Stop Making Yourself Unhappy, Unless It Involves Green Alien Women Doing Sexy Dances

“Bob, it won’t kill you. But it will make you very sore.” – Real Men

I promise, I try to have a point on alternate weeks.

The difference between what reality actually is and the way that you think reality should be can make you crazy. It’s not unusual – I think it’s the way we’re wired as humans. We have a big brain, and we can imagine things. I, for instance, can imagine a world in peace where people just leave me alone, taxes don’t exist, and Joseph Stalin and communism are as hated as Britney Spears and the IRS.

Yeah. I can imagine it. But I won’t hold my breath. Some of the stuff the world throws at me makes me pretty mad, if I allow myself to sit and think about it. You’ll notice I used the word “allow” – because that’s what it is – allowing myself to dwell on something that makes me mad. Honestly, I’ll admit it: sometimes I go online just to find a story that makes me angry, probably because it’s a substitute for a pacemaker that doesn’t require electricity. So, yes, anger keeps my heart beating on alternate Wednesdays when I run low on coffee.

The sad part is that most anger is a wasted emotion. Most of life just is. Nothing you can do can change it. On many things trying to change it is even worse than the original problem. We started out with a Depression in 1930, but ended up with a World War. See? Not a real good trade. Oh, wait, we got the space program out of it.

However, I’ll also tell you that you just can’t ignore everything in life and just say mañana, as attractive as that may sound at 5AM on a Monday morning. So, you can’t care about everything, but you also can’t ignore everything. It sounds like a paradox, like how the Kardashians became famous for being famous, but give me a second to explain. I’m a trained professional.

For me, it comes down to having a list of criteria.

Does it matter? In reality, most things really don’t matter one way or another. If they’re out of strawberry topping for your hamburger, it doesn’t matter. You might remember tomorrow, but you certainly won’t remember next week. You won’t remember when you’re 80. Rule of thumb? If you won’t remember it next year, it isn’t important.

Does your action make a difference? You may be a Flat-Earther© and believe that everyone on Earth should move away from the horribly illogical heliocentric model that has no evidence behind it. No matter what actions they take, they won’t make a difference. I mean, because they’re nuts.

Is it a matter of principle? Not everything is. Giordano Bruno (Jordan Brown in English) is a dead Italian who got burned at the stake due to heresy on February 17, 1600, at the age of 52-ish, so you know he pissed somebody with a cool hat off. The funny thing is that if you go to the Wikipedia page on Bruno, it makes him look like Carl Sagan crossed with Barack Obama. He questioned all Christian dogma (which makes him the darling of the Left) while arguing for an infinite Universe and used the Copernican model of our Solar System to predict that there would be planets around other stars. Genius!

But Wikipedia skips gently around the fact that he didn’t like Christ – he liked Hermes, and was a fan of reintroducing Egyptian gods. Today, he’s revered as a Gnostic saint. And, really, if anyone starts the name of their sect with a silent “G”, do we really want give them any gcredence? I thought gnot.

Even though Bruno picked a really stupid thing to die about, at least he had some pretty fierce words to say to people who thought they could tell him what to do:

It is immoral to hold an opinion in order to curry another’s favor; mercenary, servile, and against the dignity of human liberty to yield and submit; supremely stupid to believe as a matter of habit; irrational to decide according to the majority opinion, as if the number of sages exceeded the number of fools.

Jordan Brown, er, Giordano Bruno seems to think pretty highly of his own opinion. But the sentiment is a good one. One I’ll buy, unless it’s about running out of strawberry topping for my hamburger. That’s probably not a hill I’m willing to die on. Unless they were out of ketchup, too.

I bought Giordano’s book, Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, and started to read it. After I realized that it would take me two years of study of ancient Egyptian mythology, ancient Greek mythology, astrology, and 16^th Century European politics to decipher it, I decided to read a book where aliens wanted to drop a meteorite on Earth instead. At least I understood that the aliens wanted to come to earth because they liked our women as much as we do.

