First Year Reflections: Our daughter is one of the happiest babies you’ll ever meet. This article celebrates our first year with her as I reveal the secrets to our early success as parents and what we have in store for Year 2.

Michael Newdow Can Kiss My Ass: True story about a litigation-happy atheist who is single-handedly trying to destroy everything that America stands for with his personal vendetta against the Lord. Just remember that God always has the last laugh, Newdow.

Brazil – The Third Installment: Details of my most recent trip to Brazil, complete with the rantings you’ve come to expect, coupled with some interesting observations regarding airlines and some of the things that can go wrong when you’re flying. This was also the setting for my daughter’s first birthday party, which was a day I’ll never forget.

So, that does it for 2007. I hope you've enjoyed what you've read so far. As it stands now, 2008 looks like it's going to be considerably busier for me, so I doubt I'll be writing nearly as often in the next year. Time will tell, of course, so until then....

Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a safe holiday season.

The Guileless Vituperator -- <")))><

Brazil - The Third Installment

So, I went to Brazil about a week ago for the purpose of, among other things, attending my daughter’s first birthday bash. I set foot on American soil again a couple of days ago and felt compelled to share some observations and experiences I had on this particular journey.

Loyal Vituperator readers may recall my “Luxuries I Missed” rant in Part 1, as well as my list of kvetches in Part 2. This third installment is really just a review of what happened as well as some of the odd things I noticed. Yes, I have a few new b*tchings to get out of my system, but trust me, they’re far fewer in quantity when compared to the amount I shelled out for Part 2 (…after all, I wasn’t even there a full week this time). And I must say, most of the proverbial fan-hitting sh*t seemed to happen to my wife while I just kept dodging bullets.

So, here’s the story.

During our January/February Brazil trip this year, the wife and I agreed on what looked to be a great function hall to have our daughter’s first birthday party. Granted, our little girl was fewer than two months old at the time, yet we had already started making plans in anticipation of the big event. First birthdays are a really big deal in Brazil and those who remembered our huge wedding were sure to be keeping their eyes on us to see how (or if) we’d ever top our 2004 nuptials.

So, in an effort to keep some sort of organization to this blog, I’ll separate my observations and comments into three categories with subsets for each.

CATEGORY 1: GETTING TO BRAZIL

For starters, whoever coined the phrase “Getting there is half the fun” clearly never had to fly to Brazil. Oh, and we flew with the same F-Me Airline as last time (click here for my F-Me rant). We didn’t choose them because we liked them, rather because pickins were slim by the time we had enough money to buy our tickets and F-Me had the best prices. So, we get to the airport and the fun starts… for my wife.

A.) PAY NOW OR WE KEEP YOUR DAUGHTER: My mother-in-law, Dalva needed to get to Brazil about a week before the wife and I were able to fly out and she really wanted to take our daughter with her for a plethora of reasons. We acquiesced, but to make this a reality, she’d need our daughter’s name (we’ll just use the pseudonym of Sabrina for the sake of the story) printed on her tickets for the flight over... and on my wife’s tickets for the flight back. We were given assurances from the travel agency that once we had Sabrina’s name on those tickets AND got written and notarized permission slips into Dalva’s hands, all would be well.

Dalva had no problem getting our daughter out of the country, but when it came time for us to check in, an F-Me clerk told my wife that she’d need to pay for Sabrina’s tickets if she wanted to bring her back home. My wife showed him her tickets and how Sabrina’s name was already printed on all of them, but since Sabrina wasn’t with us for check-in, she somehow got disqualified on all counts and would be ineligible to join her own mother back on the flight to America. My wife was broke to begin with, so I fronted the money to ensure that Sabrina would fly home with my wife.

Fear not though. The travel agency has already promised to refund what we paid for the first tickets. Whether they uphold their end of the bargain when we go to collect, well… we’ll just have to jump off that bridge when we come to it.

