I just wanted to thank all my readers, new or otherwise for showing up to support me in my weight loss. (And to comfort Erin, I can assure you that I have not been losing weight too fast. When your body is used to nachos, pizza and beer every day, and then you stop, it’s going to get real, real fast.)
I’m still working on being 320 by tomorrow, although I shanked myself yesterday by treating myself to a pizza buffet for the first time in 3 months.
It was so lovely.
But I played tennis for about 2 hours after that, so it may not have been TOO bad.
ON TO THE WINNER!
Last Tuesday, I posted a pic and told y’all to caption it up. The winner would get ten dollars of ANYTHING they wanted on the internet. The winner of that contest is…
LB from Diary of a Party Girl!
Her caption was:
“Taylor Swift, sweetheart to the confederacy, performs live at a K.K.K Rally and Monster Truck Show in Forsythe County, Georgia!”
You can click on her name to go check out her blog! Congratulations, LB, you are the winner this time! To be fair though, just about everyone had a great caption, and I’ll be doing this again real soon!
A lot of you probably remember this pic I posted from September of last year when I was complaining about fat people shirts costing more:
Folks, I have no idea how much I weighed then, but I’m guessing it was probably around 380 or so. My weigh fluctuates, but I settled at 370 for a long time. That shirt is The Missus’, and you can see how well it fit me.
The good news is that I’ve been making some huge changes in how I live. I refuse to call it dieting, because a diet has an end. What I’m doing has no end. It is a lifestyle change that leads to the ultimate goal of a healthier Travis. For those of you following me on Twitter and Facebook, (which you can do a little further down on the page) you know that I’ve lost about 47 pounds in the last 5 weeks.
I was sitting on the couch yesterday morning, and I looked at The Missus and said, “We should take a picture of me in that shirt.”
And it came to pass:
I’ll be the first to say, it’s still not the prettiest picture in the world, but folks, I feel damn good about it. You should know that I’m not sucking in, I’m not stretching the shirt, and I have not altered this in any way.
I’m pretty proud of myself.
However, my pride was quickly deflated when I showed Kid Funk these pictures and he said, “Your hair is longer.”
Bastard.
I’m going to continue my healthier way of living, which includes massive amounts of exercise, and my ultimate goal is to weigh 200 pounds. I currently weigh 323, and I have an alternate goal to be at 320 before TAR, which is this Friday! Wish me luck.
And that is my own personal journey through the X’s. (Hey y’all. This little thing is called Memoir Monday, and I’d be thrilled if you gave it a shot. Just jot down a story about yourself, grab my code down there, and I’ll link you up to be read by all my wonderful blog buddies. The only rule? It has to be true. I am personally doing what I can to help cure your case of the Mondays. Thanks for playing along!)
By now, you’ve probably all heard about my pseudo celebrity status on the Tyra Banks show.
For those of you new to the blog, here is a brief rundown of how I got on the show.
I get an email from Tamara over at Cheapskate Mom about how the Tyra show is looking for cheapskates for their show. My guess is, they googled cheapskate, and saw her blog, then asked her to be on the show, to which she declined, because she’s a giant freaking pansy very modest and non assuming person.
She did however, give them my email addy and said, “Hey, you want cheap and the perfect person, check this guy out.” It was all downhill from there.
When I first found out about it, I thought it was a very elaborate prank. When I realized it was serious, I came to the understanding that this might be my only chance to ever be on TV, and so I ran with it. I called The Missus, explained it all to her, and then I got the call from the associate producer.
I was pretty worked up, and I have to say, I played them pretty well. I embellished when things needed to be touched up, and I was very high energy through the phone calls. Hell, I’m pretty sure I had my “spirit fingers” going with whatever hand wasn’t holding the phone.
The lady told me she was going to call The Missus, so I immediately called her when I hung up the phone so we could corroborate stories. The Missus laid it on them, and from there, we were told they had to check with another producer, but that they loved our story. The producer called back, The Missus gave an Oscar worthy phone performance, tears included, and we were on our way to New York for the “I Have the Cheapest Mate in America” show.