No, not hot alien girls. But, in a pinch that’ll do.

But Giordano has a point – there is a place where principle wins above all. It may not be this hill we’re willing to die on, but we have to be willing to die on some hill, even if we can’t win. If you’re not willing to die on that stupid hill where it’s a beautiful, pointless, stupid gesture? You’re not fully human, and would probably sell me out for a pack of Juicy Fruit® gum. For your sake, I hope you know where your hill is, or can find it. Even (shudder) if it involves astrology. Jesus, Bruno was an idiot.

The alternate view is that the future belongs to those that show up, so, pick that hill carefully. Giordano picked his. And he really did die on it. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have kids, but he did show up for the future, in the most potent way possible: with his ideas. If I could go back in time I wouldn’t kill Stalin or Lenin. Nope. I’d kill Marx – he was a fat guy who never had a job and was probably smelly because he couldn’t properly clean out his bodily crevices in Victorian England, but his ideas . . . his ideas have killed millions. But more about those tools on Monday.

By the way, finding a stupid name like Jordan Brown (sorry, dude) could sound so much like someone who commanded a tank division, I looked up John Wilder in Italian, and it would be Giovanni Feroce. Which is really badass. But it’s not Latin, which would probably sound something like Giovannius Maximus Feroci. Yeah. Like commander of a tank, designed by Ferrari® to fight grizzly bears. I can deal with that. Except Italians can’t seem to keep the oil on the inside of the engine.

The Boy put this together. He does indicate that he works for Ramen®. His favorite is beef, but he will do chicken. Shrimp? You’re not making any friends there. Stick with land animals.

Here are the zones:

Zone 1: This is the most important zone: you can change it. It matters. It’s a matter of principle. This, with no humor added, is the definition of the hill you can die on.

Yes, it’s a Microsoft® Office™ meme. No, I’m not proud about it.

Zone 2: You can change it. The best definition of this is “It’s the principle of the thing.” It’s not important. This is the Zone inhabited by Karens.

And my real readers would never complain.

Zone 3: It matters. It’s a matter of principle. But you can’t change it. I think this is what Twitter® accounts are for? Also? Maybe sometimes this is a good hill to die on, too.
Zone 4: It’s a matter of principle. And it doesn’t matter. And you can’t change it. I think this is the MySpace© of issues.
Zone 5: It matters, you can change it, but it’s not a matter of principle. So, you know, get up and mow your lawn. Or at least stay off mine.
Zone 6: It matters, you can’t change it. Ignore it. Triggered people live here, and I know you don’t want to live like Trigglypuff.

I remember when the word “triggered” had nothing to do with people unable to contain emotions just because someone said something naughty. But I also remember when dudes didn’t win girl’s high school track meets.

Zone 7: You can change it. It’s not principle. It doesn’t matter. This sounds a lot like FaceBook®. If you use it, keep in mind you’re keeping Zuckerberg in sippy cups while he sits on his high chair.

Thankfully Congress got him a sippy cup.

Inadvertently, I seem to have come up with actual advice that might help you if you’re sane enough to follow it. Who knew? Nah, who am I kidding? Go nuts. Literally. It seems to work for AntiFa®.

Dependence, Freedom, and Toddler Hammer Fighting

“I’ve been kidnapped by K-mart!” – Ruthless People

I love George, going out of his way to join the English for breakfast and all.

I frustrate my children a lot. A lot. Here’s an example from 2018:

The Boy, Pugsley, and I are out shooting. Fun times. Heck, here’s even a description of that particular day (12 Strong Movie Review, Exploding Tide Bottles, Rifles, and Significance). When we finally got home, it was nearly dark. I handed The Boy a cleaning kit and the AR-15 and .22 we’d been shooting.

“Clean these.”

I didn’t explain how. I gave a short lecture on ammunition safety and “always treat it like it’s loaded” and “don’t get involved in a land war in Asia” and “don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill,” and “never trust a liberal with your rifles.” I even checked the rifles to make sure they were empty.

