A shopping trip

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise,” said Franklin, Benjamin (In honor of the Olympics, names have been organized the Chinese way. This is, however, not an endorsement of the situations in Tibet or Taiwan or an approval of China's human rights record). Having performed a detailed cost/benefit analysis on the proposition, I can state with authority that health, wealth, and wisdom are not worth it. There are hours of the day when no one ought to be awake. Or, I should say, hours of the night; the day does not start until the sun is fully risen and is so high in the sky that no one can doubt its position.

Who are we to question the habits of the sun?

Alas, this very questioning - a capital offense in the Inca cultures - is what I was cruelly obliged to do one very early morning a few days ago. Sunflower Market had its grand opening. Sunflower Market! Fruits and vegetables! Fish and sushi! Healthfood! What self-respecting starving student could resist (insert snigger mark here)? So I rolled groggily out of bed, stared curiously for a minute at the power plug beneath my window, splashed water in my face (at least I think it was water), and stumbled down the stairs to the car. Yesterday's paper said there was to be a free bag of groceries for each of the first two hundred people at the doors, and I, according to my mom and grandparents, would be one of those people ("You will be one of those people, Chip!"). There was no time, a stern announcement warned, for coffee, breakfast, or even email before we took off down the road ("There is no time, Chip!"). This was a race. The morning air was dark and cool—like batman, but different—and the construction workers were barely starting work. Even the the streetlights seemed sleepy as they cast rays that were barely brighter than the sun. I yawned ("Chip, why are you yawning?"). The grand opening was not until seven. There was no way anyone else could be up this early.

Then we pulled up to the store's parking lot. Apparently, I had no idea how valuable groceries really are. The nearest empty parking space was about a mile from the store's doors. A crowd of hippies, yuppies, druggies, SDFs, urban outdoorsmen, vagrants and college professors extended from the doors to the nearest parking spot. And near the doors a troupe of cheerleaders chanted “Sunflower Market! Sunflower Market!” Mais oui, mais oui!Perhaps this trip wasn't a complete waste after all.

We parked our car and began elbowing our way through. I yawned again. Finally, we reached the entrance. “Is there a line to get in?” A yuppie gazed back at us mournfully. “No. The first two hundred people got here a long time ago.”

Obviously it was time to leave. We'd been beaten. Agincourt was over and we were the French. But the mom and grandparents begged to differ ("Chin up, Chip!"). They milled around happily with the other shoppers, drinking from little paper cups of free coffee, eating the free oranges piled outside and comparing Volvo stories.

Despite the fact that I was already outside, I needed air. I decided to go on a jog. Even exercise is better than certain situations. And it so happened that, after a quarter mile or so, I found something even better than exercise: McDonald’s. McDonald’s sells huge, greasy hunks of Southern-fried chicken in breakfast sandwiches, guaranteed to start your day the heavy, nauseated way. I used a cup of McDonald’s coffee to make the provisions palatable. There was nothing to make the coffee palatable.

There’s something about having chicken for breakfast—an uncouth, startling feeling that can only be compared to choking on a fishbone. Even if you’ve never choked on a fishbone, you can imagine what it feels like. (If you can't imagine, a demonstration can be arranged.) First, you notice that something has gone wrong in your throat. Something has jarred the comfortable, salivated muscles that you just used to savor a bite of food. Then, you realize that something has gone wrong in your stomach. It is in communication with the throat exactly the way married couples aren't, and evidently feels some empathy (same analogy). Finally, you jump in alarm as your stomach and throat combine forces to begin a revolt.

Like most revolutions, this one is motivated more by impulse than reason. If you’ve piled your plate high with fried strips of pork fat or bitten into the mound of melting, oozing sausage, eggs, and cheese that is called the McMuffin, you have done something very disgusting for the morning hour. It is only conventionally disgusting, however. It takes extra nerve and extra tastelessness to eat something that disturbingly disgusting. Or it takes a free coupon, which is what I had. Free chicken sandwiches are of course superior to free groceries.

After quelling the revolt, I returned to the store. Much to my chagrin, the cheerleaders were gone, but so were the crowds of people, and my family was ready to leave with several bags of fresh (though not free) produce. A shopping trip is a shopping trip, after all.