They flew us out there for an evening, then we were to tape the show the next morning,then we were going to leave the next day. Not much time for sight seeing. Flying over NYC was one of the coolest things I have ever done, and I would do it over and over again. Within 10 minutes of landing I had pissed off my first New Yorker, who happened to be our driver, by saying I liked the Yanks instead of the Mets.
On the radio the entire time we were driving into Manhattan, they kept saying that the blizzard of 10 was on the way, and that there were no flights expected to get out the next day. This caused us a brief bit of panic, because we didn’t know if our gracious hosts were willing to set us up with another nights hotel stay and some meal money. After all, we were there because I am so cheap, right? The blizzard did hit the next day, and they did give us more eating money and another night in the hotel, as well as change our flight around, which gave us a chance to see Chicago and New Jersey, which they can keep.
I won’t go into details on the NY sight seeing. All I’ll say is if you haven’t been there, go. Folks, it felt like I was home for the first time in my life. I would live there in a minute if The Missus would move with me. I love it. We soaked as much of it in as we could, took hundreds of pictures, then got some sushi, and went to bed in a twin size bed, because they had booked us a room with two beds.
The next morning, we went to tape the show. Getting into the studio itself was a chore, they made us surrender any cameras, phones, or any kind of recording devices, and they had two rather large bodyguards frisk us before we went it. I’ll tell you this, I am under contract not to slander or defame the show. So I won’t do that, but the number one question I have gotten since our return has been, “Was Tyra nice?” Her crew was amazing. They were hospitable, they were friendly, they were professional. But can you tell me the last time anyone looked at you and said, “Hey, so and so supermodel is so NICE!” Bet you can count that on an amputated hand…
Did we lie about some things to get on TV? Yes we did. Am I really that cheap? No I’m not. Hell, I just bought a PS3 and a new TV. Do we spend 5 hours every week grocery shopping with thousands of coupons that I make my wife steal the internet to get? That coupon book wasn’t ours, the shopping trips last about an hour, and we are now the proud owners of our very own internet signal.
They edited the show down a lot, because at one point, the “financial advisor” said that we should get rid of my truck and carpool together to our separate jobs in SEPARATE FREAKING CITIES. That just wasn’t good advice. They also took out EVERYTHING that had to do with my blog. Everything. That really pissed me off, because I gave some shout outs.
Essentially, they made it sound like I was the worst husband ever. Which is exactly what The Missus and I led them to believe. So I can’t play the blame game. Instead, what I can tell you is this:
After the segment was over, and I mean RIGHT AFTER Tyra said, “We’ll be right back,” she got up, walked across the stage, and said, “I need powder on my forehead.” We were ushered quickly off the stage and into the green room, and nine and a half minutes of my fame was over. Someone owes me five and a half minutes. That was the last time I ever saw Tyra Banks. We never saw her before the show, and we didn’t see her after.
I really don’t know why I expected anything different.
I’ve asked The Missus to give me her thoughts on the experience in general:
“It was a lot of fun, we got to experience a lot of stuff. The show was a disappointment, it was too much business and not enough enjoyment. I’d really like to go back without the snow, and with more money to shop.”
There you have it folks. The juicy details, the behind the scenes look, the dirty truth. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments, I’ll answer them, unless it will put me in jeopardy of being sued, which I might be already. That’s okay though, y’all got my back…right? Start sending attorney fees my way!
Other Non-Televised Walks Down Memory Lane This Week: (GO READ THEM!)
Momma Fargo’s Memoir Monday: With TV Travis!
Madmother’s Memoir Monday: Anzac Day: Lest We Forget.
Juicebox’s Memoir Monday: Prom Style
Daffy’s Memoir Monday: Jose Can You Sing?
That One Mom’s Memoir Monday: Becoming An Only Parent; Part 5.
Erin’s Memoir Monday: My Fear Of Flying (not Erica Jong’s), Or Why Pan Am Went Down. (Literally)
Lauren’s Memoir Monday: The First Time I Changed The Bumper On My Car.
Annie’s Memoir Monday: The Ties That Bind.
Dame Nuisance’s Memoir Monday: Puking Drunk.
Angel’s Memoir Monday.