I handed The Boy a cleaning kit, and walked away.

“How do I do this?” He was talking to the back of my head as headed down the hall.

“You figure it out.” I heard The Boy’s long-suffering sigh as I went into my bedroom.

Ten minutes later I was walking back through the dining room and was pleased to see he’d already disassembled the weapon. Ten minutes later when I walked back through he was putting the finishing touches on a cleaned and lubricated AR-15. I gave it a look, cycled the action. Smooth.

The Boy had done a good job. I told him so. He looked proud.

Dads. We just love to share the work . . .

I know that when I tossed that task to him with little information, he was irritated. That makes sense – we’re all that way. I also knew that it probably took longer than it would have if I would have done it myself. It certainly took longer than it would have if I would have spent the time going step by step, leading The Boy through cleaning the rifle. It wasn’t really efficient.

But if I wanted efficiency, I wouldn’t have taken either The Boy or Pugsley shooting. I would have done it all myself, the shooting, the cleaning, all of it. But because my goal is to teach my children that there’s no shortcut, and the only way out is through I took them. They were the point of the whole trip. Their struggle was the goal. Their prize?

Independence.

Sure, we’re dependent upon a lot of things.

Air.
Insulin. The Mrs. says that if you don’t have a functioning pancreas you need this. I say she’s just weak for not being able to kick the habit.
Sweet, sweet PEZ®. I mean, it’s PEZ™, right?
Food, at least on alternate weeks (The Last Weight Loss Advice You’ll Ever Need, Plus a Girl in a Bikini Drinking Water).
Other people.
Occasional sips of water.

And those are all reasonable things to be dependent on. I guess. But there are some things that are much more corrosive to the soul. Most of them are self-explanatory, some less so.

Parental handouts.
Government handouts.
The opinions of other people.
Alcohol.
Anti-PEZ®
Paychecks.

I’m against being dependent upon those things, and I want to make sure I make my kids strong so that they’ll have that reserve of strength when something unexpected happens. You never know what’s going to come at you, because life is like a weightlifting toddler, short and hard. I guess you could say I went to the Charles Darwin School of Parenting:

John Wilder: “The child will eat if it has the will to eat.”

The Mrs.: “But it’s only three hours old.”

John Wilder: “Why do you coddle it so? Do you want to make it weak?”

I’m probably the only person who thinks toddler hammer fighting would be funny. But I think it’s really funny.

But the approach has paid dividends for those children that survived. I turned control of the mowing of the yard for Stately Wilder Manor over to Pugsley some time ago. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he knows much more about the mower than I do. My role in the house has been changed from decision maker to provider. Pugsley tells me what he needs for the mower, and I get it. He fixes it. Pugsley has even re-wired one of the safety systems on the mower – when you get off the mower, it’s supposed to kill the engine as soon as your butt leaves the seat. Not anymore. Pugsley has defeated that safety device.

I’m hoping it doesn’t defeet him. I’d hate to have throw him a block of wood and a knife so he could whittle himself some wooden feet. When it comes to my kids, I’m attempting to use everyday situations to create radical independence. I’m a fan of the old Robert Heinlein maxim:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

I expect my children to be able to do all of that. If I can help them be competent, I may or may not have been a good parent, but I’ll have met my own goal. One of the proudest moments of my life to date was when my eldest child, Alia S. Wilder and I were arguing about her college major, Medieval French Basket Weaver Equity Studies. Her response to me?

“Listen, Pop, it’s my degree, it’s my choice, and I’m paying for it, every cent, so if you don’t like my major, tough.”

Game, set and match: Alia. That’s the sort of independence that makes a parent proud. I suppose I could have paid for her school. But last time she was down to visit, she thanked me. “You know, by you letting me find my way, it means more.”

I then told her, “I’m proud of you.” She cried. Then we had a Lifetime® TV moment and some International Coffee™ or whatever it is they advertise on Lifetime©.