B.) COUGH UP THE PERFUMES, TERRORIST!: I have like a MILLION reasons why I prefer to travel light, but ever since marrying the Transporter, I haven’t had an occasion to enjoy my "Light Travel" preference. Everybody in Brazil wants American paraphernalia, especially when it comes to Nike sneakers and electronics, so whenever the family down in South America gets wind that my wife’s heading down there, they all cut deals with her to have her buy stuff for them with the promise of reimbursing her when she arrives. For example, we might pay $200.00 for a digital camera here, but try buying that exact same brand in Brazil and you’re guaranteed to shell out at least DOUBLE that. So, one of the many things she was asked to bring was perfume. Her brother’s wife has a thing for Victoria’s Secret crap and she cut a deal to reimburse her for a variety of perfumes and lotions. The only thing is that my wife forgot that we can’t fill up a carry-on bag with liquids (…not even water), so she wound up having like sixty bucks worth of Vickie’s Secret goop confiscated. Plus, she was gone for like a f**king half hour, so my guess is that they must have “white rubber gloved” the hell out of her for having the audacity to attempt such an evil deed.

C.) SPEAKING OF TERRORISTS: For all of your frequent (and even semi-frequent) flyers, I wanted to ask you a question. Is it just me or is it impossible to get on a plane these days without seeing at least two guys who look exactly like they just graduated from Osama bin Laden’s Infidel Decapitation Academy? It’s weird because I can spend months in the city without seeing so much as one turban. I get on any plane in the States and it’s almost a given that I’ll see at least one poster boy for al-Qaeda with a beard thick enough to hide a Beretta and a few extra magazines. And if he doesn’t look like a terrorist, he most certainly will look sketchy enough to want to bring the plane down just for sh*ts and giggles.

D.) SKYMALL IS MY CRACK: I travel the F-Me Airline and these damn SkyMall catalogs are on every damn plane. They’re the most addictive catalogs in existence because they have all of the crap you never knew you always wanted. All of the really innovative inventions of the day are featured here and they create a demand for stuff that, twenty minutes ago, you didn’t even know existed. Plus, they let you take the catalog home so that your torment can continue long after the wheels touch down on the runway. “Hey, now that I think about it, I do need remote-controlled laser combat cars… and a singing animatronic Elvis robot… and a Steinhausen chronograph watch… and a vintage hot dog cart… and roses hand-dipped in 24K gold… and a scoop-free self-cleaning cat box… and an Oh GOD get this damn catalog away from me before I liquidate my house!”

I don’t even HAVE a cat!

E.) NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM DUTY FREE: Those of you who have flown to other countries will have heard of duty free items. I’ll summarize the phenomenon for those of you who haven’t. Folks who bring more than $500.00 worth of certain types of crap to another country are required to pay an extra fee. I’ll illustrate the reason for this with an example. Let’s say someone in Brazil wants to buy a digital camera, but can’t afford it at Brazil’s prices. Then, they realize they can get this item much cheaper in the states. If they get somebody to buy them a camera in the states and then give them the money for it when they arrive, they have, in a sense, hurt Brazil’s economy. That’s money they could have kept in the country, had it not been for the nice American contraband smuggler.

So, as an incentive to buy expensive sh*t without penalty, they offer duty free items at airports (…and in some cases, on the airplanes themselves). Buy a digital camera at a duty free shop and, as long as you keep your receipt, said item is exempt from that extra penalty fee. The problem is that duty free items are f**king expensive. Seriously, buy duty free stuff only if you have money to burn because I guarantee you’ll find the exact same items almost anywhere else for a much more reasonable price.

I mean seriously, who the f**k is stupid enough to blow $500.00 on a $300.00 iPod?