Ed’s Memoir Monday: It’s Amazing I Can Still Count To Ten.
Kate’s Memoir Monday: A Walk On The (Culinary) Wild Side.
Taylor’s Memoir Monday: He Could Have Been A Mafia Legend.
This may be a tad premature, as I’m I’m not sure who, if anyone, will show up here after watching the Tyra show today.
I don’t think they are even going to show my URL on the air, the bastards.
But if you are here from the show, stay a while, kick up your feet, and have a look around. This a humor blog, although that might be disputed by some. I do my best to make you laugh every day, and I’m not near the evil dickhead they are making me out to be on the TV.
Coming up on Monday, I will have all the juicy details of the show, and give you some insider information that might help you if you ever decide you want to be on a talk show.
Thanks for coming by, and I look forward to making you laugh for a long time!
Okay.
I’ve been a bad bloggy friend, and I know this.
The first step is to admit it, right?
Anydoucher, I’ve decided that the reason that (some of) you people are blatantly ignoring the comment section on my blog is because I’ve stopped replying to them, like a gracious blogger should.
So I’ve decided to change that. From now on, if you comment on my blog, you will get a reply. The only thing is, I don’t know what to do. Should I post the replies in groups as a comment? Or should I hit each person back with an email?
I need your help, peeps. Let me know what you think.
This is NOT a hand out looking for comments, Mandy
Also, just to let everyone know, SIGH, tomorrow is the day for our Tyra show to air. It will be on at 4 PM CST, and our segment is the first 10 minutes of the show. For the record, they make me look like an evil doucher, just so you know.
The Memoir Monday next week will be all about our experiences on the show. Speaking of Memoir Monday, y’all really kicked me in the nuts this week. We had 4 people play along. I guess if attendance doesn’t improve, I’ll cut the meme like a second string field goal kicker. That’s real.
So let me know. Public reply or private?
I saw this the other night on the The 45th Annual American Academy Panel Idol Country Sad Story About Fallin In Love Or Burnin Down Georgia Awards.
Best caption wins a gift up to 10 dollars in value. Anything on the internet, if it’s 10 dollars, I’ll ship it to you.
I mean, c’mon. The jokes really write themselves here.
Go.
(Hey y’all. This little thing is called Memoir Monday, and I’d be thrilled if you gave it a shot. Just jot down a story about yourself, grab my code down there, and I’ll link you up to be read by all my wonderful blog buddies. The only rule? It has to be true. I am personally doing what I can to help cure your case of the Mondays. Thanks for playing along!)
I’m sure all of us have experienced the moment of deciding we have WAY to much hair, wherever it might be placed, and deciding that it is time to shave it all off. Today’s story revolves around the very first time I ever picked up a razor, and just how naive I was.
My dad told me, “Son, you don’t want to start shaving. Once you start, you’ll never be able to quit, and you’ll hate it.” Of course, I was about 13, and I was a man. I had some peach fuzz, nothing that was even visible unless you had a good light source and maybe one of them fancy NASA telescopes for checkin out bumps on the moon.
I had no intention of listening to my fathers advice, and so I bugged him about it until he finally gave me a can of shaving foam, a disposable razor, and the words, “Knock yourself out. Just be careful.” I took all three of these things to the restroom, where I began to lather up. My father had gone over all the steps with me, so I splashed hot water on my face, then put the foam on, then sat there for a while so that it would “loosen up” that peach fuzz that was already softer than than Obama approach to diplomacy.
Then I started shaving. Oh how thrilled I was! I peeled away the foam one stripe at a time, being oh so very careful not to cut myself. I did a hell of a nice job too, because I didn’t once even give myself a nick! I was a pro already, and it was the first time I’d ever shaved! I rinsed the razor every third or fourth pass, but I never once took my eyes off the mirror, because I was enjoying every second of this grown up activity.
Finally, I was done. I put the razor to the side and splashed my face with water much like the men do in the shaving cream commercials. That made a mess I had to clean up, but after I was done with that, I looked in the mirror to examine my newly shorn chin and upper lip. Alas, they were so much smoother! I had missed some spots, but oh how manly I felt!