I mean, seriously. Straight lines, people.

The other side of the coin, however, is the conscious creation of dependence. This is commonly achieved by using manipulation, guilt, low self-esteem, anxiety, and fear. I’ve seen it done to people.

Fear is the key. Some parents hobble children, in a conscious or sub-conscious attempt to keep them dependent. The downside is that this dependence creates resentment. How many times do people, when given something for nearly nothing complain that you’re not doing enough? Since 1964, the welfare system has cost taxpayers more than three times the total cost of all wars that the United States has ever fought. All wars – every single one of them. Yet poverty hasn’t gone down at all, and the people in poverty hate those they are dependent upon. They know that they are indebted, and they are both slaves to the system, as well as haters of the system.

Once you’ve got a grievance, it’s never enough. Someone always has it better, so why don’t you deserve what they have? This is the consequence of free stuff. A trip to Wal-Mart® might cost you $221.32 if you pick up the two-fer bag of charcoal, but free stuff costs you your soul.

“Give me liberty or give me medicare?”

It’s ironic that the surest form of enslavement occurs not with a whip and a lash (though I imagine those really suck, because outside of bondage clubs on the East and West Coast, not a lot of sane people like that stuff) but with voluntarily accepting kindness. Generosity. Free stuff.

You’ll notice I put paycheck into that list up above, too. For those almost every one of my readers, the paycheck isn’t a problem. You work hard. You pay your dues. You’re compensated fairly. You go home without a chip on your shoulder, without blaming the rest of the world for your job. Beware: once a person starts feeling like they’re a victim, that someone owes them that check, they’re deep into the free stuff zone.

It’s as true today as when Pop Wilder repeated it to me again and again when I was growing up, “What you work for matters to you. If you have to spend your own money, you’ll take care of it. Because it’s yours.” The most costly thing I could ever give them . . . is free.

I paid attention. I hope my kids have. And if only I could get The Mrs. to give up that weakness of hers, insulin. She should “just say no.”

Four Questions That Describe The Meaning of Life

“Well, that’s the end of the film. Now, here’s the meaning of life.” – Monty Python, Meaning of Life

I heard that someone told the Dalai Lama this joke and he didn’t get it. Which is makes it even funnier.

I was busy trying to adjust my phone to listen to a podcast while driving and pouring coffee the other day, and it hit me like a ticket for inattentive driving: There are only four questions that are worth asking. I found that to be amazing, since I have hundreds of note cards with ideas for posts on them in boxes waiting for the right day for me to write them up. So how do I condense most of those ideas as answers to four questions?

I was worried that this was too simple. I bounced back and forth between three questions and four questions, but finally settled on four questions. They were simple questions, and the first one that occurred to me is the first one on this list.

What brought us here?
Who are we?
What is this place?
Where are we going?

Originally I had a fifth question, but then I found my keys. Under my hat. Again. Also, when I use the word “us” in this post, it’s certainly meant to include everyone. Everyone except Johnny Depp. He knows why.

But these are big questions. As I thought a bit about it, these are the questions that drive me to write this blog, with the exception of the odd post here and there.

What brought us here?

This was the first question, and it hit me as I was working out the ideas for a future post in my head. It hit me like an angry wet salmon wearing a bear suit. At its core, this questions the all of the conditions that led to our present state. All of them. It questions the way that we are – as individuals, as groups, as a species.

I would have sworn that Washington had a blue lightsaber.

This is only a four word question, but it’s a really big four word question. Thankfully, it’s simple to answer. All you need to understand it is the answers to any questions you can think of in these subjects:

All of human history.
All of physics.
How PEZ® was invented.
All of the history of the universe.

So, the question is very short, and the answer is very long.

We still don’t know many answers to questions that are fundamental about each of these subjects. One time I was talking to The Mrs. back around 2000. My exact quote to her was, “The Mrs., I’m willing to bet that one day they find that we have Neanderthal ancestors. I think that the reason why I came to that conclusion was based on me. I’m pale. I can sunburn under the glare from an LED computer monitor.

