According to the reports from the last two Christmases, if UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL or whoever is delivering your packages don't get them there in pristine condition, then your Christmas is "ruined."

 

So, with that in mind, here are a few tips:

1. If there's not an area near your front door that is protected from  rain, do something about it.  Buy a big plastic container & write "Place Parcels Inside" on it. We'll do that.  We don't want your stuff to get ruined, but at the same time, if we run out of bags, it's on you.  You ordered this stuff.  You know it rains. Be an adult.  Buy that container or a tarp.  Or, if you have a garage door, leave it open.  If there's another place you want your packages, a simple note taped by the door bell will work wonders for your happiness.

2. Put your dog up.  I know, I know... your dog doesn't bite. EVERY dog that has bitten me is a dog that "doesn't bite."  Put fluffy away or don't get your package.  Your precious Christmas isn't worth my blood.

3. Trim those bushes... especially the roses.  If your front door has a porch over it, but there are untrimmed rose bushes waiting to make me or my helper bleed, guess where I'm NOT placing your package.

4. If you order anything that may possibly need a signature, use your head.  If you're not going to be home, don't have it shipped to your home.  Duh.  Ask a neighbor who will be home if you can have it shipped there & have them sign for it, or have it shipped to your work.

5. Make sure your house is properly numbered.  Make sure the numbers are on your mailbox & clearly visible at night (decorative gold letters on a black background are invisible).  If the houses and driveways are close together, put numbers not only on the mailbox and/or curb, but on your house as well.  This will make sure your next door neighbors don't get your stuff, which is important, but will also prevent the ambulance from driving past your house five times if you ever have an actual emergency.


We want you to find your package in flawless condition right where you want it...  follow these 5 steps, and you're much less likely to have "us" ruin your Christmas.

Bonus... order early.  Seriously early.  If not getting a gift will ruin your Christmas, why wait? Why gamble.  Your next click should be to shop for that gift..

As an aside, if your Christmas is ruined by your package not showing up flawlessly, whatever you're celebrating, it isn't Christmas. It's obscene.

I've Had It With Gay Marriage

I am fed up with gay marriage. I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of the homosexual community whining for the "right to get married," and I'm tired of the conservatives whining that gays want to be married.  I'm just... done.

Shut up, already.

First, to the gays, I get it that you want the rights afforded by our government to heterosexual married couples.  For years, it was proposed that these could be afforded to you via something called "Civil Unions," but that wasn't enough for the more militant liberal homosexuals. They wanted more.  They wanted "real marriage" the way the Christian Fundies have it.

Why, though, do any of you demand the acceptance from and the participation of people who have beliefs that are counter to gay marriage?  Why would you want someone to bake your wedding cake who is opposed to your wedding?  Why would you want to force a pastor to perform your ceremony if said pastor thinks you're going to Hell in the express lane?  This isn't simply about rights... this is about gaining the same prestige/status/honor/respect etc those people have for heterosexual couples.  Guess what... it ain't gonna happen.  Get over it.  Why get so wound up over what someone else thinks of you?  Quit being the bully (you didn't know that's what you were being, did you?)  Oh, and guess what happened  the Friday the Supreme court legalized gay marriage.  It became a war.  Before, those backwards Fundies were willing to tolerate you and be loving.  Now, with it clear the next step is to sue the first pastor who refuses to perform your ceremony, you're the enemy.  Sue the pastor, sue to have the religious status of the church removed, destroy the First Amendment.  That's what's coming.  Now, I realize that the overwhelming vast majority of gays don't give a darn about any of that, but this is the war being waged in YOUR name.


To the Christian Conservatives (of whom I consider myself a member), what are you whining about?  Do you REALLY think gays having the right to marry will do any more damage to the "institution of marriage" that you haven't already done yourselves?  My mother has been married 7 times.  I wasn't around for the first, but for the remainder, they were all performed by pastors, and most were done in churches.  Exactly which of you stood up to say, "Hey, you shouldn't get married!  You're giving a bad name to a Holy institution set by God that marriage is between one man and one woman?"  Which of you stood up and said, "Hey woman, the first married couple was Adam and Eve, not Adam, John, Steve, William, Markus, Jack, then Frank and Eve!"

Yeah... none of you did that.  Not one.

