“No, I am Your Bother”

 The kids that were born between 2010 and 2025 are/will be known as Generation Alpha. In zoology, the alpha is the dominant animal in a particular group. In astronomy, alpha is used to describe the brightest star. Personally, I can think of no better adjectives to describe this era early stage earthlings than tough and bright…..

Unfortunately, based on an experience I had this summer, the issue of an obvious ineptitude and oblivious offspring is no longer a problem confined to humankind. 

When I was growing up, my parents had a bit of a building structure and beams called a bird feeder. Now, despite what the name might have one believe, this device was predominantly used for feeding….birds. However, some of the more surly squirrels and cheeky chipmunks could gain access to the outdoor amenities. I can recall many a time poking my head out of the back door going “HEY!” and the critters would do this depressed dive bomb off of the deck like “Ah, man.” 

I have no knowledge of the history behind when humans and our furry friends agreed that this was the course of action we would take. I can’t recall a signing of the Treaty of FurGuy or anyone being held accountable at the Furmberg Trials. What I can tell you is that this agreement has been broken. 

Whether, the squirrel in the following story was male or female I have no idea, I’m not a zoologist, so instead of naming it I am just going to put a 🐿️ (which I am pretty sure is a chipmunk 😏) and you can decide what you want to call it. Although I will throw out names like: My Name Is Squirrel, Squirrel Ives, Squirrelly Joe DeRita, Elizabeth Squirrelly, Squirrelly Temple and Mother of Squirrel. 

Over the summer, I was eating breakfast and looking out at the bird feeder, at that very moment, 🐿️ had made (her or his) way onto the deck and was eyeing the bird feeder. I (reluctantly) got up from the table and made my way over to the door, easing it open. I stuck my head out and mustered up all of the meanness that can come from an individual whose only detentions in school came from unexcused absences and gum chewing and said “HEY!” 🐿️ looks into the woods behind trying to identify the source of the sound. 🐿️ continues the rotation and almost looks startled to see me (which had me flustered before conflict even ensued.) 🐿️ continues to look at me as if to say “Can I help you?” And I was like “Get out of here!” 🐿️ continues to stare unmoved with birdseed falling out of both sides of his/her face as if to say “I think you and I both know that your earliest childhood fear was Alvin getting yelled at in the Alvin and the chipmunks Christmas song and it is not a problem for me to get a couple of buddies up here and make that happen.” 

“I…..I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” 🐿️ could tell that she/he had me on the ropes.

“That doesn’t matter!” I said with a little more pout than I was hoping, mostly trying to reassure myself at this point. “And those are chipmunks, you are a squirrel.” 

“Yeah” 🐿️ said, “I will give you give you five pine needles if you can tell me the difference between the two.” 

“……Ok, first of all, least appealing sales pitch of all time and secondly, I am not arguing with you, I’m going to get the BB gun.” I turned my back and headed towards the door.

“Alright, alright I’ll go.” 🐿️ relented, “but we’ll be back and in greater numbers.” 

I froze with my hand on the door knob and half looked over my shoulder “Wa…..was that….a Star Wars reference?” 

“Yeah.” 🐿️ said bashfully staring down swirling her/his paw in the bird seed on the railing seeming almost ashamed for having made a joke during a confrontational conversation. 

Still not completely turned around I said “I thought it would mean nothing to me to go downstairs, grab my BB gun and send you sailing off the deck, but now……I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” 

🐿️ ‘s eyes lit up and then quickly looked away, embarrassed to have formed a connection with the inhabitant of a home he/she tried to invade. And I did go grab the BB gun and when I returned 🐿️ was gone. While the departure of the other half of this delightful interaction made me sad, I was also relieved, because if I ever see that animal again I know what that means. 

The MBA Draft

 Stores that have those Now Hiring signs that are like “Come join our team” as if people are going to be like “I want to play a game!” Sure, I’ll join the “team” as long as I get to full speed chest bump my coworkers when we complete a task, throw some/all of the materials I work with at some point and every December there is a widely televised report about several prospects that the company is interested in bringing on and the five people most likely not to be there come January.