F.) LUGGAGE? WHAT LUGGAGE?: Want to hear another great reason for packing light? Because you never know what the airline will do with the luggage you choose to stow away. Case in point: I checked in two huge, heavy-ass suitcases filled with stuff for my daughter’s birthday party. So, where did I put my clean clothes? In my carry-on bag… because I pack light and have little difficulty fitting my clothes into one small bag. Good thing, too... because while we may have arrived in Brazil without a problem, our luggage stayed in f**king Miami. Was this a big deal for me? Not really. I had my hygiene items and all of my clothes so I was sound as a pound. As for my wife, she chose to fill her carry-on bag with perfumes and a laptop she bought for her brother. Her clothes were checked in, so she was stuck wearing the same clothes for almost three full days before the airline got our luggage delivered to our Brazil address.

G.) YEAH, WE’LL TAKE THAT OFF YOUR HANDS NOW: Remember that laptop I mentioned just a moment ago? Remember that extra fee? If you bring expensive electronics with you, you need to declare them when you arrive. If you don’t, you run the risk of getting heavily fined. Well, my wife might have had a shot at slipping the laptop past the prying eyes of Brazil’s finest had it not been for the fact that she needed to fill out claim slips to get our luggage back. But fortune failed to smile upon her here as well and she was told she’d need to cough up $500.00 for the privilege of stepping onto Brazilian soil with the laptop for which she already paid $900.00. Meanwhile, I strolled right past everybody with my digital camera and my video camera. Go figure.

H.) IT’S ME! IT'S DADDY!: This part kinda broke my heart a little. I don’t know how strong the long-term memory of an infant is, so for fear that Sabrina wouldn’t recognize us after being without us for a week, I decided to burn a DVD for her. The DVD was basically a short video of me, talking to her, showing her all of the things she likes to play with at home, saying all of the things she has come to expect from me and showing her pictures of her mom and me to ensure that she wouldn’t forget us. Dalva assured us that she had Sabrina watch the video at least once a day and sometimes twice, yet when Sabrina and I saw each other, she didn’t smile like she usually does. I knelt down with my arms outstretched and called to her to come give me a hug. She didn’t move. She just looked at me with her wide eyes and her pout. Inside, I almost panicked.

“Has she actually forgotten who I am?”

I’m the only one who sings the ABCs to her, so I quickly belted an ABC tune out for her, followed by a tune that I made up that she loves to hear. I did all of my signature sound effects and kept repeating the fact that “Daddy” was here. She says “Daddy” a lot when she sees me and, according to Dalva, she said “Daddy” whenever she saw the video. After a few more seconds of nervous tension, something must have clicked because she walked towards me and stretched out her arms. Her facial expression revealed nothing, but her hug assured me that she remembered me.

I swear I almost cried tears of joy with her in my arms again. I’d missed her terribly and the thought that she might have forgotten me nearly tore my heart to shreds. A few giggles later and she was happy as could be, belting out “Da das” and “Daddies” as if not a day was lost.

CATEGORY 2: BRAZIL STORIES AND GRIPES

I said that I didn’t have many gripes, but I did have a few and I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention a few of them. Again, nothing huge – just me having a little b*tch session, but fear not. Some of what I have to say this time around is actually good.

A.) SANTA’S DAUGHTER: One of the things that Dalva wanted to do with Sabrina in the week prior to our arrival is to attend a Catholic church event for underprivileged kids. It’s called “Festa dos Pobres” which quite literally means “Poor People’s Party.” It’s like Brazil’s version of “Toys for Tots,” except on a smaller scale. The church members raised money to buy toys for children who would otherwise have nothing for Christmas and, though it would make more sense to have this shindig closer to Christmas itself, it was held in the first week of December.

Anyway, Dalva thought it’d be great if Sabrina helped with the distribution of gifts, so Dalva dressed Sabrina in her “Baby Claus” outfit for the party. Many of the kids actually believed that Sabrina was Santa Claus’s daughter and one of them actually said, “Santa didn’t bring us any gifts this year, but Santa’s daughter did!” Many of the kids posed for pictures with her and one of the kids even gave her a picture of him to keep and share with Santa when she gets back to the North Pole.

I just really thought that was awesome and I felt honored and flattered that these underprivileged kids thought of my little girl as being responsible for making their Christmas holiday a little bit brighter and happier. It's a short and sweet holiday anecdote to keep for the future when Sabrina gets a little older.

