In fact, it’s so muggy that…

…so muggy that…

…so muggy that I’m just plain physically exhausted trying to come up with a sufficiently dreadful way to describe it.

Really, if it was my call, at this point I’d just throw in the towel and send everyone home to crank up the air conditioning and spend the summer sprawled out in front of Old Mother Television with a bucket of ice cream in one hand and a Piña Colada in the other!  Of course, as a result half the businesses in Florida would probably go bankrupt and by next summer none of us would be able to afford to run our ACs full-tilt whilst simultaneously up to our necks in ice cream and booze, but hey, drastic quantities of water vapor in the air call for drastic measures…

I mean, don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love living in Florida, as opposed to other mitten-shaped states which shall remain nameless in all of their snow-covered gloom!  There’s no denying that living a shovel-free existence for the last seven years has played an primary role in my overall happiness as a person, and you probably couldn’t get me to move back to a region where the phrase “I need to go clear the driveway…” is commonplace for all the tea in China … and if you had any idea just how much my wife loves tea, you’d know how many brownie points that would be worth around my house!

To summarize – snow sucks, folks … I don’t think I can stress that enough here!

Still, as the prolific they have been known to say, every region has its crappy weather and while we may not have mountains of ice and snow up to our knickers down here in the Sunshine State, instead we do happen to have a rather significant abundance of heat and water, and when you mix copious amounts of each together into a humidity stew of sorts, it’s really only a matter of time before that kettle done runneth over and when it does, my friends, that’s what’s known here in Florida as the first day of Summer. Pets gasp when you first take them outside to pee, old people gasp even though you let them stay inside when they pee, and in general any trip out of doors feels like you’re being hit dead-on by a freight train traveling through a monsoon with its windows down…

It’s a horrible time of year to be a Floridian, really, which is why if you happen to travel down in this direction during any of those traditional summer months like June through August, you won’t see a single Florida resident actually outside during your entire stay because, well, by now most of us tend to know better! You may see the occasional blurry figure zip through the parking lot or even occasionally extend a single finger through the doorway to test the day’s muggy as hell quotient, but as for actual activities outside like jogging or perhaps a leisurely evening game of croquet?

Nope.

No way.

Not gonna happen!

Of course, for any crazy tourists who may have made non-refundable travel arrangements or are possibly even already here at the heart of our muggy mayhem as we speak, don’t worry – I’ve got a few tips to help you beat the heat and slugg the mugg(-iness) so that at least you have a better chance of surviving to book during a slightly less apocalyptic season sometime in the distant future…

• Find a nice spot at the beach or in a swimming pool and make it your own.  No, literally bring some snacks and a comfy pillow, and don’t budge for anybody because until it’s time to fly back to Idaho or whatever spudly state that you call home, you’re not going anywhere.
• Learn to breathe underwater.  This is crucial because go figure, the one place where the mugginess can’t get you is underwater, so it’s going to be a real pain if you have to keep coming up for air every forty-five seconds.
  • I was just recently told of these doodads called snorkels, so if the whole developing gills thing is proving to be a challenge, this might be another option to consider.  Twelve bucks at Walmart, on-sale this week only…
• Take some time to reflect on your summertime vacation options for the future.  If for some reason you still believe that Florida has a place in that list, hold your head under the water for just a few seconds extra between breaths – your brain deserves the punishment for that kind of crazy, irrational thinking!

But above all else, know deep within your heart that someday you will return to the Sunshine State for another break from reality, and when you do, next time you’ll be smart enough to pick a season when your sunglasses don’t fog up the moment you step outdoors!  Just think, without all of this unyielding, life-sucking humidity to weigh you down, you’ll be able to go to Disney World and experience temperatures below 90 degrees without it coincidentally also being three o’clock in the morning; you’ll be able to partake in vigorous games of beach volleyball and not have to worry about heatstroke overcoming your entire body like the weight of a thousand suns at every volley; and if that’s not enough, you’ll even have the unique opportunity to tour the majestic Florida Everglades without worrying about the muggy madness taking you over that point where you actually start to wonder, “What if it is cooler inside of an alligator’s mouth than it is out here???  They are cold-blooded, after all…”

Really, the sky’s the limit when you visit Florida in not the summer, so book your travel plans for a humidity-free vacation in the spring, winter, or fall today!

That’s right, folks – not just one, but two editions of The Humor Column this week … call it a little Christmas gift from me to you because, well, I don’t make nearly enough to buy you all new cars, but we can address that next year…

Nonetheless, I trust by now you’ve already torn into all of those presents that a certain extra-large, red-suited gentleman may have left under your tree last night as you dreamed of sugarplums and dirt bikes and giant dinosaurs made out of LEGOs.  With any luck your admirable behavior throughout the year has earned you all of your greatest wants and wishes from this year’s list, thus leaving you the remainder of the morning to spend assembling cities and waging wars on the living room carpet while all of the delectable smells of Christmas dinner begin to waft in from the kitchen.