That sort of pale didn’t happen overnight. Along with other physical observations I’d made, it just seemed the most logical conclusion that Neanderthal wasn’t extinct. Neanderthal was us.

So when the DNA evidence came back and, eventually, showed that most European-descended people had Neanderthal DNA I wasn’t surprised. And I’m not surprised now when I hear that our most basic assumptions about the way that things like physics work are subject to change – massive change.

An example:

At CERN (where they smash atoms together like a tipsy celebutant celebrating that her parents purchased her way into USC™ smashes daddy’s Mercedes© into a mom’s parked Ferrari®) they recently celebrated, with campaign(!), that they had discovered a particle symmetry violation between anti-matter and regular matter.

If Vinnie drops a car on Frank’s car, neglecting air resistance and assuming g=9.81m/s . . .

That’s a lot of words for a very basic thing – let me break it down a bit. The Universe that we see is comprised almost entirely of normal matter, not anti-matter. But the Big Bang® should have produced equal quantities of both, so where did the anti-matter go? This is a pretty significant question, since anti-matter explodes with the force of a billion bipolar ex-wives (GigaX) when it comes into contact with normal matter. It’s really good for us that we don’t have this anti-matter going around and wanting alimony payments, but there’s no real reason that the Big Bang™ didn’t produce equal quantities of both.

This discovery from CERN might explain why my ex-wife anti-matter is thankfully rare in our environment. It appears that anti-matter doesn’t follow the same physical laws that matter does. This is the first time we’ve figured that out, but we don’t know how it’s different. But think just for a second – what if you could have a substance that wanted to fall up instead of down? That was anti-magnetic? That could coat, soothe, and protect a sore throat?

Yes. This discovery could provide technologies that we haven’t even dreamed about, but most people have never heard about it. Thankfully we’re all up to date on Kardashians, though.

Thankfully there’s tons of things left to discover, both about ourselves and about the Universe that we can safely ignore while we are Keepin’ up with the Kardashians.

Who are we?

I got this question down to three words. See what a ruthless self-editor I am? This question opens up a lot of today’s biggest mysteries:

How the human body works.
How the brain works.
What consciousness is.
If people have souls.
Why 80% of the world is silly and watches soccer.
What health is.
Immortality – anything besides a great three-letter-score in Scrabble®?
What motivates us.
Why we do the things we do.

I’ll admit, some of these questions do have overlap – the question of “What brought us here?” overlaps some with “Who are we?” Ancestors are crucial to both, for instance. Protip: since you inherit somewhere between 60% and 80% of our intelligence, the first thing you should strive to do is to convince your mom to pick a smart dad for you.

But even given thousands of researchers spending billions of dollars annually, the primary positive impacts to health in the last 150 years have been clean water, better nutrition, antiseptic surgical conditions, and antibiotics. Newspaper stories keep showing up about the immortality around the corner, but I haven’t even seen one fifty year old mouse, and we can cure any kind of mice-cancer at this point.

No, thanks, eyes are fine. And I’ll skip the colonoscopy, thank you.

Thankfully, medical science can all of the questions about why humans are like they are.

Except for the interesting ones.

What is this place?

Our surroundings are curious. There is the world and cosmos we live in, but there are also the civilizations we’ve made. How does all of it work?

What virtue is.
Where virtue comes from.
What societies work well for humanity.

This is the question I could (sort of) cram back into the other three, but I felt it was important enough because of the great deal of discord in society today, and the uncertainty about the future of what we’ve made. Understanding the ability for humans to govern themselves and live together is crucial, and we still haven’t gotten the knack yet.

Where are we going?

This is the final question, the future. The mysteries of the future are different. The past and present are set, the future is undecided, wrapped in probability. What are the big questions, the big unknowns of the future? This question is easy to answer if we just know:

The fate of ourselves.
The fate of our civilizations.
The fate of humanity.
The fate of life itself.
Physics (all of it), again.