PreFab Greeting Card 2

A little over a year ago FCN published a treatise for the stereotypical male on how to prepare a greeting card that expresses the heartfelt emotions that are generally communicated by grunts and nods among males. You can't very well growl at someone on her birthday, but most people expect some kind of affection. And since Hallmark, the standards for appropriate celebratory sentiments can be very high. Here's what we said a year ago:

Guys can't write greeting cards. Whether the occasion is Christmas, a birthday or simply a “thank you for the dried rutabaga, it really made my day,” we males are completely inept at developing any kind of decent note. Maybe it's the testosterone that destroys our cheesy receptors and makes us send schlocky cards we regret moments after dropping them into the mailbox. Or maybe its [sic] that we never put in the time to learn how to send a happy notice. Or perhaps the ability to write greeting cards is repelled by the "Y" chromosome. Whatever the reason, the end result is that we can't formulate a decent card. (Emphasis in original)

Our treatise advised a generic card front with an unoffensive and universally appealing image and provided several lines for use, all of which carried a certain happy gravity and a ubiquitous quality that made them perfect for any occasion.

Some of the faithful few didn't like our PreFab card. "Lady A," a reader who has since stopped commenting (thanks for the tissue), groaned and "Anonymous," our most prolific commenter, said that "[t]he idea of a card is that it is personal it is something you took the time to write because you are thankful/happy."

I was unconvinced of the card's deficiencies last weekend when I loaded the PreFab guide to use as a template to prepare a sweet message to my mother for Mother's Day. That's when I realized, we didn't have anything for Mother's Day! None of the generic lines even mentioned the second Sunday in May. I panicked. And, though the wilderness survival people say that you never make your best decisions when you panic, I stumbled across a major breakthrough in derelict social behavior and added another chapter to the FCN Manifesto.

I sprinted down to my local card shop, intending to pick up something cheesy and cheap. When I got to the Mother's Day card rack, my heart skipped a beat. $4.49 for a folded piece of colored paper? Yikes! I could get lunch for that. I thought briefly about pilfering it, but giving your mother a purloined card on a holiday celebrating maternal virtue struck me as nothing short of dodgy. That's when it hit me like the light my roommate turns on when I'm trying to sleep. I didn't actually need to steal the card to take its sentiments.

A pen and paper were quickly produced and I reapproached the card aisle with new resolve. Starring at all those cards felt like looking at Where's Waldo puzzle. I was supposed to pick out a good card from the plethora offered, an impossible task given my genetic deficiency (the pesky Y chromosome). I could hardly tell an insult from a blessing; how could I trust my judgment in this important matter?

This is where the PreFab Greeting Card gets really ingenious. It doesn't matter which card you choose. They all work. These cards are written by women, for women. If we males try to intervene with the intra-gender communication, we could mess everything up. It's best to just leave a beautiful thing alone and let Hallmark make our moms happy.

I reached for the closest card and scribbled down the message it contained. It said something about "through thick and through thin" and "you've always been the best," but that didn't matter, I just wanted the words. When I got home, I inserted the all perfect image -


- and printed it off (color is a good idea). I stuffed the result into an envelope and gave it to her with a big grin and a long hug. The end result is a well packaged sentiment at much less caloric and financial cost than most alternatives. Derelicts the world over can exhale.

I really wish I could have had this out last week so all you guys who struggle with this could have had an easy exit, but now you'll be prepared for next time.

Happy Mother's Day!

We had all kinds of great plans about what to do for Mother's day. After an extensive staff meeting, during which we tossed around ideas like getting Mommy G a ring with three stones (one for each contributor), we finally settled on something both economical and fitting.

Expect both your leftover Chuck E Cheese's tokens in the mail any day now, Mommy G!

Part 2: Dangerous Driving

When I sat behind the wheel of my family's clunky van, a couple of my younger brothers strapped dutifully in the back, I understood from my father’s worried look and my mother’s perpetually expressed concerns that there was a lot more to driving than pushing the accelerator peddle. Back then I had just been granted an “Instructional Permit” (my mother always stressed Instructional) and was charged with fulfilling several hours of supervised driving (my mother always stressed the supervised).

A Permit is a not a license to drive. It is, however, a license for your parents to do some crazy and tyrannical things in the name of safety while you drive. Remember that, boys and girls.

My father started me out on his '03 Ford hatchback, a car I would eventually purchase, by taking me to a deserted parking space and handing me the keys.