In the meantime, though, as we all play with our new toys and eat snowman-shaped chocolates that are sure to ruin our dinner, I thought this might also be a good opportunity for me to tell a classic Christmas tale from my own childhood – one that taught me a very valuable lesson that I still hold true to this day.  It all happened on a day quite like this…

The year was 1995.

It was a cold and blustery winter in Northern Michigan, namely because there’s no such thing as a green Christmas when you live in Northern Michigan.  Instead, it starts snowing sometime just before Halloween and if you’re lucky, Mother Nature finally decides to give it a rest by the following Easter.  This year she had been particularly brutal, as noted by the mountainous snow drifts that Mom had to plow through in the minivan to drive me to school each morning.

Now I was merely a freshman in high school, meaning that while I was technically starting to grow up, I was still very much filled with all of the angst and stubbornness and blatant cynicism that ultimately made me a teenager.  Case in point – here we were in the middle of December with temperatures in the single digits and snow drifts higher than most cars, and yet nonetheless I insisted on wearing sandals to school.  Not exactly my finest hour, intellectually speaking…

But all in all there were probably about half a dozen of us in my class that did this – we were what you might refer to today as “idiots,” at least with regards to footwear preference despite adverse weather conditions, but you know how teenagers are – they’ll do anything to be different, even if that means getting frost bite.  And yet somehow throughout the course of that year-and-a-half phase, miraculously I didn’t lose any extremities to the icy cold, thanks in no doubt to my secret weapon – wool socks.

Well as it just so happened as this particular Christmas rapidly approached, I found myself to some extent indifferent with regards to what people got me for presents that year.  I mean, I was pretty busy at the time, what between starting to really notice girls while also simultaneously being absolutely petrified to talk to them, so needless to say my mind was thusly focused elsewhere and when family asked me what I’d like to find under the tree, so to speak, my typical response was simply the classic teenage “I dunno…” or “Whatever…” No actual insight whatsoever – frankly, it’s a wonder I managed to get anything at all that holiday season!

However it seems that through all of said teenage apathy, one unique suggestion did somehow slip through the cracks and despite what can only be assumed was a blatant display of sarcastic intent, said suggestion was followed to the degree that pretty much anyone who’s ever had to tolerate teenage smart-assery could dream of.  And by this point I’m sure you can probably already guess what happened next because low and behold, when it came time to open presents from my extended family, sure enough I opened a small and compactly-shaped package to find … yep, one of my relatives had actually given me socks for Christmas…

Of course, there was little argument to be made – I mean, technically “they were what I had asked for” and they did proceed to keep my feet moderately toasty throughout the remainder of my inclination to wear inappropriate footwear phase of growing up, but more importantly, friends, there was a lesson learned that afternoon as I sat there with my cousins, morosely holding my new socks as they excitedly tore open Nerf guns and remote-controlled helicopters and countless other awesome gifts that quite distinctly weren’t socks. That lesson was this – don’t be a smartass when someone asks you what you want for Christmas … they just might be a smartass, too.

And you’d better believe that the following year, yours truly was much more specific about his holiday desires … even if it meant just asking for gift cards and figuring it out later on my own time!  Returning to school from winter break was tough that year because, well, a gift like socks doesn’t exactly put you at the top of the bragging list, but you know what they say – what Christmas gifts don’t kill you only make you stronger.

Of course, there was also that year when one of my uncles “accidentally” swapped my present for a box full of bricks – another traumatic situation, as you can probably imagine, but we’ll save that one for another day!  As for today, though – I hope that everyone who makes The Humor Column a regular part of their weekly reading has a wonderful Christmas, and for those of you who still have gift exchanges in the days to come, may they be filled with remote-controlled dinosaurs and laser guns and chemistry sets, and most of all nothing even closely resembling socks…

Come one, come all! Gather up your children and your grandparents, and even your pets! Well, actually, don’t bring your pets, but do circle up and come together with me here today as I tell you a story of unprecedented rudeness amongst the otherwise friendly skies…

This is the tale of The Most Horrible Plane Ride in the World!

*queue thunder and lightning, pause for dramatic effect…*

It all started on a long travel day coming back from blustery Northern Michigan to the warm and comforting climates of Florida. The trip encompassed four hours of flying on two different flights, all preceded by another four hours of driving just to get ourselves down to the airport, so needless to say by the time we were nearing close to home, our energy, as well as overall tolerance for the typical, everyday ignorance of the traveling American, was pretty well spent.