I’ve mentioned religion twice. Though it’s not a constant part of posting, it’s a very important component in understanding these questions, especially the ones where I’ve listed it. And religion is important as a philosophical construct – it has been the largest single influence on humanity in all of recorded history, and probably before that. Beyond religion as pure philosophy, there is that possibility that deity as contemplated by religion exists, and maybe even close to what is on the label. Science certainly hasn’t ruled that possibility out.

Does a bear answer trivia questions in the woods?

But in 2000, they had ruled out the possibility that we were part Neanderthal, or at least that was the general consensus.

So you never know what we’ll learn in the future. And it looks like I’ve got plenty to write about, and with the amount of Neanderthal blood I have, probably some mammoth to catch and some caves to paint.

How I Got Into Debt, Trench Warfare, and an End of the World Cult You Can Believe In

“Well, if you don’t like that, try some Archduke Chocula.” – Futurama

After World War One, the phrase, “Happy as a Hapsburg in Serbia” fell out of favor, as did the “Hair Smile” style of mustache.

I’ve already told the story about digging out of debt. In retrospect, it seems to me that all of those stories end up sounding the same: “I weighed six hundred pounds, my kitchen floor was covered in dirty dishes and cat food, and I had $3.7 million in debt until I found Wildernetics© and the First Church of PEZology™. Look at me now!”

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part One). These are from a soldier’s joke newspaper, The Wiper’s (a mangling of Ypres) Times, produced for soldiers by soldiers that found an abandoned printing press.

I know my methods can solve everything, but today I had a crazy idea. How about spending some time talking about how I got into debt in the first place? I know that might cut into the revenue of the Wildernetics© End of the World Cult and Take-Out BarBeQue Restaurant®, but I figure you might come back for the brisket. It’s very tender.

I’ll quit teasing. How did I get into debt? First a little. Then all at once.

Let me rewind a whole marriage. As regular readers will know, The Mrs. was not the first, but she is the final spouse. My first marriage was an example of a series of escalating poor mutual decisions where each side seemed to lack a brief moment of sanity to back out before anyone got hurt, sort of like the run up to World War I. Even before Archduke Franz Ferdinand proved that .380 ACP was a useful round against Hapsburgs and their notably gelatinous bones, World War I was inevitable. Before I said “I do” everything was in place for the trench warfare of future divorce.

Okay, I apologize for this joke. I think it violated the Geneva Convention.

But, rewinding. After graduating college I got married and got a starter job, which is to say I had a job that just barely paid the bills. Nearly exactly. In fact, after working at the job for a few months, we were exactly (most months) at zero. We weren’t saving any money yet, but we also weren’t in the red. Success. My credit card limit was 10,000 . . . Siberian Lira. This was equivalent to a whole bright and shiny quarter. This helped me stay debt free.

Then came the table.

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part Two), this one is for James.

We had a dining room table. It wasn’t great, and the chairs that came with it were a bit ratty – the vinyl arms had been slammed into the table often enough that it looked like a pack of rabid Chihuahuas had spent their lives sitting on the chair seats and gnawing on the arms. I imagine them growling and chewing in unison as they sat around the table, like Viking Chihuahua rowers. Most all of our furniture was second hand or gifted, but the table really was the biggest eyesore.

Okay, this one isn’t mine, but I couldn’t resist.

At some point discipline broke. I know how silly it sounds to say that now, but back then, month after month of not buying anything but actual necessities takes more discipline than Elizabeth Warren around a tribal gathering. Eventually I gave in. We bought the table. Using debt. Back then, individual stores would give you amazing credit limits just to buy their crap. They gave us more than enough credit to buy that table, and with the money I saved from shipping the Chihuahuas back to Denmark, I figured we’d be money ahead.

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part Three).