The hatchback, affectionately named the Screaming Yellow Zonker, is a manual shift, meaning it is a car designed like a union: easy if you're already initiated, hard if you are just getting started. Sitting to my immediate right was a black stick shift. I'd seen my father fiddle with it, but I hadn't the foggiest idea of its utility. On the floor were three pedals, a forward or accelerator, a stop or brake and a smaller pedal whose purpose was known only to the car itself. We called this third petal the clutch, because it is to be deployed in harrowing circumstances.

Starting a manual car from a standstill is like riding a bull, only the fun doesn't stop after ten seconds. In my experience that first day, a stick shift will react in one of two ways to a stop start. The first is to die with a loud shudder. The second is to move forward with a series of motions that are eerily similar to something Jim Carrey might do.

I don't need to go into too much detail about that first afternoon of driving; the retelling is making me blush and who needs to hear about all that anyway? It'll suffice to say that my father wore a neck brace to work the next day and my backside was pretty sore too.

It was a couple weeks after my first interaction with driving that I found myself in the situation described in the first paragraph of this post. My mother was persuaded to let me drive only after several rounds of heated conversation. My father was ok with letting me drive and I wanted to prove myself. My mother was convinced I would wreck the car and slaughter all the passengers and thought it wise to wait a while. In all fairness, I probably would have killed everyone, had my parents not intervened, but let me tell the story.

My drive down our driveway went something like this:

Me: “OK, so I'm going to turn on the ignition now, OK?”

Mother: [Sitting behind me] “Honey?”

Father: “You're good.”

Me: [Starts ignition]. [Adjusts radio channel]. [Releases brake]. [Puts car in reverse].

Mother: [Very calm] “OK, so when you back up, you need to make sure you are watching where you are going, you don't want to smash anything without seeing it first.”

Brother in back: “Actually you don't want to smash anything. Period.”

Mother: [A little agitated] That's enough back there. No backseat driving.

Me: [Chuckles].

Mother: “Honey, maybe he's not ready to drive the family yet.”

Me: [Regrets chuckling]. [Pulls car out of garage and depresses close button on garage door controller]. [Puts car in drive and begins toward main road].

Father: “Blinker.”

Me: [Issues left turn signal].

Mother: “OK. Now take your time here, son. Cars move along this road at sixty miles an hour. If you don't see them coming they might smash into you smelting us all into tiny ball bearings.”

Brother in back: “They might even do that if you do see them coming.”

Everyone else: [Glares at brother in back].

Me: [While everyone is still looking back, pulls forward into traffic]

Too busy to credit: “Wait!” “Did you look both ways?” “Was that a Hummer?” “Easy on the gas!” “You need to tell me before you turn!”

I consider that first trip a major success. The van received only one additional dent, I never smashed a curb, I was actually in control of the car at a few points and, to my knowledge, I was never flipped off.

After the ride, my mother used the First Aid kit's epinephrine pen to revive herself and my father offered that he would take the wheel on the return trip.

Despite the setbacks, I had accomplished something. I had driven the family and now had the requisite number of hours to attempt the physical driving test. I was ready.

Part 1: Written Test

With vacation comes the opportunity to dig through last semester's notes and cull some worthy funny stories that were passed over earlier for publication now. The unfortunate and unavoidable consequence of this post facto research is, of course, that the episodes are a tad dated. The piece to follow was started in early February, but then put aside for some terribly important reason that I have now forgotten. Anyway, the driver's test is a timeless coming of age adventure and I'd be remiss if I didn't share my experiences with the Faithful CN Few.

This series of posts is dedicated to my friend who just passed the exam.

Driving. At 16 it's a rite of passage, an entrance from younger boyhood to older boyhood. It's the freedom to take your friends around town, risk your life and burn a few Jacksons on gas and a few Benjamins on insurance. It's sixty miles an hour at night on a deserted road with your lights off. It's a couple of dents, an obscene gesture and a snazzy bumper sticker. It's America by way of Japan.

Only in my family, the passage doesn't happen at 16. Because of insurance costs and a maternal distrust of anything with four wheels, my brothers and I had to wait until after our 18^th birthday to pursue our non-pedestrian dreams. And when I did get the green light to drive, I discovered the process is not as simple as Grand Theft Auto implied.

