Wishing and Baseball

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“I wish my son was more aggressive at the plate,” a friend of mine said.

You wish your son was more aggressive? I could go through the list of pseudo-humorous things I wish I had, but you know that joke. I want things, and I need things, but I’d feel foolish suggesting that I wish something were true, because I know that that someone would turn on me and say, “Well, go get it!”

This has always been one of my least favorite responses because it’s obnoxious, tedious (because everyone says it) and true. Yet, who is more tedious and obnoxious, the person who says, “Go get it!” or the person who sits down and whines and wishes?   

Wishing is for small children and people who find genies in a bottle. For the rest of us, it’s a waste of breath, unless we’re going to “Go get it!” A couple of years ago, I wished my kid wouldn’t strike out so often. I wanted him to do better, so we went out to the backyard, then we left the comfy confines of home to open baseball diamonds and batting cages to go get it. Did we get better? We did, because we did it so often that it happened. 

Prior to all that, my kid was shocked and devastated by the fact that he wasn’t the athlete he thought he was, and aren’t we all? Our delusional dreams and projected images of greatness eventually, and painfully, hit a controversial wall called reality. I label the wall controversial, because soon after I told my kid he wasn’t better than he thought, I knew that would get me in trouble with positive reinforcement crowd. After I introduced him to the reality of the situation, we set about getting him better. The latter, needless to say, doesn’t happen after one, two, or three twenty-minute sessions. This is a time-consuming, frustrating, and eventually rewarding process.

I’m the type of guy who thinks, perhaps unreasonably at times, that everything is my fault. If I can’t access a website, for example, I think it’s my fault. It might have more to do with the site’s administrator, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking that I did something wrong. When my son struck out so often, I knew it was partly my fault. The kid was so young that he didn’t know how to do things himself. He had to be taught, and I wasn’t teaching him. I forced him to endure mind-numbing hours of hitting, fielding, and pitching so often that he begged for it to be over. He wanted to play Mario Odyssey, watch YouTube, and do anything and everything he could find that was less taxing. We called our workouts forty, forty forty. Forty hits, forty ground balls, or pop-ups, and forty swings. After doing this for years, when I now see a kid on a baseball field have trouble with the fundamentals of baseball, I can tell just how much time their dad has spent helping them get it.

My job, and your job, if you wish it to be true, is to source the problem and correct it. Baseball is a game, and ten and unders are going to make a ton of mistakes. If they make the same mistakes, over and over in a manner that cries out for resolution, I see it as my job to find a way to help him fix it. If you don’t have the time to personally see to it that the error is corrected, do you have the money to hire an instructor, and if neither of those avenues are available to you, what can you do to try to make it happen, other than sitting in the stands, wishing it were true.  

Some of us are visual learners, some are auditory, and others are reading and writing learners. If your goal is to help your child learn how to play baseball, there’s no avenue better than just doing it so many times that he learns how to do it. It’s what psychologists call Kinesthetic Learning, or what the rest of us call doing it. 

It’s possible for a kid to learn another way, I suppose, but I’ve never explored it. What’s the best way to learn Math, swimming, bowling, or baseball? They have to do it so often that they learn. Malcolm Gladwell suggest we can do anything to a decent level of prowess by investing 10,000 hours into doing it. It sounds so obnoxiously simple that it can’t be the solution, so we read books on it, watch YouTube videos, and invest in some sort of professional tutoring. All of these elements are instructive and can be used to supplement doing, but it’s so obvious that it hardly seems worthy of mentioning that nothing beats doing something so often that we do it better. 

***

Once our kid learns and earns a certain level of prowess, how do we take them to the next level? 