It was at this time, apparently, that fate had decided would be just a dandy time to test our nerves while simultaneously traveling at 700mph roughly 32,000 feet up in the air…

The challenge, in this case, was presented in the form of a yappy, blonde stewardess and her yappy, stupid little dog who just so happened to be hitching a ride somewhere on our final leg home. Up until this point, I’d never had the unique pleasure of flying with anything more annoying than a screaming baby, so even before we took off, I knew that this was going to be a real treat. For you see, while you may think that the regular, old people seats are ridiculously cramped unless you happen to be a contortionist or just unusually limber for reasons which we’d rather you didn’t elaborate on, dogs have it even worse when they travel because according to FAA regulations, they’re required to remain in basically a lunch box for the duration of the flight. Sadly, however, not so much one of those rough and tough, hard-shelled lunch boxes fit for a construction worker or a teenager who’s trying to prove that he’s outgrown his Care Bears lunchbox, but more so like one made of fabric and mesh … that allows sound to travel through it very, very well.

Specifically speaking, there were a few of select moments in particular when I knew for a fact that this was about to be an arduous flight:

a) When yappy, blonde stewardess first sat down and proceeded to apologize to everyone within earshot roughly three dozen times for how loud her dog would be for the duration of the flight.

b) When yappy, blonde stewardess emphatically recommended to everyone in her row that they partake in the complimentary headphones because her dog would be mind-numbingly loud for the duration of the flight.

c) When yappy, blonde stewardess attempted to persuade the working flight attendants to just let her hold him on her lap instead of being left in said FAA-regulated container because otherwise he would bark incessantly to the point where everyone around would want to lock them both in the tiny, air-bathroom for the duration of the flight.

Let me tell you, those folks who claim that dogs tend to resemble their owners are spot on because throughout the 52-minute duration of said flight, neither that yappy, little rat dog nor its boisterous, sorority sister owner stopped barking or talking respectively for the entire flight. Which was even more so weird because while the yappy pair sat behind me and refused to honor but a moment of silence, a second dog owner sat right next to me the entire flight and managed to keep her dog so quiet that questions were raised on what kinds of doggy tranquilizers she had given it before the trip. It seems that not unlike traveling with babies or young children, it’s merely a flip of a coin whether they’re going to behave like perfect angels or denizens from the 7^th level of hell. But heaven forbid I get two of the first one on my late-night trip home instead of one of each…

Now that the whole ordeal is over and behind us, I won’t necessarily say that people shouldn’t be able to fly with their pets altogether … I have no desire to start getting hate mail from those crazies who think their dogs and cats are their babies… But all in the same, something has to be done to keep the loud and obnoxious travelers, young, old, and furry, from disturbing mild-mannered folks like myself who just want to get back home to where it’s more than 12 degrees during the day without a migraine and/or psychotic episode. Maybe the answer is partitioning off part of the plane as the obnoxious zone where all of the dogs and babies and guys who wanna chat about how much they love their sales careers incessantly can sit and be as loud and annoying as they want, separated from us normal passengers by a thick sheet of plexiglass to afford us some peace and quiet. Or possibly we just offer mandatory free drinks for these lucky patrons, laced with a powerful sedative that will render their barks, screams, and storytelling abilities mute until we reach our destination. Some sort of muzzles would likely do the trick, too – there are plenty of options here … all we need to do is pick one!

It’s time for us mellow folk to take back the friendly skies again, and if between the airlines with their exorbitant fees and the TSA with their ridiculous rules they can’t necessarily be friendly, then let’s at least compromise and get them quiet once again. Let me enjoy my four pretzels and seven dollar rum and coke in peace – save the barking for when you get to the hotel…

Thanks to Mother Nature and her stupid cold front, it’s been a bit nippy around here lately, especially for anyone or anything that happens to live outside. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly been chilly for us humans with our central heat and wool sweaters that we end up wearing literally two weeks out of the year, but don’t worry – this isn’t another one of those columns…

By all means, us humans have it rough when your average cold snap dances the funky chicken into town on a Happy Hour-induced dare, but apparently we’re not the only ones shivering in our boots right now … or so I’m learning. You see, over the last few days as the temperatures have plummeted, I’ve begun to notice an odd, little trend that I openly admit that I’ve never seen before, not in my previous years here in Florida and definitely not in my years growing up in snowy Northern Michigan. My friends, I talk today about the oddity that are plant blankets.

There I was, driving through our quaint, little suburban neighborhood earlier this week, grumbling about how morning needs to come much later in the day, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Superman. Well, it was Superman’s picture, anyways, emblazed on a blanket, which normally wouldn’t seem all that out of the ordinary except for the tiny, little detail that said blanket just so happened to be draped over a shrubbery in front of one of my neighbor’s houses at the moment. “Maybe it just got a little crazy for family game night at that house…” I thought, but then a few houses down I found even more blanket-covered shrubberies and bushes and even small trees! It was like somehow had deemed it necessary to tuck the plant world in before heading off to bed themselves the night before…

And it should come as no surprise, but this completely caught me off guard because I’d simply never heard of such a thing before! My house didn’t come with any sort of manual that said, “Don’t forget to bundle up the hedges when it starts to get chilly outside…” or anything. And coming from Northern Michigan, covering up ones foliage when it looks like a cold one would simply be impractical because your bushes would be wrapped up in sleeping bags and comforters 363 days out of the year! How cold is too cold? Which blankets should I use?? Do I get bonus plant points if I also bring them hot chocolate on those particularly brisk evenings???