I reached down for the razor to do some light touch up work, and for the first time since I’d started, I happened to look at the blades. They looked awful white. They looked awful plastic. They looked an awful lot like I had neglected to ever take the cap off the razor the entire time I had spent shaving. And it turns out, that was exactly the case. I had spent the entire time shaving my face with a capped razor.
Of course, my family had a wonderful belly laugh at my expense, and I realized then that it was obviously not time for me to start shaving, if I had in fact knocked a few hairs off with the damn safety cap. If you think that stopped me though, you are dead wrong. I marched right back into that bathroom, uncapped that razor, foamed up again, and proceeded to butcher my pre-pubescent face into a bloody mess that took a couple of days to heal. But don’t think for a second that I didn’t enjoy using a half roll of toilet paper to cover my new “battle wounds.”
And now it is true, I hate shaving. I only have to about once or twice a week, because part of me is still that 13 year old boy that can’t grow facial hair. However, if it were up to me, I’d go back to that peach fuzz anytime. That’s real.
Other Non-Capped Walks Down Memory Lane This Week: (GO READ THEM!)
Illuvia’s Memoir Monday: Trapped In A Walk In Freezer.
Jeff’s Memoir Monday: My CSS Was Done With A Chisel And A Stone Tablet
Kat’s Memoir Monday: & Other Things.
The final guest blogger in my run of TREMENDOUS guest bloggers is…
KATIE! Otherwise known as Statgirl from some of my older blogs.
Katie doesn’t have a blog, but she wanted to try her hand at it with this story. So without further ado, here she is!
Ok, so…I dunno how this whole blogging thing goes, so im just gonna try and do my best…
Anytree, last year, around this time, I was getting ready to graduate high school..(1st in a class of 32, might I add!) well, as you know, there is this tradition called a Senior Prank, and the last couple of years, there hadn’t been one, soooo it was our job to restart the tradition…
The bad thing about this is that our classes idea of a “harmless” prank was to remove the valve stems (if you don’t know what a valve stem is, it’s the thing that makes the air stay in a tire) off of 5 of the 6 buses that our school ran ever morning. Lots of students didn’t quite make it to school on time. As you can tell, my class holds the gray crayons of the box.
The group of kids that I ran with had nothing to do with this prank, as we were the good kids. Well….kinda…we did stupid, yet harmless stuff…
Me and my friends (we’ll just leave their names out of this) decided that we were going to do something productive to make everyone forget about the bus incident. We were going to plant a tree. So, that night, we sneak up to the school, pick out the tree that we are going to, ahem, move to another location, and start digging.
There was one major flaw in this plan…we forgot flashlights. So while using the camera flash to see, we dug up this tree. It took us 30 minutes to get through the roots. It was nuts. Then…we pick out target destination. Right dead center of the baseball field. That’s right, the pitchers mound.
Ok…the dirt on a pitchers mound is packed tighter than Travis shoved in a Prius, so it took us a good hour to dig a hole deep enough to put this tree in there…it was crazy! We dug the hole, put the tree in, and packed the dirt in around it. It was a masterpiece.
The next day, as the baseball coach was walking onto the baseball field while talking on the phone, and I quote “(insert meaningless conversation here) oh my god, there is a tree on my mound.” (that’s what she said)Ok…so, the whole bus thing was forgotten, and no one ever suspected the valedictorian, salutatorian, and the “most enterprising” student to ever break the rules by planting a tree…
WE. WERE. EPIC.
(Hey y’all. This little thing is called Memoir Monday, and I’d be thrilled if you gave it a shot. Just jot down a story about yourself, grab my code down there, and I’ll link you up to be read by all my wonderful blog buddies. The only rule? It has to be true. I am personally doing what I can to help cure your case of the Mondays. Thanks for playing along!)
The year was a very long time ago, probably about 14 years ago.
I was a young lad, still skinny and tall, and all full of adventure and shit.
The setting was Camp Kiamichi, which is a Southern Baptist church camp set in the Kiamichi mountains of Oklahoma, where the normal summer temperature can range anywhere from 103 in the shade all the way to hot enough where pastors can say things like, “If you think it’s hot HERE, how hot do you think Hell is?”