“If you want your kid to advance, get him into a select league,” they say, and they’re right. But, and there’s always a but, a kid learns by doing. We can say he might get better playing a higher level competition, but what if he’s not having fun at the next level? My son is currently on a team composed almost entirely of his friends from school. On this team, my son plays, and he strengthens his relationships with his friends while playing. He looks forward to games, and he has a lot of fun playing in them. That’s far more important to me than advancing him to the next level with the hope that it will strengthen his abilities in such a way that he might continue to play baseball in high school, college, and the Majors. This is the dream, but is it their dream or ours? When we take a look at the numbers, we know that the chances of him playing beyond high school are minimal, and while looking at those numbers we need to ask ourselves who are we really aiming to please? Are we seeking a way for him to be the exception to these ratios for his eventual happiness, or are we looking to satisfy our dream of one day being one of those parents who have front row tickets to our kid’s first major league start? If we follow the plan of making sure he’s having fun, we’ll turn down that invitation for a select league to keep him in a league where he’s having the most fun. We also do this to prepare for the day when he meets the extent of his talent and ability, and our dreams come to a crashing halt. When this happens, we want to look at our son and say, “Well, we had a lot of fun along the way.” 

Last season, a kid named Jimmy received an invitation to advance to a select team over my son. My vicarious impulse was jealousy. I thought my son was better, but I’m biased. Jimmy was, at least, comparable to my son in talent. Flash forward a couple games into this season and Jimmy is not playing on that select team. He’s sitting on the bench. I have no idea if this is a commentary on Jimmy’s ability, compared to the rest of the team, but bottom line, he’s sitting on the bench, and if he’s not playing, he’s not learning, and he’s not advancing. But playing at a higher level lifts all boats. The classic example, in another sport, is Sidney Crosby. Crosby was the youngest brother always playing with his older brothers and their friends. Crosby needed to be better just to compete with them. Crosby became better, and he became so good that he was a first pick in the NHL Draft, and he became one of the best players in the NHL. Crosby, however, was playing against them, as opposed to riding the bench. My guess is this kid named Jimmy is experiencing some next-level play in practice, but nothing beats doing it in a game.  

The select teams also requires a greater commitment to baseball, and I don’t think this commitment will be advantageous. Right now, my son plays a number of sports and he is learning the art of taekwondo. If he commits more of his time to baseball, he will have to sacrifice those other sports. Why would we do this? He has a lot of fun doing all that other stuff too. I think playing those sports, and learning the art of taekwondo, provides him a well-rounded learning experience, and if he chooses a sport to focus on at some point, that will be a decision for him to make. Right now, he’s just having fun, and I see no reason to advance the needle. 

As with everything else in life, there are no easy answers, but there is one easy question. What are we doing with our free-time? Instead of watching the latest docu-drama on Netflix, or flipping through our phone for the next twenty minutes, why don’t we take a trip into the backyard and flip the ball around with our kid for twenty minutes a day, three-to-four times a week for a couple years. 

Baseball is baseball. It’s a sport, and some observe that the obsessive devotion to sports and games is trivial compared to all of the other, more important activities in life. If you think that, you’re right in general terms, but what are you currently doing with them that is so much more vital and crucial to their life? And what were your plans when you held them in your arms that day in the delivery room? Did you plan on letting them watch YouTube for another hour, so you could have a little more “me” time? What we’re talking about when we talk about baseball, soccer, flag football, or whatever ten and unders can do for a couple hours when they’ve not gaming, is committing to something so thoroughly that they develop a discipline, and a character-defining devotion. We’re talking about developing a discipline and a devotion to something they might remember, and they won’t remember conquering Mario Odyssey or flipping through various YouTube influencers. They will remember the days they spent playing sports with others, and the countless hours they spent playing in the backyard with you. It takes a level of commitment, a discipline, and devotion from both of you if you wish want him to get better, or more confident, the next time he steps on a baseball diamond, and that may prove trivial in the grand scheme of life to everyone in the world except for the two of you. 

Feed the Breed: The Beagle

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“Ask not what your Beagle can do for you. Ask what you can do for your Beagle!” 

When we purchase a puppy, any puppy, and bring them into our beloved home, it’s our natural inclination to focus on what that puppy can do for us. Some say that it’s a puppies job to bring love, happiness and an overall sense of joy into our home. We paid to bring him home, after all, and as with the purchase of a loofa, a barcalounger, or a toothbrush, we expect them to perform certain functions for us. If the puppy doesn’t perform to our expectations, we might even think of returning it. (Talking to certain employees at kennels, I’ve learned that this is a part of the business, as they offer a 90-day return policy to customers who aren’t happy with their purchase.) 