Arrest Room

 Everyone should go to Pelham house of pizza, their cheese pizza and meat lovers calzone are out of this world and the following is in no way a defamatory shot at the establishment 

I went to pick something up at PHOP and towards the back of the dining area there is a door with a sign on it that reads “No public restrooms. Please don’t ask.” 

I laugh every time I see it. Why is that a two sentence message? I mean I am all for unnecessary rambling, but why are you getting so defensive? It’s like, this is not a bathroom, some of us don’t even know what is back here and we don’t want to talk about it, ok? 

I have three theories:

1. The door leads to a secret land called Carnia where ingredients are made cheaply and deliciously and they don’t want their competitors to find out about this huge advantage they have in ingredients shipping time 

2. They don’t fire employees, but every month they choose a worst performing employee, tape up their mouth and limbs and throw them in there 

3. There is a Walter White situation, the business is a front and they are cooking more than just pizza 

Again, the food is delicious, you should definitely go there and after you have purchased something, you should get all panicked and wide eyed and please PLEASE ask if they have a bathroom.

Dehumanifier

 Gossip, secrets and rumors definitely make me uncomfortable, but I recently learned that I get equally on edge when I walk into the basement to the whirring of the dehumidifier and it cuts out the second I reach the bottom of the stairs and all that is left is just this uncomfortable, awkward borderline suspicious level of silence. I just glance over at the inanimate, inaudible appliance like "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" 

I don't mean to revamp any AI invasion arguments, I am just saying, be careful out there people, I think they are planning something.

Babbleonian

 I found this while going through some boxes in the attic at my parent's house. We could talk about the hair, but we are not going to. I was never an artist and I know that. Instead, I would like to focus on what I (and my mother) believe to be letters put together in an attempt to form words.    

I am now convinced that every parent of a child deserves at least honorary (if not a legitimate) bachelor's degree in Linguistics specializing in the study of endangered/extinct languages. Every teacher deserves a master's degree and every teacher who is also a parent should get a PhD, because to me this looks like someone was woken from a deep sleep, blindfolded, given seventeen cups of coffee and then they were asked to draw what the inside of a pinball machine looks like.

Die Yard

 I don't mean to brag, but I have the looks of a movie star. After a day of working outside being hit in the face by branches from trees that are clearly looking for revenge from the years they spent being unintended casualties in paintball battles, slamming my knees on rocks covered in leaves and sneezing my head off, I definitely resemble Bruce Willis towards the end of the Die Hard movies. So, be on the lookout for my screenplay debut, Die Yard. 

Ballpark Figures

 While I can honestly say that I have done my part on all of the group assignments/projects I had been assigned in school, there is one "team effort" I claim that I in fact had little to nothing to do with.

I was probably about eight years old, and we went to visit family in Michigan. My Uncle Bob stopped being a loser for once in his life (don't worry about it) and took us to a Detroit Tigers game. The Detroit Tigers were playing the Tampa Bay Rays at the now extinct, Tiger Stadium. In the sixth inning, the Tampa Bay Rays hit a ball deep to left field which was right where we were sitting. Now, I have gone for a ride on some respiratory system roller coasters in my life, I have seen Braveheart, watched the Red Sox come back from being down 0-3 in the ALCS and seen the Patriots emerge victorious after being down 28-3. This moment was more of an emotional "El Toro" than all of them. I got excited as a player connected with the ball and hit it deep, I got bummed out when I remembered it was a Tampa Bay Rays player and I got really afraid as the ball headed right for our section. My dad put his hand up and knocked it down (a pain he complains about to this day.) The ball proceeded to fall between a folded-up seat in front of us and my brother and another family's chosen fighter dove for it. The Wootang Clan emerged victorious. To this day, my brother will not talk about what happened underneath those seats on the floor planted with popcorn and budding with beer stains that night. Every time I ask, "What was it like, Michael?" He sits still, appears to look right through me, takes a drag on cigarette that seems to have appeared out of nowhere and says "...don't worry about it." What was I doing, you ask? I was sipping on my $12 water, and I am happy to say I only have three payments left on the hot dog, the reason for the markup on the dog I was eating was due to the fact that the pork used in these particular bundled up bunches of meat were from Ancient Egypt and had been blessed by Isis and much like that quote, the meat had aged very poorly. I get to tell people this happened, but as far as my involvement I was not a main character, a supporting character or anything like that. I figured for my part in all of this I would stick to being who I am, an author. 