So this is where a bunch of parents decide to dump their kids for the week, amongst the rock and mountains and various wildlife dangers.
Well, one afternoon, my brother, my father and I were walking along a dusty trail on our way back to the cabin we were staying in.
All of the sudden, Brad and I saw it. A lizard.
There was a big thing that year about catching lizards. I guess it is something all young boys do, but for some reason, it was almost like a rite of passage. I mean, a girl would totally go steady with you if you could catch a lizard. Well, if you could catch a lizard AND you didn’t have head lice, which is another story entirely.
So here was this lizard, and much to my dad’s amusement, Brad and I decide to catch it. So we start to corner it, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t run under a nearby rock, flip smooth over and play dead.
Now I was used to seeing a lizard shed it’s tail to evade capture, but I had never seen one play dead. This was before the Discovery channel, and it was before I knew that this particular lizard DOESN’T play dead. So I ambled up to catch the faking bastard, because you have to get up pretty early in the day to pull the wool over my eyes.
My dad, being the level headed thinker he was, stopped me right before I put my hand under the rock. “Travis, hold on. I don’t think lizards play dead. Hold on.” So I held on. My dad got down on his hands and knees to peer under the rock, and I got down with him. That was when we saw this.
For those of you who don’t know, that is a Copperhead, and it is one of the few species of poisonous snakes we as Oklahomans have the privilege of sharing our state with. Turns out, our friend the lizard wasn’t playing dead after all. He WAS dead. He had run under the wrong rock, which was a rock where I had nearly stuck my hand, and was about to be eaten by our good friend the Copperhead.
However, my father decided he couldn’t allow that snake to stick around a children’s camp. I’d like to say he gently coaxed it into the open, then put it in a container and released it somewhere off the grounds. If you’re a PETA supporter, then you can stop reading now.
He poked at it with a stick until it came out from that rock, then he bashed its head in with another rock. Then Brad and I took turns throwing rocks at it, then a few more kids took turns doing horrible things to it. From there we threw that sumbitch in the woods to be picked apart by birds and wild animals.
And that is another way I almost died, and another reason why I’m still alive today because of my fathers wisdom.
And his vicious snake beating skills.
Other Non-Possum Playing Walks Down Memory Lane: (GO READ THEM!)
Aimee’s Memoir Monday: My Weekend, My Kids, Passion.
Madmother’s Memoir Monday: When We Were Very Young.
Daffy’s Memoir Monday: Let’s Try This Again.
Micki’s Memoir Monday: The Most Random Place I’ve Ever Sat Naked.
LB’s Memoir Monday: 10k Walk-A-Thons and Why Skin Cancer Is Gonna Get Me.
Shany’s Memoir Monday: Yikes!
Ed’s Memoir Monday: Traumatic Brain Injury Is My Friend.
Madmother’s Memoir Monday Part Deux: Whipping Madmother.
Have you ever gotten done with a workout or a strenuous sporting activity and said, “Whoo! That killed me!”
That almost happened tonight.
You see, Kid Funk and I have taken up tennis to sort of aid our diets. The way we figure it, we’ve tried everything but diet and exercise, and now we are trying diet and exercise. Tennis is exercise, and it is low impact, and we’re both athletic people, even if we are a little on the husky side.
We got out there tonight and played our best out of five games. That means we sometimes play up to 25 actual matches. Tonight was not a good night for me, because he beat me pretty solidly, 3 games to 1.
As we sat, pretty tired I might add, on the bench for our cool down, a couple of guys asked us if we wanted to play doubles. Neither of us really like to back down from a challenge, so we accepted.
It’s here I should point out that the other team had…a black guy. We had pretty much accepted defeat by the time we got up to play. This was also our first time playing doubles, and so I had to get used to the new out of bounds line, and I let several go because I thought they were out. It didn’t take us long to figure out that we might have a shot at winnin this thing, but we were quickly running out of steam.
It came down to a tie ball game where the next match won. Then it came down to the next point won. Then it went deuces, then it went advantage, and then it went deuces. This went on for an HOUR. Folks, I don’t mind telling you, I tried to throw the game. One of them served the ball long, and I called it in and said it was game. Kid Funk was having none of that though, and he called it for what it was. We kept playing.