His job is to play with us, cuddle with us, provide a general sense of companionship, and do all the things a puppy should do. If he fails to comport with how we think a puppy should act, we see it as a failure on his part, and we might seek professional assistance and advice for him. Most of us do not consider what we can do for the puppy to make them a happy, more well-adjusted dog who doesn’t mind comporting to our standards. We might give him a big backyard to run around in, toys galore, chew sticks, treats, companionship and love, and anything and everything we can think of that would make a dog happy, but we don’t think beyond all that to what we should be doing to build a symbiotic relationship with our new puppy. 

“Feed the breed,” I now say. “Feed the breed.” I list this as a consideration for all dog owners to consider, but it’s specifically tailored to Beagle owners, because I have a Beagle, and I love Beagles. I write this for all dog owners who now see that that beautiful, little puppy they just brought home, who now plays in what we might consider an almost mean-spirited manner. There were times when my Beagle, Max, bit a little too hard during playtime, chewed up some of my precious items, wouldn’t leave the other dog in our home alone, and he was a naughty little boy so often that he added to some of the wrinkles and the grey hair we now sport. My puppy acted as if he was almost (and I normally hate to assign human characteristics to a dog) frustrated. 

When I write, “Feed the breed,” I’m not suggesting that you feed your Beagle bunnies, or that you need to let them catch and devour bunny. When I suggest that you feed the breed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to watch them feed. If you’re anything like me, it might make you uncomfortable to watch your beloved Beagle actually catch and devour a rabbit. I’m suggesting that you do some research on the breed you purchased and feed into the breeding of your dog.

When I went online, searching for answers to my naughty, little Beagle, I kept seeing this short characterization, “Beagles were bred to chase bunnies.” I didn’t think too much about it at the time. Prior to purchasing a Beagle, I owned a Puggle (part Pug, part Beagle), and that Puggle loved chasing rabbits. Among all the other things he enjoyed, he enjoyed chasing rabbits. So, when I saw that line, “Beagles were bred to chase bunnies,” I continued to skip it with an “of course” in mind.

Friends and family told me Beagles were hunting dogs, and I saw some evidence of it, but Max was purchased to be a family dog. I didn’t want a hunting dog. I wanted a cute cuddly, overly playful dog, and the fact that he happened to be a hunting dog, bred to chase rabbits, was to me an asterisk on the list of characteristics I found. I read it, and then I went onto reading all of the other characteristics I wanted to learn about more. Notice the emphasis on “to me” and “I wanted”. I wanted him to be what I wanted him to be, and I failed to consider what he might be in a larger context. I failed to consider the idea that a Puggle might love to chase rabbits for the sport of it all, but a Beagle needs to chase bunnies in a way that is (again, I cringe when I assign human characteristics to dogs) fundamental to his constitution.  

We took him on those small, daily walks, fifteen minutes a day that every Beagle owner prescribes for those who want a happy dog, I noticed that he huffed every inch of ground beneath him. (A Beagle doesn’t sniff the ground, he huffs on it.) He still exhibited signs of frustration. We took him on more walks in other areas, and in those other areas there was some evidence of bunnies. Even with that, he remained the dictionary definition of a high maintenance dog. I could go through all of the various characteristics and incidents to illustrate how high maintenance Max was, but I think I can summarize my mindset with a comment I began making, “I think I made a huge mistake purchasing this dog.” I walked him constantly to get some of his energy out, and he spent a majority of the rest of his time outside, in our big backyard, running around playing and barking with the neighboring dogs. A human, knowing the general characteristics of a dog might think Max landed in a canine version of nirvana, but he was still always on, and he continued to be somewhat frustrated.  

When I walked him, I walked him through our neighborhood, and the idea that he was bred for hunting rabbits was obvious. He would freak out when he occasionally caught some stray scent of a bunny, and I saw that, but I still didn’t catch on entirely.