It’s hard for me to even picture how this whole process takes place, at least in any sane household. The whole family is gathered around the dinner table, discussing how their day went and how they just can’t wait for next weekend when they get to go to the baseball game, gosh golly, oh boy! And then, out of the corner of his eye, Dad notices the weather channel in the other room coming on with the 7-day forecast and his eyes go wide. The fork, still piercing his next bite of cheese ravioli, drops to the table as Mom and Dad’s eyes meet from across the table, both quickly bolting up from the table and rushing to separate bedrooms in the house. Bobby and Suzy begin to cry as their parents furiously rip the blankets from each and every bed in the house before dashing outside to cover up anything with leaves inside their property line. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, the two walk back into the house, both visibly exhausted, with Dad turning to Mom as they return to the table, sincerely saying, “I just pray to God that we made it in time…”

Later that evening, the four sit silently in the living room, all huddled around a single candle flickering in the darkness. The kids shiver incessantly without a single blanket or towel left in the house for comfort, but Dad and Mom beam smiles back and forth nonetheless, knowing deep down that their $35,000 landscaping was safe for another harsh, Floridian cold front.

Well, call me crazy, but in my world people rank a little higher than foliage, especially as far as linens are concerned! There’s a good chance that the plant life surrounding my humble abode won’t exactly be thrilled by this totalitarian decision that I’m about to proclaim, but make note that I will never be caught scurrying about the yard in my pajamas, hastily draping my clean bed sheets over the bushes and shrubs in concern that they may get chilly during the night. I might pour a warm cup of milk into the soil just before bed to help them sleep, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go!

Silly seedlings, blankets are for people…

I tell ya, mall culture never ceases to amaze me, even as much as I absolutely abhor it. And even though I personally try to avoid any of our five dozen local malls unless I absolutely, positively need an electric cheese grater or a vintage pair of pants three sizes too small for me even in my glory days right this very second, I’ve got to admit that in small, controlled doses, the mall can be a wonderful place for both people- and corporation-watching entertainment!

Why just now as I wrote that sentence while sitting in the “food court” of a mall that shall-not-be-named did I bear witness to a fashion faux pas that we’d normally reserve for the likes of Johnny Depp or Keith Richards – a teenage girl walked by my table wearing a top hat, pajama bottoms, and a pair of combat boots. Now before you get too alarmed, yes – she was wearing some sort of top, too – but honestly, between the pink pajamas and the top hat, I really just sort of glazed over anything that appeared to be even remotely normal, although for the record it’s getting more and more difficult to even identify what that is anymore! Funny, I remember back in my school days the craziest things people ever wore were tie-dyed shirts from two decades prior and sandals, despite the fact that Northern Michigan in the wintertime is very, very cold! Not once did I hop out of bed thinking, “Yeah – today I don’t feel like bothering with regular pants. These pajama bottoms have served be well over the past eight hours, so why fix something that isn’t broken?!”

Of course, the real driving force behind this week’s mall-based humor column isn’t all of the catchy fashion ideas a hip guy like me can reap from a single trip to the mall, but instead I was thinking more along the lines of all the chicken a hip guy like me can reap from a single trip to the mall! You see, of all the people who really like chicken a whole lot, I’m certainly one of them and we all know that aside from that upscale delicatessen at 56^th and Herb Street, the best place to get yourself copious amounts of chicken for roughly the same as it would cost you to mail your monthly bills if you didn’t pay them all online instead, thus forcing the United States Postal Service to once again raise the price of stamps to stay in the black, it’s hands down, without a doubt the mall. You’ve got your fried chicken, you’ve got your teriyaki chicken, you’ve got your bourbon chicken that mysteriously looks an awful lot like teriyaki chicken…

You’ve got chicken wings and chicken fries, chicken fingers, chicken nuggets, and chicken “chunks” for that late-comer into a chicken-selling industry that has already used up pretty much every appetizing word that could be used to describe a partial serving of chicken. If you’re thirsty, you could have yourself a cup, bowl, or limited edition, collectible chicken-head filled with cream of broccoli, no wait – make that chicken soup. Or maybe you’ve had a long, exhausting day of walking around the mall, looking cool in your pajamas and could use some refreshment – for that, there’s really nothing than a delicious ice cream treat from Cold Stone Creamery, The Ultimate Ice Cream Experience.

What? Did you think I was going to make some sort of reference to chicken-flavored ice cream?! If Ben & Jerry’s haven’t concocted it by now, there’s probably a very good reason for it…

(It would be gross.)

Anyways, I’ve gawked at the top hat / pajamas girl, I’ve went on a solid two-paragraph tear about chicken, and I’ve even managed to fit in a couple of ice cream-related plugs in hope that the powers that be will step up kick a little Chunky Monkey (or the Cold Stone equivalent) my way! Not bad for an afternoon spent at the mall, although I’m pretty sure I did come here for a specific reason and I’m nearly positive that it wasn’t to speculate about chicken fries.