Okay, time for the gripes.

B.) WOULD A QUICK SWEEP REALLY KILL YA?: My wife’s family is great. I’ve said that on numerous occasions, so whenever possible, I give them every benefit of every doubt imaginable. Yet I couldn’t help getting just a little bit pissed off when I saw some of the areas where Sabrina was playing. One house we went to had a concrete floor patio area thingy just outside of the house. There were a TON of little bits of plastic lying around, not to mention cigarette butts and a few sharp metal objects and shards of broken glass, all within a baby's reach. Now, Sabrina had been there for a full week before we arrived and I’m fairly certain this wasn’t the first time she’d been in this area. My question is why couldn’t they have at least tried to sweep the area up? They knew a baby was coming. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that she might want to check out some of this debris for herself?

Sabrina may be a year old, but she's still small enough to want to pick up everything she finds on the ground. True, she doesn’t put absolutely everything in her mouth anymore, but that’s not to say she’s given up the pastime altogether. In the few short minutes I was in there with her, I had to pull several of those plastic bits out of her hand and one out of her mouth. Once she got a hold of one of the cigarette butts, I picked her up and brought her to the sink to wash her hands. From there, Sabrina walked to another house owned by one of my wife’s family members. Only this person owns a poodle who took a dump in the walkway leading to her house. Naturally, Sabrina made a bee line to the dog droppings and cried hysterically when I stopped her from picking them up. I’m sorry, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let her juggle pieces of dog sh*t in her hands.

C.) PLEASE TRY TO KEEP HER ALIVE, WILL YA?: It was this lack of proper baby care that made me suspicious when I saw Sabrina for the first time. Back home, we keep the house pretty clean and we do our darndest to ensure that Sabrina is healthy. She’d been in Brazil for all of a week and it seemed like she was falling apart at the seams. When we arrived, she was coughing quite a bit with night sweats. A couple of days later, she busted up her nose and forehead and two days after that, her throat was inflamed and she was screaming into and past midnight. Plus, she had a nasty diaper rash; something she virtually never gets under our care. So, what happened? Well, for the busted up nose and head, all accusing fingers pointed at her grandfather.

Dalva asked "Granddaddy" to watch her for five minutes and, within that time, Sabrina apparently made a break for it and landed face first onto the ground. Yet from what I’ve learned about this guy, I can’t get mad at him. He never did much in the way of parenting when my wife was a baby, so I can’t imagine he somehow magically learned how to do the job now. As for Sabrina's other maladies, I told Dalva to keep her in clean environments whenever possible and to try and keep her physical contact with other kids to a minimum. She did the opposite, so perhaps my fears were warranted. After all, under grandpa’s short watch, Sabrina almost f**king died and in the time before my arrival, she had a measles/rubella shot and a shot to clear up her inflamed throat.

D.) NOBODY HAD ANYTHING: To be more specific, I had a great degree of difficulty finding the following six things:

- FOOD: I went to a small number of houses during my brief stay in Brazil, but the refrigerators in these houses were, for the most part, empty. I don’t need food several times a day like some people. If need be, I can get through an entire day on a very minimal amount of food, yet it seemed that if I wanted to eat, somebody had to order a pizza or something else like that because nobody did any grocery shopping for real food like fruits, veggies and meats. Yet, I wasn’t mad or anything because I realize that money is tight and it’s hard to keep your refrigerator full when you’re busting your ass just to pay the bills. That leads me into the other great necessity of life that was in scarce supply.

- WATER: Sure, I like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other such carbonated drinks, but when it’s as hot as it is down in Brazil this time of year, all a man really wants is some cold, refreshing spring water. Nobody had any. Some houses stocked Coke, so in the absence of water, that’s what I drank. Not a huge deal because at least they had something, but I would have thought water to be a cheaper beverage to buy than soda. Maybe I’m wrong, though.