It wasn’t until I made the decision to take a long walk into areas with a large bunny concentration that I saw the other side of Max. When he’s in rabbit-infested arena, Max develops tunnel vision. If humans approach him for a quick pet, Max doesn’t even acknowledge their existence. He’s in the zone. Other dogs run to the fence barking and wagging their tales, ready to play. They might as well be on another planet as far as Max is concerned when he’s on the hunt. When he catches a scent, he begins huffing the ground (as opposed to his usual sniffing), and there are times when he huffs the ground so hard that he begins sneezing (as often as twelve-to-fifteen times in a row, some of the times, blowing mucus and excess saliva all over the place). He pulls on the leash to continue to huff every inch of that select ground, and he pulls with all his strength on the leash to signify that he’s far from done with this area. On frequent occasions, he lays out on all fours to anchor himself to the ground, until he’s done covering every square inch of that scent. 

One of the websites devoted to dogs wrote, “Beagles can tell us where bunnies were, but they’re not as proficient at telling us where they are.” This, in my humble opinion, is because they obsess over the ground where “they were” to the point that they might not be as concerned with where that trail leads.

When Max hits a trail that he knows a bunny has spent some time on, he yips, barks and howls en route to the suspected location. (Have you ever heard a Bloodhound’s howl? It’s that.) Max gets so loud that it can prove embarrassing, at times, as we might fear that unsuspecting and uninformed onlookers might think we’re beating our poor, little puppy. “Is he okay?” a concerned neighbor asked from the foyer of her backyard door. I saw her standing there seconds before, and I think she was watching my actions to see if I was beating my dog. The near-screams coming from Max were that intense.

“Thank you for your concern,” I waved. “He just caught the scent of a bunny.” She smiled politely and all that, but I could tell she wasn’t thoroughly convinced, and she slowly re-entered her home watching us to try to spot a reason to call the Humane Society on me.  

My advice to the dog owner who might want to explore the extent of the characteristics of the Beagle, is make sure you carry dog water bottle on these walks, because your Beagle will obsess over these little areas to the point of excessive exhaustion and dehydration. The typical dog owner will want to move on after a while, but it can prove difficult, and almost impossible to convince your Beagle to move on. (Our new ritual of walking in bunny areas, can take a forty-five minutes to an hour.) 

Prior to these long walks in rabbit-infested areas, we tried everything we could think up to make this dog happy. We even went so far as to consult his veterinarian, who told us that he was a puppy, and you should start to see these puppy characteristics subside around aged two. Well, aged two came and went, and he was still high-strung, mean-spirited, and he exhibited some levels of frustration. After these walks, which we do on average three times a week now, I’m happy to report that when I am eventually able to convince Max to move on and begin the long journey home. He returns to our loving home a more normal, less unstable, satisfied and less frustrated dog. By feeding into his breeding, I now have a dog who doesn’t get into things, bite too hard, or display any of the other naughty characteristics I’ve listed above. He’s now an exhausted, less frustrated, and satisfied dog. 

Read the Breed

It’s human nature to expect a child, a dog, an entertainment system, or a loofa to perform according to our expectations. Unlike a loofa or an entertainment system, children can be complicated, frustrated, or dysfunctional in some minor ways that require attention or treatment. We know that, and that’s why we developed the aphorism, “Parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world.” We don’t expect raising a dog to be as complicated. Yet, like children, to a far lesser extent, all dogs are different. Some are naughty, highly intelligent, and bred different. 