Finally, it went advantage us. Then came the serve. We volleyed briefly, and then they returned it…
“LET IT GO!” I yelled. Kid Funk let it go. It was long.
We. Were. Victorious. We had beaten them. So far, Kid Funk and I are undefeated at doubles tennis. Consequently, I think we also retired from doubles tennis, so we went out on top.
Then the fun started. We went out to eat, he had chaffed nipples and a hamstring cramp, and I was dehydrated and just tuckered out. We left everything we had on that court. It hurt to eat, and then I ate too much, and now I hurt because I ate too much AND because I played tennis. When we got back in the truck to leave, a Charlie horse hit KF so hard he wound up damn near in the fetal position in the cab of my truck. He was writhing in agony, and I was dealing with choking fits of laughter that came real close to causing me to be bulimic.
I asked Kid Funk to sum up the game: “We won and my shit hurts. The last point lasted longer than the previous 10 matches. Tennis is stupid. Felt like we were playin for world peace.”
The game though? It was epic. It was awesome. We won. We beat a team with a black guy.
We’re tennis Hoosiers.
One of the bloggers that I earned my stripes with is
Daffy over at Batcrap Crazy.
See how big those words are? That means click them, go check her out, and follow her, because I said so and because she’s awesome. She talks about conversations she has in her hood, likes to give things random numbers, and is generally the kind of funny that is missing from a lot of blogs, as demonstrated in this guest post.
If you’ve been around my blog (Batcrap Crazy) for any length of time or seen my contributing posts to Lose It Bitches blog, you’ll know that I have an affinity for Zumba. In all honesty I am thoroughly addicted to it.What is Zumba you ask? Latin music based dance workout….think Shakira and a shitton of shakin what the good Lord gave ya….my hips don’t lie.
Because of all of the butt bobbling, quite often you’ll notice 98% of the class participants sneaking search and rescue missions for wayward underroos. It only takes a few sessions for people to realize everyone who wears underwear to class is doing the jitter-dig. Shyness falls to the wayside and it’s a dig-for-all modesty be damned mentality.
In a recent class I errantly donned a pair of underoos and tossed in a panty liner (sorry Travis…most of your followers are female and have children…they’ll understand). Evidently said pantyliner was not properly installed, for part way into the class ass shaking it shifted. Now partly stuck to my crack and partly stuck to the fabric of my underroos, my fear that it was permanently glued to my cheek was confirmed. No amount of shaking, garment tugging or plucking was going to dislodge it. Short of leaving the classes altogether for the safety of a bathroom stall I was destined to endure the stuckage.
The upside? I was wedgie free seeing as how the fabric was permanently stuck in place. The downside? It was 15 minutes into an hour long class, I was standing right in front of a huge clock that took great pleasure in mocking me with each tick and every once in awhile there was hair pullage.
Was that TMI?
I was 10 years old when I saw it.
Forever nicknamed “The Shot,” it would propel Duke into the annals of history, and it would make me a Duke fan forever.
However, at 10 years old, I wasn’t yet mature in my love of basketball. When they won the tourney in 92, I didn’t really care, and it would be 9 years before they won it again.
When they won in 2001, I had bigger fish to fry. I was proud that we won of course, but I was a senior in high school, I was takin care of my mom, and I was trying to bang girls.
However, about 4 years ago, I buckled in for a ride as I started following Duke basketball religiously. You can thank a young man named J.J. Reddick for that, the kid that everyone loved to hate on the team that everyone loves to hate.
There were 3 young men on that team that were freshmen. They went by the names of Scheyer, Thomas and Zoubek.
That Duke team spent the next 3 years getting pounded by UNC and that douchefuck Hansbrough. They lost in the first round of the tourney one year, and never made it past the Sweet 16. In the meantime, those fuckers over at Chapel Hill won a national title.
My heart was heavy.
However, this year was different. We started out winning games. Then we lost some on the road. Then we won some on the road. Then we beat the DOG SHIT out of UNC, and I was thrilled. Then we beat them again. Then we won the ACC Championship.