- TOILET PAPER: This I didn’t understand quite as easily because a wise owl with glasses once told me to read and stay in school whilst handing me a book that said, “Everybody Poops.” Yet apparently, Brazilians don’t because it was damn near impossible to find toilet paper in any of the houses I visited. For those few times where a house did have T.P., it was in a room that was inexplicably nowhere near the bathroom. Does it make sense to keep toilet paper in your bedroom while the bathroom has nothing?

- SOAP: Speaking of bathroom necessities, I was hard-pressed to find hand soap in half of the places I visited. I’ll admit that I may not have looked hard enough in some situations, but seriously, if you want your guests to wash their hands, are you really gonna wanna tempt fate by hiding the hand soap like it's Round One of an anti-bacterial scavenger hunt?

- TOWELS: Both the paper and cloth variety were in scarce supply and I have no idea why. Go to my bathroom and, at any given time, you’ll find anywhere from two to three available towels that you can use to dry your hands after washing them. In Brazil (...and with hands sopping wet), I’d ask, “Hey, do you happen to have any towels around here?” Then, whoever I asked would look around the house and pull out a towel from some secret hiding spot. And you can forget about paper towels. Apparently, that is a luxury that few can afford, so if you spill your drink, you’re pretty much f**ked if you have to use your one house towel to mop it up.

- INTERNET: In Part 1, I spoke of how very few people in my wife’s family have internet access, but on this trip, even the few stand-bys that I knew of were of no help. One girl’s computer monitor was burnt out. Another family member’s internet was disconnected and even the Internet shop at the mall had shut down temporarily due to some weird reason. Once the Internet shop got their system back online, there was like a 90 minute wait to use it. Suffice it to say, I settled for waiting until after I got home to mess with the net.

E.) NOCTURNAL NOISES: I mentioned the annoying dogs in Part 2, but it’s an even worse problem now. Not only are the same damn dogs still barking away, but apparently the neighborhood picked up like eight new ones to join the debate. Of course, none of them are leashed and one night, I could swear I heard a battle royal of dogs barking (and fighting) louder than a Friday night in Michael Vick's garage. But the startling noise I heard on that same night was a couple of guys feverishly arguing with each other from a few streets away.

My Portuguese is fairly strong now, so I was able to pick up the basic theme of the argument; that being that some guy slept with another guy’s wife. After about maybe thirty seconds of yelling, I heard a gunshot go off and then dead silence. “Well, he’s done.” I thought as I attempted to go back to sleep. Apparently, I’ve lost the will to be shocked because within five minutes, I was in dreamland again. Sure, it’s not the ideal neighborhood to raise a baby, but she wasn’t even sleeping at the house that night. She was sleeping a city away in a much safer house with a security gate.

F.) DEAD CHICKENS: Our time in Brazil is usually hectic as we’re usually prepping for a big event. This time, it was the birthday party. Earlier this year, it was the baptism and my brother-in-law’s wedding. In 2004, it was my wedding. Always something… and we’re always running around like headless chickens, which is ironic because I actually saw headless chickens on this trip. I swear, my wife, her cousin and I were walking with Sabrina in the stroller when I came upon two small buckets. Inside both buckets were white feathered blobs with chicken feet sticking out. I asked my wife, “Is this what I think it is?” She said, “Yes... and please stay away from there. You don’t want to get too close to those.”

Hey, no arm-twisting necessary. I’m gone.

CATEGORY 3: THE PARTY AND THE PARTING

In this last part, I’ll end with just a few comments about the birthday party and the pain involved with leaving my family behind.

A.) THE PARTY: What can I say? This party was fantastic. We might have spent a lot of money on stuff, but it was great to see it all go to good use. We had a puppet show, a hair and make-up table, a table for designer nails, a mini-ferris wheel, a monorail, ball pools, a couple of slides, crawling tubes, bridges to cross, nets to climb, ropes to swing from, a mini amusement park-style pirate ship, a basketball game, foosball table, remote controlled cars on a 15 foot race track, open bar and barbecued buffet food, not to mention the goodie bags we made, the retrospective video I rendered and the Disney characters that dropped by for a surprise visit. The funny part is that with all I just mentioned, I’m positive I’m forgetting something. We just had so much for the kids to do and my daughter’s party has been the talk of the town ever since.