Having written everything I have thus far, let me say that the idea of returning a dog, even one as obnoxious, high-strung, and even mean as Max could be on occasion, was the furthest thing from my mind. I know I’m different, but I would’ve considered that an epic fail on my part. I did my research not to find information to support my thesis that I made a huge mistake by purchasing him, but to find out how I failed and how to rectify it. I have heard tales of bad dogs though. If you have what you consider a bad dog, you think there’s something wrong with your dog, or you pointed your finger at the word frustrated and said, “It’s that,” or “I’m not sure if it’s that, but it’s something like that, that we’re dealing with here.” Bad dog, or something wrong with your dog, can be a description relative to the dog, their owners, or some complex combination thereof. Nobody is saying you’re wrong. There are bad dogs, just like I’m sure zoo keepers can probably tell us there are bad meerkats, bad, mean, or otherwise obnoxious butterflies, and otters. There are also, believe it or not, some bad humans, but with humans we often do extensive research before reaching a final conclusion. That’s the advice I would give all Beagle and dog owners, read the breed and feed the breed. Do some research on your dog, read through their characteristics to find out what makes them tick and feed into that to see if you might be able to use some measure to ease their frustration and make them happy before you reach some final conclusion on them. The best thing I ever did was learn more about my Beagle, and how I could feed into his breed to make him happy, because he’s done everything in his power to return the favor ever since. 

The Phallic Car Trope: A Comedy

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Quick. Guy pulls up next to you in a sports car. This beautiful machine is widely regarded as one of the fastest cars on the road, and it’s loud. This car, with its modified muffler, is so loud, you can’t hear anything your wife says in the passenger seat. Quick, what do you think of this Fast and Furious wannabe?

Small penis, right? The guy who selected this automobile to drive around in, and then he modified his muffler to draw extra attention to himself, must have a minuscule member. It’s such an automatic association that it’s almost reflexive now. Guy buys a top of the line sports car, we know it’s all about the hoo hoo. It’s one plus one equals two to us now. It’s the joke we’ve heard and told so often that everyone over the age of 25 knows it when they see that car. In order for a joke to be funny, truly funny, there has to be an element of truth in it, and we all find this joke funny, because we know that knock knock jokes can be kind of funny, but if we want to be hilarious, we have to hit people where they live.

The general premise of the scenario confuses us. Why would a man, average age 29 and above, with, presumably, a full-time job, a wife and kids, and a mortgage to pay plunk down an extra forty to fifty thousand for a method of transportation? Even most irresponsible men, in such financial situations, don’t plunk such money down in cash. They take out a five-year loan with interest or they lease. Regardless, it creates a financial burden on the family that might require little Timmy or Tammy to take out their own loans for college. Why would this man do that to his family? If we know the man, and we know his concerns, it seems so impossible that he would take such an irresponsible risk. We dig for answers, and if we dig deep enough, we arrive at the size of his Gerald (I knew a guy named Gerald, and I didn’t think much of him). We don’t know if it’s true with our friend, but if it is, it’s so sad it’s funny. If his wife drives the final dagger into his humiliation and forces him to return it and pay the penalties for early cancellation of the contract, it’s funny, but is it so funny that it’s hilarious, and if it is hilarious, is it because it’s so sad or so true, or some hybrid of both?

Who cares, it’s funny? Who cares, because men who drive those obnoxiously loud and fast things around are so annoying that we don’t mind it when others take shots at them. We love this joke so much that the minute a comedian starts talking about some ass face in an obnoxiously loud and fast car, we cannot wait until he gets to the joke at the bottom of the barrel involving that guy’s low hanging fruit.

This association gets repeated so often that we now call it a trope, the phallic car trope, and we repeat it with such confidence, that some of us believe it’s 100% true, 100% of the time. We see some guy in a brand new, modified Charger, and we know the size of his Herbie is smaller than what medical science declares average size. Then, when we drop that joke, we do it as if no one’s ever heard it before.

“That thing is an incredible combination of design and engineering!” we say in appreciation of another’s car, not their willy.

“Yeah, you know why he bought it don’t you?” they say with a knowing snicker.

“So, you mean to tell me that if he had a 5.5-to-6 schwanzstucker, at the very least, he might have preferred a more moderately priced sedan?”  