Pee For This

 I just got the closest I will experience to headlining a UFC event in my life.

I walked out of Market Basket, got in my car and felt the unmistakable urge that comes with Dunkin Donuts coffee divebombing through my digestive system. I thought to myself "It's a fifteen minute drive, I will be fine." I will admit, I was a bit arrogant given my history of dozens of one stop drives to Michigan giving my bladder an air of invincibility, couple that with my career change into education, I thought I was indestructible. The moment the seatbelt squeezed against my stomach, I knew I had made a mistake. I pulled out of the parking lot and put my winter coat on. If you recall, yesterday was rather warm, but I proceeded to turn the heat on in my car thinking I could sweat out the side effects of my incessant coffee sipping. I don't know if this is how that sort of thing works, I'm not a urologist. However, at the very least I thought that the uncomfortable nature of my environment would create an effective aversion to my current obstacle. I felt like a fighter trying to cut weight. You have seen the videos, where they show a Boston area brawler in a sauna on an exercise bike while wearing a space suit, gobbling down ghost peppers while being shown video of the ball bypassing Bill Buckner as someone whispers "David Tyree" in his ear. I may never know what it feels like to have an undefeated fight record, but my seats remain spotless and at this point that is good enough for me. 

Lunchtime Report

 Halftime shows are so weird. It's like "Hey, while these professional athletes rest, let's have some people who used to do their job go over what they did right/wrong." Personally, I think if we are going to have this in sports, I would love it if every job implemented this. Like I am just sitting down to lunch and all of a sudden, a bunch of studio lights kick on and a desk rises up from the floor and this lady is like "Hi, I'm Dr. Fox and alongside me are Ms. Law, Mr. Tobin and Mr. Dugan and today we are going to go over the day film from the first half of Mark, or Mr. M's workday." First of all, in an effort to connect with a student, we clearly heard him use the phrase "hit the griddy" and I believe I speak for everyone here in the studio when I say it would be great to never have our ears subjected to that again. I will say, his background in Cross Country and Track served him well at recess as the kids tired out before he did. We saw him get visibly frustrated as he was helping out with 3rd grade math, but to his credit he did catch himself before saying "You're never going to use this." Coming up, we will see if he can contain what little "coolness" he has left as the class starts the American Civil War unit. Can he keep himself from totally nerding out? Can he suppress the urge to ramble on for five minutes after reading just one paragraph. Let's head back into the classroom and find out.

The WatchSour

 I don't mean to sound like a cranky old man, but what is with technology these days? In order to change the time on my watch I had to simultaneously hold down to buttons and cycle through AM, PM, military time and a stopwatch to set it. Why must we complicate things so much? I choose functionality over number of functions any day of the week. I don't need a watch that tells me how many steps I have taken, the temperature in Azerbaijan and what meal period it is in The Shire, I just need it to tell me the time, is that too much to ask?

The Lights Aren't On (But Somebody's Home)

 3 Ways I can tell I am losing weight

1. The scale has been displaying smaller numbers

2. My clothes are fitting looser

3. The amount of time it has taken for motion sensing lights to kick on when I enter a room seems to have increased.

"Well, looks like all that exercise is pa......" (walks into wall) 😏😏

Judges 7 NIV (Not Including Violence)

 Lyla and Cloé crawled up next to me while I was reading my Bible so I decided to read out loud. Unfortunately, I wasn't reading any of the beautiful Psalms or wisdom from Proverbs, I was reading the book of Judges, which is like the third book I would read to your kids after Good Night Moon and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (which I hear is now If You Give a Mouse Some Celery) and the book said “They also captured two of the Midianite leaders, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was by the Jordan.” So, on the fly I was like "Uhhhh, the men were given opportunity to give themselves up. They were given the right to an attorney. If they couldn't afford one, one would be appointed to them." I did it to protect them, but I know misinterpreting scripture is a real no no so I am sure I will have some answering to do on judgement day, but Krista and Ricardo, let me know when the girls read The Longest Winter then maybe I will follow it up with that.