You may wonder why I keep saying “we.” It is because I am a FAN. I’m not a bandwagon guy. When they lose, I defend them vehemently to everyone of the Duke haters out there, which let’s face it, there are a LOT. I consider myself part of the team.
When we got the tits bracket in the tourney, it scared me more than anything. We were lambasted for getting such a spot, and people were predicting (even our own retarded president) that we’d be beaten by Villanova. Then 1 seeds started dropping like flies. We kept winning. People kept talking trash. We kept winning.
5 games we won, and it all came down to last night. The “David and Goliath” matchup. The “Hoosiers” sequel. And while I have the utmost respect for the Butler team that showed up last night, hell they had me on my knees in front of my TV when that last shot went up, but…
WE ARE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!
So yeah. The air is a little sweeter this morning. I have a pep in my step, and I have a happy song in my head. I spent two hours just sitting and watching the TV last night with a shit eating grin on my face. I have that same grin while I’m typing this. As I write it, kids are filtering in either congratulating me or just avoiding eye contact. It is the greatest feeling in the world, and I get a whole year of trash talking that goes along with it. Even though they’ll never read this, I have something to say to the seniors.
Scheyer, you left it all on the floor. You led your team this year, and you did it superbly. You deserve this.
Zoubek, I loved you and hated that little bone in your foot for 3 years. Thanks for being a hero last night, but I gotta tell you. If Hayward had hit that last shot… Woo.
Thomas, I don’t know how they play ball in Jersey, but for sure after watching you play last night and this year in general, I want to go take lessons. You are the ultimate team player. You might not get the credit, but you handle that with a poise that I would have trouble with. You are a hero.
To the rest of my beloved Blue Devils, I want you to know that I have backed you all season, and I have endured much grief while doing it. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, and I am so proud of you all!
Singler and Smith, umm…please stick around one more year, k? Thanks.
GO DUKE!!!
By the way, if you want to talk shit about this, go ahead. I’ll just take that as a sign of your respect. I don’t expect to get a response to this, because I am one of 3 Duke fans in the whole of blogland. Worth it. I have the greatest mother in the entire world. I’m not kidding. She is strong, she is smart, she is beautiful, and she has never once called me stupid, said she didn’t want me, spoken ill of me, said she didn’t love me, or stolen money from me to buy drugs.
(For those of you looking for funny here, not today.)
I have been asked by Shine to participate in Women’s Writes, which is a day where I can write on any topic I want to that affects women.
I have chosen to focus on how my mom handled her stay at home mom role, and how that role might have hurt her when my dad died. I will take stands in this article that might make some readers mad. I am okay with that. This is my blog, it is my opinion, and if you do not like either of them, they made a button for you at the top right hand corner of the page. It’s a red X. Click it, and I go away.
Or leave me a hateful comment. I will be responding to comments on the blog and not via email today.
Teresa Sloat was 18 years of age when she learned she was pregnant with me. She was ashamed, but she was very “safe” with my dad. When asked if she ever considered abortion, she immediately said no. When asked her thoughts on abortion, she said that it was wrong, and when I asked her why she replied with, “Because it is a life, Travis. From conception, it is a life.”
I completely and 100% agree with her. I am pro-life. I fully believe that from the moment of conception, you have a life inside of you, and that terminating it in any way is wrong. I would believe this no matter my religion, and you will not sway how I feel. Is Utah maybe going a step to far? Yes and no.
When she took the pregnancy test, my father was with her. She was a very scared young lady when that test showed positive, but my father wrapped her up in her arms and said, “Let’s go get my babies a chocolate shake.” When she told me this, she was crying. The reason why will be explained in a little while.
They were married young, and they settled into life together. My mom was a June Cleaver type, she stayed at home and raised me while my dad worked. Soon, she was pregnant again, then again, and then again.
4 boys in 10 years. I guess it wasn’t in the plans for them to have a girl.
For any of you who would dare say that my father kept her barefoot and pregnant, you would be completely wrong. She had shoes. This is what they wanted, a big family, and my mom to be able to raise us in the home.