Or was it???

No, no – it wasn’t. I knew there was a reason I made myself lists before I came to places like this. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go call someone to figure out what I’m supposing to be doing … Ooh, they have chicken here!

You’ve just gotta love the holiday spirit, don’t you? The purchasing of gifts for your friends and family, the delightful flow of eggnog as you divulge secrets from your childhood past that you wouldn’t dare tell your dog sober, and the beautiful descent of thousands of tiny snowflakes falling from the sky – each a little more different than the last – and ultimately all of them piling together to form an impassable mountain of ice and snow, that of which the Abominable Snowman himself couldn’t imagine traversing without a week’s worth of supplies and that pair of monogrammed earmuffs his Mother made for him when he but a wee snow beast. Yeah, of all the fun and magic that winter presents us with, the dealings with snow and its removal on a grand scale are likely at the bottom of most lists, and it’s because of this that during these months I offer up my most humble and sympathetic words…

“Ha ha!”

That’s right, I may get taunts and jeers all summer long as wave after wave of hurricane-y goodness floods over my Floridian home, but it’s all worth it when we get into the winter months and I imagine my homeland up in Northern Michigan, quaint as it may very well be, buried up to its proverbial neck in that cold and unyielding white gold! And don’t get me wrong, from the perspective of the skier or the snowmobiler or the snowman aficionado, having every perceivable inch of the countryside dusted with a hefty, six-foot “massacre” of snow sounds perfectly wonderful – the more the merrier, right? But alas, when factoring together my lack of enough coordination to watch skiing on television, much less stand up on a pair of skis myself, an absence of any inking of an ambition whatsoever to ride a deathtrap flying at 80mph across a landscape covered with all sorts of trees and other large obstacles for me to run into, and finally an unspeakable occurrence that we’ll only refer to as “The Naked Snowman Incident of ‘96” and leave it at that, and without further a due, you have a good summary of exactly why I moved from the snow-laden region of Northern Michigan down to the sunny, snow-free land that is Florida.

Also, did I mention that I never really cared much for shoveling the stuff, either? I guess one would probably just go ahead and assume that, but I figured as long as we were on the topic…

But anyways, needless to say quite a few people seem to be jealous when I tell them that thanks to living in Florida, I no longer have to own such items as snow shovels and ice scrapers and long-sleeve shirts. Ok, well maybe that’s pushing it just a bit – I do admittedly have a couple of long-sleeve shirts in my closet that come out during those bitterly-cold times when it gets down into the low 60’s, but you can sure bet that my snowsuits and thermal underwear weren’t exactly at the top of my list when I started packing my belongings three years ago! In fact, I think my Mom even has some of those winter-type clothes that I used to wear during these times when I still lived at home. She occasionally tells me that she’s holding them for the next time I come up to visit during the wintertime, however I just don’t have the heart to tell her that a) that ain’t gonna happen as long as it continues to stay seventy or eighty degrees warmer down here than it is up there; and b) I’m not exactly as skinny as I used to be when I wedged myself into those thermal undies back in the day!

So for the time being I think I’ll be just as happy keeping on down here in the Sunshine State, soaking up the rays while everyone up north is soaking up the…well, actually you won’t be soaking up much of anything for a while because it’s pretty much all frozen right now, but you get the figure of speech nonetheless! And remember, you’re always more than welcome to stop by for a little vacation if those blustery winters prove to be too much for you this holiday season. Just don’t forget to pack a couple of long-sleeve shirts – it gets cold down in these parts in the winter, too!

Well, for those of you who recall last week’s little “pre-adventure” of ours, you know that by about this time, I should be somewhere en route between the tropical paradise that is my home in Central Florida and the frigid wasteland wonderland of my former home up in Northern Michigan. My bags have finally been packed, and chances are I forgot my thermal underwear, but other than the idea of potentially freezing the twins off, we should be good to go…

In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret to put some minds at ease – I’ve actually already arrived here…relatively safely in Michigan, and all is right with the world. Well, actually there was that near-death polar bear encounter two nights ago, but fortunately I was able to ward him off at the very last second! Between you and me, I personally think that it was just too cold up here for him, but nonetheless, this certainly isn’t a column about bears in their natural environment…

…and besides, we all know this to be the Studebaker, anyways…

(Honey, I threw that reference in there just for you!)

But wildlife and climate control and the Muppets aside, the real purpose of today’s column is simply to share with you some of the wonders of the open road that I experienced earlier this week during my two-day, 20-hour, 1382-mile cross-country road trip through middle America! As you would imagine, such an enduring adventure would most certainly entail many wild antics along the way, but I just don’t have time to chronicle the entire journey for you word-for-word, song-for-song. Thus instead, consider this to be more along the lines of “The Best of Scott’s Road Trip” - we’ll cover a few of the more memorable moments from each state and afterwards, you can go talk about the zaniness with your friends over the coffee or latte of your choice! So set your atlas aside and leave the driving to me…good god, was that a long road trip!