B.) FAULTY DVD PLAYERS: What really burned my butt was the part about the DVD videos I burned. I took video clips from this past year, spent months putting together the best clips and rendered what, in my humble opinion, was a kick-ass video. I burned back-up copies and tested each one of them out prior to my trip. I even played one on my brother-in-law’s DVD player and it worked fine. Yet, that next day, it not only didn’t work, but didn’t even recognize that a DVD was in the machine.

Other DVDs were tested and they worked, but I asked my wife to test my DVD when she arrived at the party (…she was getting there early to set up some stuff). The player played my video, but skipped and stuttered a bit at the beginning. My back-up video did likewise, though in slightly different spots which led me to believe that their DVD player might be ready for a replacement. Most of the video played smoothly, but it just got me mad that 100% of it didn’t play perfectly, since 100% of it played perfectly at home and I'd spent so much time ensuring that we'd have the perfect video.

C.) SABRINA THE POOH: Probably my favorite part of the party came at the end of the puppet show. My wife was asked to bring Sabrina behind the platform where the puppets were doing their thing. The hostess opened a door in the front to reveal an area of black velvet. She closed it, said a few “magic” words and when she opened the door once more, there was Sabrina wearing a Winnie the Pooh outfit. The effect really went over big with the kids and I just thought it was the most endearing thing. Naturally, she looked bewildered, but I’m sure she’ll appreciate the cuteness of it all when she’s old enough to watch the video and understand what it is she’s seeing.

D.) THE RICH GET RICHER: My wife told me a story of a certain boy on her side of the family who comes from a poor home and is, by and large, a pretty annoying kid. He certainly doesn’t mean to be annoying – he just is. But regardless of his behavior, he still deserves to have nice birthdays, right? For his most recent birthday, his mom invited a bunch of people over for a humble party. Roughly 25 people showed up… and only one of them brought a present for him. They’re poor as it is. Shouldn’t the invitees have compensated by bringing at least a few presents? That’s my opinion at least.

As for our daughter, she’s not necessarily a rich girl, but compared to this boy and most of my wife’s side of the family, she’s a privileged kid. I personally bought Sabrina a small number of very good toys, saving the others for Christmas. For this party, my daughter received something in the neighborhood of thirty toys! If anybody should have received a bunch of toys, it’s the downtrodden boy; not the privileged girl. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the gifts and am thankful that she has plenty of toys to play with, but c’mon! She really didn’t need so many gifts. It just doesn’t seem fair to the underprivileged children of the family when the one who needs the toys the least gets the most.

E.) SAYING GOOD-BYE: This was probably the saddest I’ve ever been to leave Brazil and go back home because I was doing it alone, leaving my wife and daughter behind. When you become a father, there’s a chance you can get attached to your child(ren) and at this age she’s in right now, she’s just learning so much stuff so fast. You almost hate seeing her do the new things she learned in your absence because you feel like the next time you see her, she’ll be starting college and you will have missed her entire childhood. This obviously isn’t the case, but who said that love was rational?

Anyway, it was all I could do to keep from getting teary-eyed as I held her to say good-bye. I insisted on saying my good-byes to Sabrina privately and before we left for the airport because I just didn’t think I could bear seeing her directly before I had to get in line to have my carry-on bags x-rayed. It was heart-wrenching enough when I waved good-bye to her after getting in the car because she learned how to do that baby wave where she just holds out her arm and moves the four fingers of her right hand up and down. It’s so cute and so sad because she’s got that little baby pout thing happening, too. I miss her to death and I'm counting the days until I can see her again.

Anyway, they’re slated to return on Christmas Day, so here’s hoping there are no delays or snowstorms to prevent me from spending quality time with my family on the most important holiday of the year. <")))><