The table was only $500, but the difference between having no debt (outside of a mortgage) and having debt, even a small one, was a huge psychological hurdle for me. It’s like having a doughnut when you’re doing low carb. “I got weak had one doughnut, so I might as well have, say, 36. And do you have any whipped cream I could just guzzle straight from the can? I broke my diet, and don’t want to waste it.” Pretty soon other nice to have things showed up, very few of which I still own today. But I had crossed that mental barrier from peace (debt free) to war (spend away!). Suddenly, the credit card companies realized I had debt, and immediately wanted to lend me more money. My credit limits tripled.

I hope that this doesn’t sound like I’m blaming The Ex. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, I was fully complicit. Ultimately the debt grew faster than my wages. This led to the idea of grad school: I could get free tuition plus be a paid graduate assistant. Would it work?

Sure. There were also student loans. Free money! Oops.

Okay, let’s all admit that Nachos Bellgrande® is NOT a war crime.

Proof that I am a reincarnated World War One soldier (Part Four).

There were some places along the way that I could have gotten off the merry-go-round. When I sold that first house to move for a new, post-grad school job, we’d made a stunning 40% profit in three years. It would have more than paid off a good chunk of my student loans. Nope, that would have made too much sense. We did pay down a little debt and bought a new house, putting down the minimum down payment.

But most of the money was just spent. About this time I also had one of the worst ideas I’d ever had in my life. The Ex and I were always arguing about money, and about the thermostat – I knew that 50°F in winter and 90°F in summer were reasonable temperatures, but The Ex disagreed. Well, if she had to pay the bills, she would certainly understand how tight money was. Right?

No.

We had a different view of not only household temperature, but the idea that one should pay monthly bills, well, monthly. I didn’t figure this out for three years, by which time I owed enough money to qualify as a third world country, but one of the nice, mainly atrocity-free ones. Mainly.

Taco Bell® inspired outfits?

Debt is like George Washington’s description of fire, it’s an amazing tool, but a fearful master. My advice is to pay all of your bills in full, monthly. I know that the people who own your debt disagree. Why? They want you to have debt, as much as you can pay.

I had a friend (since passed away in an accident) who I called Batman© on this blog (“I’m Batman,” – Batman, in Batman). He had one particular investment that was worth about $12 million – a series of apartments. He had paid the apartments off before they were even built by selling future property tax credits to other businesses. Yeah, that kind of friend.

But he viewed his tenants as slaves (his term), who went to work daily so they could send him money every week. I heard him use exactly that phrase to describe them. He liked his tenants, and was a good landlord. However, he knew the score: when they went to work each day, they went to work so they could pay him.

And Batman was a good guy and he taught kids that debt was a form of slavery of ordinary people to wealthy guys just like him, not that they always listened.

My marriage to The Ex? That particular marriage is proof of the old Henny Youngman joke:

“Why are divorces expensive?”

“They’re worth it.”

Yeah, divorce just STARTS the argument.

The day she moved out was one of the happiest days for both of us.

I was still digging myself out of debt when I met The Mrs. As our relationship blossomed, I thought it was only fair to tell her of the debt that I had.

“The Soon To Be The Mrs., I have something to tell you. You might want to sit down.”

The Soon To Be The Mrs. looked shaken. She sat. I told her about my debt. She laughed.

“Is that all? I thought you were going to tell me you’d been in prison.”

No, not prison. But I still owe reparations payments to France.

Washington: Musk, Patton, and Jack Daniels all Rolled into . . . the ONE

“I, George Washington, born in 1492, freer of the slaves, and the first president of this, our country, though savagely impeached for the shooting of Abe Lincoln, I will lead us into the demise of all humans!” – Home Movies

General George Washington, 1776, when he was about 44 years old. 44 years old, a billionaire, a war hero from the French and Indian War, and now commanding a rebel group fighting the largest superpower in the world. Hmmm. Maybe that’s why all that stuff is named for him?