A couple of weeks after I attained legal adulthood (when insurance costs take their sharp decline), I scheduled an appointment at a local government office whose name in the phone book was as ominous as it was wrong: Death May 'Vollow (DMV). I was informed during a fifteen minute phone conversation with a computer that I would have to pass two tests: A written and physical driving exam, both of which would require my absolute dedication, preparation and resolve.

I'd heard the test was based on a monstrously difficult collection of arcane data that had as much to do with actually driving as putting together a car from scratch. One of the main characters in Adventures In Odyssey – a radio program I used to be addicted to, but have now been clean of for over a week – failed the test in dramatic fashion and I have a couple of friends who failed the test, one of whom failed it twice. These tales of woe and embarrassment were enough to point me to the books and within a couple of hours I figured I knew everything there was to know about the American transit system.

I wondered, as I was studying, what the importance of Eisenhower's establishing a national highway or the history of Oleander hedges was. Those of you who have taken the test probably think I'm a blooming idiot (or maybe another kind of idiot), but the actual material that was going to be on the test was never told me beforehand and the 1940s era driving manual I found at the public library gave me few pointers.

My confusion notwithstanding, the test turned out to be a piece of chocolate mousse. Had I been hungry I would have eaten the test for lunch. I made the test my farm animal. I bench pressed the test. I mean, seriously; I've had harder medical examinations. Here are a couple sample questions...

1) A giant squid is consuming an office complex by the interstate on which you are driving. What should you do?

a) Pull out an automatic weapon and save hundreds of lives by wasting the squid.

b) Obey all applicable traffic laws and phone the appropriate authorities when it is safe.

c) Disobey all applicable traffic laws and do not phone the police.

2) A black Ford GT wants to race. What should you so?

a) Remove a knuckle duster from your glove compartment, exit your car and beat the tar out of the GT driver.

b) Obey all applicable traffic laws and phone the appropriate authorities when it is safe.

c) Gun your engine to show the GT you mean business and then win the race.

3) Four cars arrive at an intersection at the same time: You, a Ferrari, a Toyoto Tundra and a firetruck. Who gets to leave first?

a) The Ferrari, because the most valuable car has the Right Of Way.

b) The firetruck.

c) Order of departure can be determined via hand motions and honks at the intersection.

Actually the second question was the only one I got wrong. I knew – everyone knows – that knuckle dusters are street illegal in California and I am not foolish enough to answer that, but a man has got to protect his turf and no GT is going to squish my pride. When I debated the merits of my response to the DMV receptionist she smiled, showing lipstick stained teeth and shook her head. I got the feeling appeals were as common as they were unappreciated.

The point is that I studied for a couple of grueling weeks and passed the thing without breaking a sweat. If you're looking to pass, my advice is to just go in raw. Studying just distracts from the obvious nature of the questions. You don't need to prepare much to succeed at a test designed to be passable by illegal immigrants who don't even speak the language.

The first part of my driving adventure was complete, but celebration was unwarranted; the worst was yet to come.

All Hail The Entrée!

The following is a transcript of a speech given before supper at my family’s dinner table. Hoots, hollers, cheers and other assorted audience reactions are recorded in brackets.

Brothers! We stand at an Archimedean point in human history. Behind us lie months of difficult preparation, years of physical conditioning and hours of careful planning. We’ve been through the valleys, over the mountains and through every of conceivable trial. It’s been a road full of potholes – the best food is rarely processed – but the path has been worth the reward. Our weapons are sharp, our minds are ready and fate is poised to decide the next few minutes.

As I look around this room, I see brothers who are eager to perform the required task. I don’t see students, laborers and white collar workers; I see hungry men with one objective and the means to satisfy that objective together.

I see a whole army of my countrymen, here in defiance of hunger! You have come to eat as free men. And free man you are!

[Applause]

Eat and you may die. Run and you will live at least awhile. And starving in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our hunger?!

[Cheers, scattered applause]

Remember: I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything; we are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except our forks and knives.

[Applause]

Give them nothing! But take from them everything!

[Applause]

It has been an honor to live, breath and eat at your side; it will be an honor to die at your side.

Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops and preparing for another meal. Imagine where you will be, and it will be so. Hold the line! Stay with me! If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already dead!

[Laughter]

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

[Muttered agreement]

Take hold of your silverware, spread out your napkins and prepare to approach the meal table like hungry men. May there be no one who leaves this room ashamed or hungry.