I don’t own one of these obnoxiously loud and fast vehicles, and I’m not here to defend those who do. They annoy me as much as you, and when I hear them drive by my home, jostling my innards, I think that the driver probably has something ridiculous ticking inside. I don’t seethe at them though, like some of you. We all know who you are, and the jokes you tell about his purple-helmet warrior of love running around in your head, with a whole lot of exclamation points to follow. You mean it too, and you mean it mean. I’ve heard you. I know the jokes, and I’ve seen the faces you make when you tell the joke. Me, I don’t think that way, because I knew some gearheads growing up. I called two of them my best friends. They grew up loving everything loud and fast, loud music, fast cars. They started out loving fast bikes, then loud and fast motorbikes, and then cars, and they loved tinkering with them. They spent way too much of their youth modifying, tinkering, and souping them up, to make them louder and faster than anyone else has ever seen or heard, but I can tell you that for them, it wasn’t about the hoo hoo.

One of these gearheads, a kid named Mark, was absolutely crazed at a very young age. Mark raced his whole life, with whatever he could find, because he had what the screenwriter of Days of Thunder called, “A need for speed.” He had little-to-no natural ability. He couldn’t throw, he couldn’t catch, and I used to cream him in foot races. So, I thought he compensated for all that by manipulating the greatest technology his fellow man developed to be faster through mechanical know how. I never looked below his 39th parallel, but other friends informed me that Mark wasn’t compensating for a lack of natural, athletic ability. He was, they said, compensating for his underdeveloped mushroom head. Okay, but he was nine at the time.

He and I snickered at pee pee and wee wee jokes when we were nine, but we loved the well-timed good fart joke, or any joke that contained the words poop or diarrhea in it. You remember that song, “Diarrhea pfft pfft, diarrhea pfft pfft! When you’re running down the gutter, with a piece of bread and butter, diarrhea pfft pfft, diarrhea pfft pfft! When you’re sliding into home, and your pants are full of foam, diarrhea pfft pfft, diarrhea pfft pfft! When your stomach’s feeling wavy, ‘cause it’s making anus gravy diarrhea pfft pfft, diarrhea pfft pfft!” That was one of our favorite songs for far too many years, and if you tell that joke now, to a nine-year-old, their squealing laughter will tell you that some jokes never die. 

The yoinker is little more than a front tail that dispenses waste to a nine-year-old. Pee is funny, but jokes about the length, the girth, or whatever they might see in showers and bathrooms? They’re not there yet. They’re nine, and most nine-year-olds, with monitored viewing habits, don’t even understand how the size of an organ might benefit one over another. They just don’t think that way, not yet. So, you’re telling me that Mark, or any other nine-year-old, would want, or need, to have a faster big wheel, bicycle, or motorized product to compensate for this deficiency? I can almost guarantee this wasn’t a conscious, or subconscious, concern of Mark’s. He was keyed into speed and racing, as opposed to football, Star Wars, or Lego, because he was just wired different. We’re all wired different, and some of that wiring makes so little sense to us that we grow up making jokes to explain it.

I wanted to win when I was nine. I wanted to win in everything I did. I wanted to win at football, basketball, parcheesi, and I wanted to beat other kids in races. Mark, and this is key to understanding the mentality, didn’t just want to beat me in bike races, he needed it. He needed it, like some of us need praise, compliments and laughter when we’re young. It frustrated me when I lost, and I probably cursed a little with my nine-year-old swear words, but like every other normal nine-year-old, I forgot all about it a half minute later. Mark would rage. He raged so often that someone nicknamed him “rage”. He was so obsessed with beating me in a race on our neighborhood street that he started cheating in any way he could dream up. Then he stole a top-of-the-line bike one day, and he beat me from then on. In my anger, I told him that his victories were tainted by the fact that he stole the bike. He didn’t argue, because he didn’t care about particulars. He won, I lost. Turning around to see me struggle to keep up with him was what the French call his joie di vivre. It was the moment he started to really love life. He was smiling so hard he was laughing so hard he was crying. It took me years to understand how essential this need was to his constitution, and he carried that into adulthood, but it had nothing to do with the size of his dingaling.