In The Pocket (No, the other pocket)

 First World Problems: When I am looking for my keys and between my coat, my hoodie, and my pants, I have more pockets than a pool table in the Pingualuit Crater during the Paleogene Period.

Organized Dine

 My world is absolutely shattered. 

(Don't worry, it's fine.) 

I went out for coffee with a few friends this morning. After placing the order, we sat down at our table. Seated across the establishment from us was a young lady sitting and eating a breakfast by herself. No judgement, it just catches the eye like someone bowling by themselves or seeing someone on a single side of a seesaw. My friends and I sipped our coffees and enjoyed conversation. After some time, she cleared her plate, wiped her table and threw out her trash. She then returned to the table and not a moment after keister had hit cushion some oblivious beast approached her, and they shared a tender embrace and took a seat at either side of the table. After leafing through the menu, he ordered his breakfast burrito wrapped in a waffle with Cinnamon Toast Crunch sprinkled on it and she got a friggin' fruit bowl and a water! I have seen behind the scenes movie footage; I saw the broadcast as a newscaster and cameraperson brought us through El Chapo's elaborate escape tunnels. I know that certain shipping companies in the upper hemisphere are not run the way I thought they were. Nothing has blown my mind more and I will never look at life the same after this! I wanted to run over and be like "Don't do it, bro! She is lying to you!" Ladies, I don't want you to "fix it", I just wanted to feel heard, and I appreciate you allowing me that space. Gents, the reason she takes forever to get ready for that reservation for two at 6 is because she has to get back home from a reservation for one at 4.

While this goes against every instinct in my "comedic corpse" I would like to state for the record that how I actually feel about this is that it is a shame that we live in a society where pressures have caused 50% of the population to feel the need to disguise the basic human demand of food consumption. 

The Mark-Woonton Dictionary

 I have seen buildings, bricks, benches, streets and parks named for people. If I were being honest with myself, if something were named for me it would probably be a 40-point font dictionary where every definition starts with the phrase "It's kind of like this thing where...." Just statements that are incredibly vague and unnecessarily wordy and while somewhat entertaining, ultimately unhelpful. You have heard of the Merriam-Webster. However, this summer, get ready for the Mark Woonton dictionary.

Lost in Translation

 If you are ever wondering what happened to the Starbucks Barista who never spelled your name right, they probably moved on to write voicemail transcripts. From the folks who brought me "Mack", "Max" and "Matt." Watch as "Hey Mark, Tyler." Becomes "Hey Margaret, Skyler." For the record, Skyler and I had a great evening of "girl time." 

The Fabric of the Cosmos

 Hidden talents are a funny thing, because someone doesn't know that they have them until they are put in a certain situation or until someone else points it out. I don't mean to brag but given the amount of time I spent untangling video game controllers and headphone cords as a child, given the similar muscle movement, I feel as though it is only a matter of time before I bring home a national championship in knitting (if there is such a thing.) In fairness, out of habit I may get five minutes in and then throw it across the room screaming "I JUST WANT TO PLAY MARIOKART!!"

Aged and Confused

 I felt old in 2018 when I saw that seniors graduating high school were born in the 2000s. I feel old when I hear words like "situationship" and have to Google what it means. However, nothing will make me feel older than receiving the two checks from a restaurant and seeing the one that says, "merchant copy." There is always this split-second where I am like "Did I pull up to this place in a longboat wearing a toga and sandals and am I about to pay for this with coins that have Julius Ceasar's profile on them?" I would not bash this without offering an alternative so places could just say "store copy, customer copy" "our copy, your copy." If it's a Harry Potter themed restaurant the patron's copy would say "“Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go” and the restaurants copy would say "I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been burned — or worse, fired." At a Lord of the Rings themed restaurant the establishment's copy would say "For Frodo" and the customers copy would say "Mine. My own. My precious."