Leaving Florida – “The Sunshine State”
Mind you, the first few hundred miles of the trip were really just a warm-up…and who expects to see anything of interest while departing from their own state, anyways? Well, other than a quaint rest area sign warning patrons of deadly, venomous snakes in the area, Florida was but a stepping stone for me in this exhaustingly long journey…

Sorry, I don’t remember exactly which rest area that was, but I’m sure it won’t take long to figure it out if the situation presents itself!

Welcome to Georgia – “Please check your opinions at the door…”
Now the thing I like about Georgia the most, I think, is that despite the duration of driving from one end to the other (at least six hours – the longest state during my travels), your scenery never really changes…ever. In fact, nothing changes – whether it be the cities, the restaurants, or even the people…they leave nothing to chance in Georgia, however sometimes it’s just a little bit eerie!

I will admit, however, that Georgia does seem to have some of the friendliest people that I encountered along the way, never failing to greet me pleasantly and wish me a safe journey upon my departure. Of course, any sign of controversy and you’d better be prepared to duck and cover, but for just passing through, it’s quite nice.

Now Entering Tennessee – “That smell is really coming from Alabama…honest!”
You may recall that we experienced a particular problem when I originally passed through when I moved to Florida a couple of years ago, and well, I’m here to report today that they really haven’t done much to fix the situation.

The situation, bluntly, is that Tennessee seems to smell very bad and despite knowing that I might very well receive three pieces of hate mail for saying this, I feel that it is my civic duty to bring this piece of information to the masses. In fact, if there just so happens to be enough time in your vacation planner, I might even be so bold as to recommend driving around the state entirely. You’ll thank me later…

Also, I’ve stayed in a number of hotels in Tennessee over the years and none of them seem to ever have alarm clocks, nor are they willing to produce one for me when I ask at the front desk. Something about them constantly getting stolen or something, but nonetheless another item to consider when traveling from here to there.

Kentucky – “We’re easily more redneck than Tennessee…”
The welcome sign on I-75 going into Kentucky features a cowboy on a horse, merrily greeting visitors with all of the cultural flair that one might expect from the wild, wild west.

I’m sure you expected to read some horrendously offending remarks about Kentucky here, but for the most part, my exposure was limited to the twenty minutes I spent in Arby’s eating lunch. Sorry!

Ohio or Bust – “You’d be better off walking!”
Now this is where things got interesting because for the record, people from Ohio don’t know how to drive. The entire state takes a little over three hours to drive through during optimal conditions, but let’s just say, I didn’t get optimal conditions for my trip…

Five accidents before I even made it through Cincinnati, another three on my way up to Dayton, and I could’ve sworn that I saw the National Guard in my rear-view mirror as I crossed the boarder into Michigan. For God’s sake, people, just stay off the roads – you’re going to hurt somebody…else.

And Finally, Michigan – “Ticketing more tourists for stupid driving infractions than ever!”
Maybe I’m spoiled living down in Metropolitan Tampa because our cops don’t just pull people over for the hell of it, but I swear, within the first hour of my trip through Michigan, I saw more people getting pulled over for speeding and whatnot than the entire time that I’ve lived down in Florida!

Michigan loves its speed traps, and that really urks me because it blatantly screams out, “We don’t have anything better to do than to wait around for you to break the law.” Meanwhile, drug dealers and murderers and all sorts of crazies wander the streets, but hey, at least they’re doing something to address those madmen going 75 mph on the freeway!

Luckily, it was only a matter of hours from that point before I’d cross the line into no man’s land – literally – and it’d only be me and the open road. To quote Kevin Smith, “It was like the opening to Mallrats…” Yep, I was home.

So there you have it, how I got from there to here in six easy states. Stay tuned next week for a very special look at everything I’ve missed from the great state of Michigan over the past few years…with a minimal quantity of snow-related jokes…

…probably…

Ahhh, the almighty road trip – a wonderful blend to entice man’s love affair with the open road and that sense of adventure that can only be found when unearthing the family and half of it’s belongings to travel across the country in search of fun, entertainment, or at the very least, Grandma’s house. The time-honored tradition of over-the-road traveling has been critiqued by columnists and the well-opinionated as far back as the history books allow, and even before then it wouldn’t really surprise us all that much to find mentions of baby brontosauruses uttering something along the lines of, “Are we there yet?!” during the herd’s migratory activities…

About nine or ten days from now, I’m going to be taking a similar journey – you see, my own herd is moving west in search of a more abundant supply of greens…no wait, that’s not right at all! What I mean to say is that I’ll be taking to the road myself very soon, in an effort to travel the some 1382 miles northward back to the icy tundras of Northern Michigan for “vacation,” and if my calendar serves me correctly, this means that I have roughly seven or eight days left to procrastinate before getting ready for my big trip. That having been said, let’s just all meet back here next Thursday and we’ll continue our little discussion then…

…just kidding…

Unfortunately, you see, all joking aside, I’ve been known to experience to very distinct problems when trying to plan trips such as this. Of course, I wouldn’t exactly say that they’re limited to cross-country travel, as I can just as easily suffer such “brain farts” when traveling to work in the morning or even across the street to the nearby grocery store! My problems, simply put, are quite, well, simple – I procrastinate and I forget…but not necessarily in that order. And mind you, lest we not forget that I’m only the ripe, young age of twenty-four, but that’s another column for another day!