You are men; eat like it!

[Guttural roar accompanied by a flurry of mastication related activities]

All Hail The Entrée!

Announcing the Official FCN Mom

We're told there's something inspiring about three lonesome, misdirected students stumbling blindly through the universe bumping their shins on things. We're also told there's something equally inspiring about having their every poorly planned misdeed shamelessly recorded for six people to read. The thing is, we at FCN can't figure out what's so inspiring about it. We find it rather demoralizing, actually. We try so hard to succeed. Perhaps what we need is a little more parental guidance.

We all have mothers of some kind or another. For some of us, our biological mother fills the maternal role (and does so quite nicely, may we add without sounding like we want more dinner tonight). For others, a caring female figure who grants motherly advice when it’s needed steps up to fill the role. Regardless, the mother is the cornerstone of a family and very important to the development of the individual.

We don’t mean to sound like Freud; we do mean to say that mothers have been prominent figures in our own lives and that we regret that FCN doesn’t have the "maternal advantage."

FCN is yet a wee weblog and is still in its developing state. With only a few faithful readers to boast of and tons of awesome content yet to be imagined, we are in dire need of a good mother to keep us on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, FCN lacks a biological mom – the online condition of a blog renders physical parents an impossibility – and we must therefore seek out an unfortunate soul to substitute for our non-existent natural parent.

As you, the faithful FCN few, well know, the writing team here is a bunch of derelicts who defy correction and are, to wit, ungovernable. The task of mothering us is a difficult one (not unlike running an orphanage – "Oliver Twist," not "Annie") and we understand the trepidation that accompanies any attempt. We need a mom who can offer us her cyber-shoulder when our love lives go off the deep end. We need a mom who will understand when we wash down large quantities of taquitos with liquid myocardial infarction. We need a mom who can take a joke and give one at the same time.

And we've found one.

By a vote of 3-0, the FCN team has agreed to adopt Mrs G as the Official FCN Mom (she gave us permission after we promised to floss). "Mommy G" will serve as a supporting member of the FCN team, only the second person to gain this distinction since Uncle Wally started handling our technology. She will provide guidance, instruction, support, and brownies to the hard-working team in exchange for an occasional thank you and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Welcome to the team, Mommy G. We look forward to many happy years together (and when we say many, we really do mean many).

Printer Phobic

Everyone is afraid of something. I can't stand anything that has more than 6 legs. My grandma hates anything that has less than one. My sister is afraid of deep water. One of my buddies is achluophobic. He talked to his psychiatrist, but was told that there's not much anyone can do for someone who's 16 and still afraid of the dark. And my mom - she's printerphobic.

It all happened a few days ago. My mom had been trying to print on our Lexmark L51 Ink Jet, when she noticed the color cartridge was almost empty. She clicked the pause button and removed the ink canister. She extracted the new color cartridge of ink from its leak-proof protective covering and proceeded to click in into its place, when for no apparent reason, the machine came to life.

It is important to understand how a laser jet printer works. These printers consist of three main parts. The first is main unit or the outer-casing, which basically holds all the mechanics together. Then there are the electronics, which receive messages from the computer and tell the printer where to put the ink on the paper. Then there is the mechanics. On our printer, there are two ink canisters that slide back and forth on a track, spewing ink all over the page.

I remember little from the confusion that ensued. The two cartridges slide back into their printing positions. Because the color ink cartridge was not in place, it became stuck inside the printer. Unfortunately, the electronics was still telling the mechanics to print. Eventually, after much girly screaming on the part of my sister and mother (not mine by the way), my mom pressed the off button, shutting down the power.

After a few tests, my mother realized that the ink cartridge was stuck, and no amount of begging was going to get it to leave its hiding place. My mom took a screw driver and proceeded to tear the printer apart. The outer-casing separated pretty easily, splitting into two parts. Unfortunately, the ink cartridge had completely emptied its contents - all over the inside of the printer. My mom proceed to clean up the mess.

Almost three hours later, the printer was back and working. It makes a peculiar clicking noise whenever it prints, but my mom doesn't mind. She hasn't touched the printer since the incident. We don't know why the printer malfunctioned. I don't think we ever will. I can promise you that no one in our household is going to take apart the printer to find out why it makes that annoying clicking noise.

Everyone's afraid they'll become printerphobic too.