Taking Inventory

 After running on the treadmill, the screen was like "Do you want to share your workout on Facebook?" I was like "Ummm, no I would not." (Although I kind of just did 😏) However, I would be open to sharing that information as long as I was also asked if I wanted to share the stats of my use of other household appliances on Facebook. Imagine stuff popping up on your timeline like "This week Mark averaged vacuuming 2 1/2 carpeted rooms before realizing he had the vacuum set to "hardwood" the entire time." This week, items put in the toaster included 1 1/2 bagels, 4 waffles, 2 pancakes and one timid tenedor to dislodge a charred toaster strudel from 2001. The lint trap averaged "one life-size Chewbacca" in weight before I emptied it. Lastly, for the umpteenth week in a row your Top 3 "Badly Blurted Out Bathroom Bangers" were : 

3. Billy Joel - Piano Man 

2. Cedric Neal and Olly Dobson - It's Only a Matter of Time 

1. Patrick Mayberry - Lead on Good Shepherd

What's Your Slogan

 I was walking through a store a few days ago and their phone rang, and a cashier answered with the energy and enthusiasm of Ben Stein at an all-nighter in Lubbock, Texas. The employee proceeded to say the company slogan that was something to the effect of "Hello, this is ecstatic artistry where we are amped up to empower artists." The words and tone just did not match at all. I know we are all entitled to "off days" and this got me thinking, I wish everyone had to answer their phone with a "slogan" of sorts. Something that says "Hey, you've reached me and here is everything you need to know about my personality, values and overall essence." Unfortunately, given my infamously poor memory, the fact that most of the people who attempt to get in touch with me are already in my contact list and that ever so brief window of time between when I look at my phone and put it to my ear, my slogan would probably be "Hi, this is Mark. May I ask who is calling?"

What would your slogan be? (Let it go to voicemail??

Squalleyball

 If any adults in Education are feeling inept about their ability to connect with their students, listen up! If any parent feels out of the loop in furthering their relationship with their child, read on for a comforting confession of conflict-resolution that will most likely leave one saying "Hey, at least I have not done THAT!" 

At youth group we were playing nine square which is like a hybrid between four square and volleyball, because there are over double the number of squares and the ball is hit up through the squares instead of down. The makers of the game rejected the initial name of Squalleyball because of the number of inebriated boat captains and peg-legged pirates that showed up to the initial match given a misinterpretation of the names meaning. While I was not personally involved in the marketing of the game, based on my experience I can only imagine their slogan is something like "Hey, are you too short for basketball, but would still like to experience all of the fun of a torn ACL that comes from landing wrong after going up for a rebound?? Have we got a game for you!" I know us vertically challenged people like to say things like "I'm not short, I'm fun sized" and "God only builds people until they are perfect." Personally, I have never gotten "dunked" on in nine square and recounted the event to my friends as "fun" and I highly doubt that God is watching "Spiritual Sportscenter" sees me get spiked in the face and thinks "Perfect! Just the way I drew it up!"  So, one afternoon I am waiting in line talking to one of the senior high students about his plans after high school. He says "I am joining the marines." After sifting through my cerebellum and finding a similar subject to keep the conversation going I selected and said out loud "Oh, I watched the Army vs Navy football game this weekend." I thought, he mentioned a branch of the military and I mentioned two, so, if anything I am "up" 2-1. I then patiently waited for him to return the volley of the vibration of vocal cords. He looked at me blankly as if to say "I told you I am going to serve my country and you responded by telling me someone served you pizza....." and I thought "YES! Another similarity." So again, to anyone reading this, you may feel "uncool" or "out of touch" take some confidence and comfort from knowing that you have not done that.