A group of psychologists from University College London found out that I am wrong. The research tests they performed didn’t involve nine-year-olds, of course, because why would they test anyone in their formative years? No, their research found that men over 29 often prefer sports cars when they believe that their reproductive organs are smaller than the average male’s. The inference of this test is that these men walked into the research study with little-to-no desire for luxury muscle vehicles, until they found out their members were below average in size. See, the research scientists tricked their subjects into thinking the average size of the male kebob was seven inches, as opposed to 5.5. This deception allegedly altered their subjects’ desire to have a fast sports car to compensate for it. The psychologists performed another test where the tricked the subjects by telling them that their personal wealth was lower than the average males, and they performed another test that suggested that their health was inferior comparatively. Nothing, they found, tweaked the subject’s desire to have a fast sports car more than hearing that the size of their Humphrey was below average. It was only one test, and they only tested 200 men, but they believe they validated the phallic car trope.

Ok, we’ll play then. Let’s say the phallic car trope is 100% correct. If that’s the case, then everything else surrounding this notion must be true too, right? If it’s as true as we all think, with no asterisks or exceptions, then the opposite must be true too, right? If a man is of average size, and he knows it, then this man will probably be purchasing moderately priced sedans that bring little-to-no attention to himself, because he doesn’t need to bring attention to himself. He knows that he is average in size, and that leads to average attention from women. That should be axiomatic and one plus one equals two too. He’s already packing average-sized heat, so why would he want, or need, the attention a luxury, muscle car to attract? Then there’s the man, the big one, the Mount Kangchenjunga of men. He is so well-endowed that he apparently knows what The Beatles went through during the height of Beatlemania. If the phallic car trope is so consistent that we can research test it with a group of men so common they prove the trope, then Kangchenjunga will obviously be purchasing … the Smart car. That’s right, the man with a bowhead whale in his pants (or the baleen mysticetus, for those who prefer the Latin derivative), prefers a car that others find so small that they’re almost a joke. He not only doesn’t need to attract attention, he purchases a car that he hopes might finally give him some peace. If the phallic car trope can be proven and disproven then the opposite must be so true that interested parties should be falling all over one another to get with the Smart car driver.    

Men love sports cars. They love the look, the feel, and the feeling of power is so thrilling that some men, big and small, find them intoxicating. This isn’t to say that some men don’t seek some sort of augmentation. I don’t know how representative such notions are to be honest. The only thing I know with absolute certitude is what I’ve witnessed firsthand, and the gearhead friends I knew grew up in families where the car you owned was everything. Even if they know you well enough to know you’re a relatively happy person, from a relatively happy, loving home, if your parents drive a green on green Malibu Classic, they’re going to think that we’re suffering from delusions of adequacy. 

Are such gearhead families doomed to walk the earth with a diminished downstairs department? I was never so bored, or interested, to check. I just knew that while my family was obsessed with football, theirs were obsessed with cars.

Another theory I’ve heard from another group of psychologists is that most of our personality is formed at around six years old. They go so far as to say that if we knew a kid really well in kindergarten and we met that same kid forty-years later, that man would not be remarkably different from the kindergarten kid we knew so well. If that’s the case, what changes around the age of 29? Nothing, something, everything? Is it all about willy winkus? And who cares anyway, it’s funny.

No matter what we say here today to prove, disprove, validate, or refute this phallic car trope, it’s not going to change anything. You’re still going to laugh the next time Mark pulls up next to you in his brand new, sparkly, modified well-oiled machine. You’re going to laugh at him no matter how many ways we analyze it, but is it funny? Yes, yes it is in that sad but true kind of way. We might even go so far as to say it’s hilarious, because knock knock jokes are funny, but if we strive for hilarious, truly hilarious, we have this sick sense that someone’s got to get hurt. And no matter how much pain you figure this guy must have experienced in high school gym locker rooms, you’re still going to laugh at the next guy who pulls up next to you at a stoplight with the idea that he thought he could drop an extra $40-to-$50 grand for a loud, luxury muscle car to rectify it. Lookatme now! What you think ladies? Even if my rod ain’t so hot, look at the hotrod I got beneath me now.