Which one of you came to me or any of my siblings and said, "Hey, I know you love your mom and all, but let me explain this marriage thing to you."

Yeah... not one.  Some day, I'll have to expound on how well that's worked out for the institution of marriage among myself & my siblings.

There's a lot of gnashing of teeth over the definition of marriage and not allowing "these people" to confuse our kids & grandkids.  Reality check... Exactly when did any of you confront any straight person who was getting a divorce and say, "You're going to confuse your kids!"

God knows I was certainly confused!  It wasn't until I was in my teens that I even met a couple who hadn't gotten divorces every few years.

If you're looking to "defend marriage," you're too late.  That ship sailed long ago (and probably sank).  Quit worrying about what those rascally gays are doing & mind your own house.  And by your own house, I mean literally your own home AND whatever you call your church home.  Hold your pastors accountable.  They have no business performing wedding ceremonies for people who don't KNOW JESUS, who don't have a firm grasp on what marriage really is, and have a "divorce is not an option" mentality.  They have no business performing a wedding ceremony IN THE HOUSE OF GOD for people who are divorced (excluding adultery).  That's called ENDORSING ADULTERY.  Or, another way to look at it, that's a pastor quite literally calling Holy what the Lord God has called a sin.  Ah yes, I just angered many of you, and many of my own friends.  That's fine.  If you're willing to listen to someone rant and rave about gays and say "amen," then you know you're not mad at me, but at the Truth I just unloaded.  Okay, maybe you're mad at me for being stupid enough to actually publish that thought.  I'm cool with that.

A few lines ago, I said that ship had already sailed.  Divorce happens.  It happens, not because gays have confused things.  It happens because OUR christian society gave up our standards long ago - long before I was born.  The "silent majority" is now the "silent minority."  VERY good people have been getting divorced for very understandable reasons because our society has made being married an abysmal challenge.  We don't hold men accountable the way we once did.  We give women excuses for any behavior this side of killing their own kids.  We have accepted a government that is so huge and expensive that both parents have to work in almost every family (between 40% and 60% of a family's income goes to cover the cost of government - including federal, state and local taxes, and compliance to various ordinances).  How do you raise kids, love your spouse and still deal with all the challenges of being married when you're both out of the house 50+ hours a week?

A very dear friend of mine married a man she loved just the way our society says you should.  He was a Christian.  She was a Christian.  Their parents were Christians.  They got married in a church in front of God, their parents and the whole world.  There was no reason for it to fail.

A few years down the line, they're both working long hours on opposite shifts, so they rarely even see each other.  He, in his desperation and anger at how it's turned out starts drinking. She, in her loneliness, looks outside the marriage for companionship (not adultery, just looking to fill the void left by the now absent husband.)  They drift apart.  They fight.  His drinking turns to drunkeness and then adultery.  At that point, the marriage is already over...

Which one of these gay guys caused that?

And, I'm supposed to get my panties in a wad because some gay guy wants his partner to get health insurance?  If you don't believe two gay people can actually be married, then what does it change?  If I call my dog a cat, does that make it a cat?  Does that make YOUR dog a cat?  Does that make your cat a dog?  If you're a good parent, will your kids be confused between what a dog & cat are?


But, there's light at the end of this tunnel.

There's a couple of things we troglodyte fundamentalist Bible believing folks can do to right that ship that sailed.

Quit sweating the gays.  They, at most, are 5% of the population.  That isn't going to change.  Most of them are pretty nice people.  Why, the whole reason they're called "gay" is because they're so obnoxiously nice.

If you don't want your pastor performing wedding ceremonies for homosexuals and don't want your church branded a "hate group" by the federal government, you better get rules passed in your church barring any pastor from performing any ceremony in your church to anyone who is not a tithe paying member of your church.  In all honesty, it should never have been otherwise... if it hadn't maybe I wouldn't have so many step-dads.

The third and most important thing to do is mind your own home.  Serve God in this way: Love your wife in such a way that people wonder what's up.  Love your kids in a way that makes other kids jealous.  Be the city on the hill... the light on the stand.  Make them want what you have.  Do not fail.  No one listens to us when we talk about marriage because they see our marriages.  They see our divorces.  The divorce rate among "the lost" is about the same as it is among us "saved" folks.  What business do we have in telling anyone else what marriage is if we fail at it as much as anyone else?  You don't ask a drunk how to stay sober, do you?  You don't listen to a thief lecture on how to avoid temptation, do you?  Yet, that's what we are...  hypocrites.