Nevertheless, having such valiant traits as these serves to be quite an experience when it comes time to take to the open road because obviously, I don’t give myself a lot of time to pack things up and prepare, and when I do get, oh say, a few hundred miles away, it’s only then that I remember such important items as my laptop’s power supply or my cell phone charger being left behind on the dining room table. Come to think of it, pretty much anything requiring an adapter altogether has a better than average chance of being left behind on one of my trips…which explains why I end up having half a dozen of the things after I’m forced to track one down in a local store and pay double or triple what I could find a replacement for on eBay…but I’m certainly not bitter about that!

So this year I’m doing things a little differently, wherein I’m only taking with me the shirt on my back and that’s it…boy, is it going to get chilly up there! Nah, this year I’m actually preparing all of my things ahead of time because, in traveling nearly 1400 miles over a two day period, there just isn’t any time to turn around because of my own ignorance…’nuff said. Any of you who have driven the distance before knows that nothing sucks worse than traveling from Florida all the way to Ohio, only to realize that two-year-old Billy’s stuffed Binky is still resting quietly back in the playpen, and Billy will be doing nothing of the sort until he is reunited with the stuffed lizard! Imagine the same thing with a fully grown man only being able to get in two hours of Warcraft III, much less any actual writing work, before the laptop batteries take a dive and ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a situation on our hands…

Of course, once everything is loaded and ready to go, the rest of the trip should be a piece of cake…or so the Germans would lead us to believe…and you’d better believe that I’m going to be sure to fill you in on all of those details next week as this humor column comes to you live from the road…presuming that I remember to bring the laptop in the first place! Until then, tie a piece of string around your finger, setup a reminder on the computer, or even just leave yourself a sticky note – whatever you have to do to remind yourselves to remind me to stay on top of this thing – only you can help prevent this writer’s forgetfulness!!!

If someone could kindly make the room stop spinning when you’ve got a free second, I’d certainly appreciate it…

You see, this is exactly why I have a steadfast rule – no crazy, upside-down carnival rides! There are some experiences that the human body, and more specifically the human stomach, simply isn’t equipped to handle. Horrible experiences, in fact, that if you were to consult with God / Buddha / the Almighty Creator of your choice, they would be quick to explain how humanity was most certainly never intended to endure such twists and turns at inhuman velocities, and don’t even get me started on the loop-de-loops! Nope, call me stubborn, but over the years if I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that my own particular body is preferential to the standard, head-up / feet-down orientation and as far as I’m concerned, I’m ok with that!

So why did I do it, then?

In an attempt to back up our story and fill you in on the details for those who didn’t happen to be privy to the incident, the day was Saturday, February 19^th – the place was the Florida State Fairgrounds, just outside of Tampa. My little sister just so happened to be in town for the weekend visiting and I’d somehow gotten the old, Northern Michigan standby tune stuck in my head, “Goin’ to the fair, goin’ to the fair…” so I’d concluded with the idea that it might be fun to go out and experience a few hours down at the fair while she was here. With my girlfriend at one side and sister at the other, we proceeded through that old, ruckety turnstile with mucho gusto…and that, my friends, was the last mistake that I’d have the chance to make…

It only takes a little further back story to explain that my sister and I had somewhat become accustomed to the fair scene up north, often frequenting the midway to check out the latest crazies and cast judgment with regards to which carnies a mother would most feel comfortable entrusting the safety of their children to – fun stuff, really, but no matter how enticing the year’s offerings might happen to appear, we always had one single ground rule…Scott’s feet never leave the ground. And while some may deem it to be old-fashioned and uninspired, I retort by simply stating that, “I don’t want to die.”

So fast-forward back to our scenario and what do we suddenly have before us? Why only what quite possibly appears to be the most intimidating and detrimental carnival ride ever conceived onto God’s green Earth. Simply gazing up at this towering deathtrap, one can only imagine how this mechanical monster ever came to be, as it’s quite clear to recognize that such torture could never be inflicted by my fellow man. Trembling uncontrollably as we approached the menace, I heard the most frightening phrase to anyone playing host to guests from out of town, “Ooh – that looks fun! Let’s do that!!!”