There is a time for fighting valiantly and dieting. Then there exists the Thanksgiving/Christmas nexus. I’ve been generally trying to minimize the carb content of what I eat, but Thanksgiving? Yeah, I’m having pumpkin pie. And stuffing. And mashed potatoes. And might drink a bit of gravy. Just a quart or two. Not from the gravy boat – I have standards. I have standards . . . and a mug. A great gravy mug.

Yes, I have willpower, but Thanksgiving and Christmas are more difficult times to stick to diets. So, I don’t. And I don’t spend a lot of time feeling guilty about it, but it’s also a good time to reflect that eating different things changes my mood.

If I’ve had enough potatoes to feed the Soviet Army, I know that I’ll feel differently both physically and mentally. Sugar is similar. Ditto with bread.

So, how do I feel different physically? For me, when I eat carbs I tend to retain a LOT more water. It’s my theory that it’s used to think out my blood so it flows better than maple syrup. When I jump back into the low carb regimen, I know that for the first few days I will dump water faster than the democrats dumped Al Franken.

I’m pretty sure that the extra water does NOT do anything really good for me.

How do I feel different mentally? Again, for me the low carb (very low, like none) zaps me into a state of clarity and stability. Stuff just doesn’t bother me as much. And I seem to get better sleep.

But one thing that’s wonderful about the Holidays is . . . George Washington.

George was really tall for his time and place, and strong enough that he could crush walnuts in his bare hand. British walnuts. And he was known to party (from teachingamericanhistory.org):

First Troop Philadelphia City
Cavalry Archives, 1774

City Tavern
George Washington
Entertainment of

15 Sept., 1787

Light Troop of Horse, September the 14th 1787

	To Edwd Moyston .. Dr.
To 55 Gentlemans Dinners & Fruit
—	Rellishes, Olives etc………………………………………..	20	12	6
—	54 Bottles of Madera……………………………………….	20	5
—	60 of Claret ditto……………………………………………	21
—	8 ditto of Old Stock…………………………………………	3	6	8
—	22 Bottles of Porter ditto………………………………….	2	15
—	8 of Cyder ditto……………………………………………..	16
—	12 ditto Beer…………………………………………………	12
—	7 Large Bowels of Punch………………………………….	4	4
—	Segars Spermacity candles etc………………………….	2	5
To Decantors Wine Glass [e]s & Tumblers Broken etc..		1	2	6
To 16 Servants and Musicians Dinners……………………		2
—	16 Bottles of Claret…………………………………………	5	12
—	5 ditto Madera……………………………………………….	1	17	6
—	7 Bouls of Punch…………………………………………….	2	16
		£89	4	2

If you study the above, you’ll see that George Washington and 54 of his best buddies had 114 bottles of wine, plus cider, beer, and 8 bottles of hard alcohol. I’m thinking our Founding Fathers were knee-walking drunk at this point – you can see that they got well into the “smashing the bottles and glasses” part of the party. And it was the equivalent of something between $15,000 and $20,000 that he spent on the party.

George liked to party.

And he liked to party at Christmas, which brings us to eggnog.

Now, I must tell you that I really, really hate eggnog. Hate it with a passion.

Or I did, until I had George’s eggnog. And it just so happens I’ll share his recipe with you (this will be the 306,001^st place on the Internet that you can get it):

“One quart ye cream, one quart of ye milk, one dozen tablespoons of ye sugar, one pint of ye brandy, ½ pint of ye rye whiskey, ½ pint of ye Jamaica rum, ¼ pint of ye sherry—mix liquor first, then separate yolks and whites of 12 eggs, add sugar to beaten yolks, mix well. Add milk and cream, slowly beating. Beat whites of eggs until stiff and fold slowly into mixture. Let set in cool place for several days. Taste frequently.”

And it’s amazing. It tastes just like Christmas. And George was right – making this stuff and drinking it on day one is NOT advised. It tastes . . . strong. But after three days in the fridge? Amazingly smooth.

So, not only was George a billionaire president general that defeated the world’s largest and best trained armed forces? He knew how to party.

Here’s to you, George!