So, yeah... I'm kinda' done with the whole gay marriage thing.

I don't care if the gays get married.  Their marriage isn't going to damage a sunken ship.

The Black Church

The Black Church

For as long as I can remember, I've had a bit of a harder time identifying with others than most people.  I've always felt a bit... disconnected.  Even when surrounded by loving and familiar people, I've felt a bit of a distance.

The "Black Church" is a prime example.

I was at my friend Tommy's house, and we were just hanging around talking and doing a whole lot of nothing.  Tommy was my best friend, and his mom felt like an extension of my own family.  If I was awake, not at school or not at work, I was most likely with Tommy.  His mother came home from work, and considering WHO and WHAT she was, the tone and subject matter of our conversation changed instantly.  Instead of a particular girl we were both interested in for very carnal reasons, we were suddenly talking about video games.  It's funny how that happens.  WHO she was was Tommy's mother.  WHAT she was was a Bible Believing Baptist who was not so timid as to not literally hit you with the Bible if you strayed too far.

"How about the graphics in that new Need for Speed video game!"

She and Tommy started talking about some folks I didn't know, so I somewhat tuned them out (probably part of why I sometimes feel disconnected from people).  Eventually, something in their conversation hit me that woke me back up.  She said, "They live right next door to the black church."

"Black church?" I asked.
"Yeah, the black church," she answered, as if I'd know EXACTLY the church she was talking about.

I mean, why wouldn't I?  Who doesn't know the black church?  How can you drive past it and not know it?  It's freakin' obvious.  It's...  it's...  why... it's BLACK.

My mind raced.  Fearing that mild humiliation of not knowing the obvious, I frantically tried to recall the black church. Surely, I'd seen it.  Surely, I knew where it was.  Surely... surely... surely I wasn't so oblivious to the world around me to not notice a black building with a steeple!  What am I?  An idiot?


Apparently, I am, was, and always will be.

Of course, she wasn't referring to a building painted black as I had imagined. She was referring to Prospect AME Zion Church.  Prospect AME Zion Church... the church of black people.

I never let on that I was actually trying to remember a building painted black.

I never let on that I didn't know that the term "black church" meant a church where the congregation was all black... er... "African Americans."

I was, of course, ashamed of my ignorance.


Now, I'm 40, not 17.

Now, I'm actually rather proud of the fact that I had no clue.  I'm impressed that my mother raised me in THE SOUTH with no clue of such racially tinged colloquialisms.  I'm proud of the fact that I simply do not care about your race.  Screw you if you do.

The church I attend now is not white... it's not black... It's a rather good reflection of the community in which it's based.  The term "church," when found in the New Testament, is more accurately translated as "gathering of people" or even "congregation."  I like that.

I shall not attend a "black gathering of people," because my pale skin would spoil the definition.

I shall not attend a "white gathering of people," because I doubt I'll ever live in an area where everyone is white, and I'd feel weird in a room full of honkies.

Instead, I attend a "Jesus loving gathering of people..."  and in that respect, we come from many backgrounds and in many shades.

Cyclists are Idiots

You may know that I'm a driver for UPS. As such, I see quite a bit of bizarre things from time to time, and many are unmentionable.  Human behavior can be mind boggling, and I just soak it all in.

One aspect of human behavior that I find particularly amusing is the desire people have for other people to look at them... to notice them.  Be it the mid-life-crisis-guy revving his Harley at a stoplight or the 19 year old black kid with his boom-boom music blaring at the same stoplight, the message is the same:  LOOK AT ME!

Those are obvious examples, though.  Some are not quite so obvious, and I stumbled upon a couple of examples at the same time while eating lunch. Towards the entrance of a massive golf-course subdivision I deliver to, they have a pretty expansive tennis & swim complex.  Overlooking this is a parking lot with covered picnic tables...  a great place for a packed lunch.  While sitting there people watching & chowing down on my wife's delicious pasta salad, I noticed something peculiar and a little funny.  As women would leave the pool to walk towards their cars, two different rituals would take place.  Women of a certain age would pack up their things, put on a shirt or wrap themselves in a towel and make their way to their car.  The younger pre-offspring women would dry off, pack their towels in their bag, and then proudly strut half naked the 100 yards to their cars...  or even all the way home!  LOOK AT ME!  LOOK AT ME!