The ride in question was entitled “The Zipper” - maybe you’ve heard of it. For some reason unbeknownst to my mind, its creator decided that it would be quite some fun to take a whole slew of carnival-goers, pack them two-by-two into flimsy, slightly-padded steel cages, and then proceed to whip those cages around on a central axis, ignoring all previous laws of gravity, physics, and projectile vomiting. The experience was to cost about ten bucks a piece, my guess simply to distract patrons from the inevitable doom which they were about to endure, and amazingly, it worked because there I was – kissing my girlfriend goodbye as my sister and I boarded a “padded” cage aimed directly at the bowels of hell. As I heard those first bolts creak with the start of the dreaded machine, I began to wonder if it was too late to find religion…

Now I can’t honestly even describe the experience justly with words, but anyone else who’s been down this lane can vouch that at the very least, five minutes on “The Zipper” is enough to make your average rider denounce the last twenty years of their sins, reconcile any differences he or she might have with the person next to them, and explore a whirlwind debate over whether or not carnies as a whole are adequately compensated for their construction efforts of the deathtraps towering over our nation’s fairgrounds. I could also possibly mention that the trip somehow manages to empty your pockets of any coinage, car keys, and cellular phones that you might’ve forgotten to remove prior to boarding, but looking back on the situation, I think when it finally ended I was just happy to be on solid ground again.

The morale of today’s story, my friends, is don’t succumb to peer pressure, and even more so, don’t succumb to sibling pressure – it’ll get you every time unless you’re able to remain at the top of your game. Also, do your homework to examine the tourist possibilities a little more in advance and, if they exist, take whatever steps necessary to prevent all exposure to such promotional activities to prevent that dreaded, “Ooh – let’s go there!”

Besides, living here in Florida, there’s always the beach and until them sharks figure out how to mosey up on land, I think that I should be relatively safe there. Anything else, though, and you’re on your own…

There’s certainly no denying it – I’m a fish guy. I’ve been a fish guy ever since I was six years old and had one of those novelty tanks that looks like a gumball machine in my room – my parents had bought two Swordtails for that tank, one male and one female, and…well, you can guess where things went from there! Pretty soon I had more fish than I knew what to do with and I had even gained some valuable knowledge about how many creatures in the animal kingdom interact as well – mainly that some adults will eat their own young shortly after birth unless they’re moved to a separate location…

So here I am some seventeen years later – I’ve had many more fish tanks since then and I look forward to many more in my future as well. Nevertheless, as any aquarium enthusiast knows, quite frankly, fish don’t last forever, and I’ve definitely ushered my share of fish onto that “big ocean in the sky” over the years. Most recently, unfortunately, were the deaths involved with attempting to transport my babies some 1500 miles down from Northern Michigan to my new home here in South Florida. They did ride shotgun, I might add, and it wasn’t until spending several nights in the hotel when we got here that they finally kicked the bucket. Looking back on that three-week stay, I sometimes wonder how I managed to make it through myself, but that’s an entirely different column altogether!

That having been said, however, you’ve probably pieced together the idea that after this most recent loss, I am now essentially fish-less, which really puts me in a unique situation – this is the first time I’ve been without fish since I was six years old. I’m now in the position to start a new fish tank completely from scratch and I’ve gotta tell you, I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl! I guess I kind of relate it to just about any project that I get involved with – those first few days are somewhat mind blowing because of all the options and possibilities that lie before me. Big fish or little fish, tropical or freshwater, live plants or those uber-fake-looking, neon plastic jobbies – the list goes on and on! Of course, it’s not all lollypops and gumdrops when it comes to establishing new life within those walls of glass…

You see, fish are very touchy when it comes to their living conditions, and I’m not talking about the color of the ceramic castle or the value of the coins inside that bubbling treasure chest. For those of you unaware in the intricacies of the aquatic world, just as we couldn’t stand to live in an area filled with smog and pollution, fish are the same way with the quality of their water…which concerns me because, well, the water quality down here seems to be just a tad bit questionable! Even though I’ve done all of the standard tests – ammonia, nitrates, and so forth – it’s the whole idea that this water tends to really smack you in the face when you’ve got 35 gallons of it in front of you that has me a little worried! Of course, I know that things are going to be a little different from the well water that I’d grown accustomed to up north, but I suppose we’ll just have to let the little guys be the judge.

Which is actually where I’m sitting right now – I’ve got a single tank set up with a meager assortment of wretchedly-fake-looking plants, a filter and an old air pump – the bare necessities for something like this, really, but there’s really no sense in dropping a huge lump of cash on new aquarium toys until it’s been proven that I’m actually going to be able to keep fish in the house, you know?! So far, the test school has made it exactly one week with a minimal number of casualties, which is pretty good in my book, so I think things are looking up at this point! Right now they’re still getting used to their surroundings, learning the currents created by the filter and bubblers, and seeing which one of them can run into the glass the fastest, but I’ve got a feeling that it won’t be long before they’re feeling right at home, too, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to score with the first fish that swims their way…

Hmmm, apparently even fish resemble their owners more than we originally thought!