But, the young women weren't the only ones panting for the attention of another's eyes. Mind you, I drive the streets of this neighborhood day in & day out, so I get to know the faces of those who are out & about.  There's a particular lady I have noticed running along the side of the road towards the entrance of the subdivision for months.  Like I said, this is a MASSIVE neighborhood, so the car traffic at the entrance is constant.  I'd always figured this lady lived near the entrance, so that's why she ran there.  Imagine my astonishment when I saw her jogging through the parking lot from the street, to her car, climb in & drive back INTO the subdivision!  I recognized her car as one I see parked - quite literally - as far from the entrance of the subdivision as you can get.  This lady actually gets in her car, drives to the entrance of her subdivision, and then runs up & down the road so her neighbors can see her running!  LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!

It's imbecilic.  It's prepubescent.  It's absurd.

Know what's even more absurd?  Cyclists.  They're morons.

Before you cyclists get your padded panties in a wad, remember, I'm an avid cyclist myself.  I love my bike.  I love riding my bike. I stare at it longingly when it's icy outside.  I think about it when I'm in bed trying to go to sleep.  I only half-jokingly call it my mistress.  When I pull onto UPS's lot at the end of my day, I peer towards the employee lot to see if I can see my mistress perched happily on the roof rack of my car.  I might have a problem...

I digress (one of my superpowers.)

Rights.  Let us talk about our rights.
Okay, allow me to ramble on about our rights.

I, for example, have the right to say the South deserved to lose the Civil War, and that Dixie will never rise again.  I have the right to shout this in the stands at a Mississippi Rebels Homecoming football game.  I'd be a moron if I did.

I have the right to go to a McDonald's drive-through and ask them to take a dump in a cup & call it a chocolate shake.  If they did that, I'd really have no room to complain.

I have all sorts of rights that are positively idiotic if exercised.  I try to avoid idiocy.

Now, back to us cyclists... the idiotic morons exercising our rights...

I have the right to ride on any surface street in Georgia unless otherwise restricted.  On many or most roads, I'd be an idiot if I did.  Driving around in my big brown truck, like I said, I have gotten to observe some of the more interesting things about human behavior.  One of them is the desire of a certain group of cyclists to ride their bikes on the absolute most dangerous surface streets Georgia has to offer... winding shadowy fast two lane country roads?  Check!  Industrial parks that double as rush hour thoroughfares?  Check!  Double check for riding solo at 5:30!  The "slow lane" of a 6 lane road instead of the dedicated bike lane that is stupidly dangerous to ride in itself?  CHECK!

What the heck, guys?  Turn your brains on!  You are not only being an idiotic moron, you're also being a self-centered egotistical jerk!  Imagine if you were trying to get somewhere & got stuck behind my UPS truck with me refusing to ride over 22 miles an hour.  How'd that stick in your bonnet?  I have the RIGHT to do that, afterall (the difference being you probably can't kill me in my big brown truck by texting & driving).  You're abandoning any responsibility for your own safety, demanding others respect your right to be an idiot, and placing a HUGE burden on drivers.  Afterall, we've all struggled to get around a cyclist who is puttering along at 1/3 the flow of traffic.  As a professional driver, I find it challenging.  I can only imagine what this is like for the elderly, the teenager or the fresh-to-America immigrant from a country without cars.  You Jerk.

Here's another little detail of these idiotic moronic self-centered egotistical jerks: they're almost ALL white men from about 35 years to 65 years with a scruffy grey beard.

Those pre-offspring women get their ego stroked by attracting the eyes of men & jealous glares of other women.  The woman running in the high traffic area of her neighborhood enjoys people knowing that SHE is in shape & still looks good.

So, what is it these middle aged buffoons are getting out of this idiotic behavior?  I have my guesses, but one thing is clear.  They're giving the rest of us a bad rap.  They're giving the rest of us a bad rap, and they're getting killed in the process.  They have the right to say what they want at that football game.  They have the right to order poop in a cup.  They are also reaping the harvest of exercising those rights.



Please.

Unless it's a road that makes sense to ride on, don't.