As I grew older, I can remember being places where I was having fun, and my mom looking at the time and saying, “Boys, we have to go, your dad will be home soon.” I absolutely HATED this, because it meant that my fun was over. I asked her why she did this. “Because I wanted to have dinner ready for your dad.” When asked why, she said, “Because he worked all day, and because I was at home, and that was what I did. I took care of you kids, I took care of the house, and I made dinner for him when he came home. Very traditional…well, it used to be traditional.” I then asked if my dad ever told her that it was her job to have dinner on the table when got home. “He never made me feel like I had to do it because he wanted it done.”
We moved on to her happiness as a stay at home mom. As it turns out, there were times when she thought she could be doing things to bring money into the home, and I asked her if she wanted to do that because there were hard times financially or if she just wanted to get out of the house. “Well, a little bit of both.” My dad made about 35k a year, and that was at the peak of his career. However, on that salary, we had 6 people in the house, 2 cars, owned a home, and took “cheap” vacations. We never went without. When all 4 of us were in school, she started a balloon business that essentially was a huge flop. “We never made any money with that, in fact, it probably cost us money.” I asked her if dad ever made her feel like she was less than adequate because of this failure. “He never made me feel that way. He was always very supportive.” I asked her if she ever was just downright unhappy with her time spent as a stay at home mom, and she said there was one instance when someone asked her to baby sit, and they offered her $5 a day to watch their kids while they made a lot more money. However, she wrapped up by saying this:
“If you are asking if I regret my time as a stay at home mom, I don’t regret that one bit.”
My mom was married to my dad for 17 years. She loved him more than she loved herself. She had a soul mate. She was going to spend the rest of her life with this man, and she couldn’t be happier about that. Then one day in January of 2000, the world turned upside down for us all. My dad was diagnosed with cancer. 9 months is a long time to some, but when you are watching a strong man lose a battle with a disease, it can pass as quickly as a day, and that’s what happened. One day he was there, the next he was gone. We watched him die. My mom spoke the words, “You’ve been a good husband and father, and you can go now Brian.” With those words, he passed.
My mom found herself alone with 4 boys, the oldest a senior in high school, and the youngest 7 years of age. She was dropped headfirst into a world that no longer cares for its widows the way it should. She was a young woman of 36, and she new that she had to support her kids, so she went back to school to become a nurse. This is where she encountered some things that she was not prepared for.
“I was shocked at the kids. I was shocked at what I saw and what I heard, because it was outside of my little circle. You know how I was, I wanted to protect you from bad movies and bad language, and then when I got to college and saw how kids were, they would come to class drunk, their language was filthy and no one was modest, and I was like, ‘Wow.'” She went on to say that being a widow and a college student in a short period of time was very traumatic. When asked how she handled it, she said simply, “The Lord.”
My mom is a Christian. My dad was a Christian. All four of us boys are Christians. Deal with it. I’m not going to shove my religion down your throat, and yeah I know I can be hypocritical. Don’t use those excuses to hate me just because you choose not to believe something I do. I don’t hate you for what you believe in.
I asked her if she had any regrets in how we were raised. She answered quickly with a no, then explained that they made mistakes like any parents do. Then my tape goes quiet. She is crying. She says, “I regret things with Josh. (the youngest) He gets so much less of my time.” My mom is weeping over the fact that because she has to have a job and is getting to experience things she didn’t as a stay at home mom, she doesn’t have enough time to spend with the youngest of my brothers. In other words, 10 years later, she still wishes she could be in the home.
I asked her if she wanted to give any advice to young women out there today, and this is what she said. “Don’t try to raise a family by yourself. There are people that think it is okay to raise a baby by yourself, but I disagree.” I asked her why she thought that: “Because I think the family is an important unit, and I think that women are nurturers, and I don’t want to stereotype, but the father is more of the authority. I think that it just fits God’s design for a family.” I then asked her to give advice to those women who have a family already, and because of the circumstances, whatever they are, the father isn’t around. “They need support from other places. Their family, a church family, and they probably need the Lord. It’s so tough, Travis. It’s so tough.”
I had one final question for my mom. I asked her if someone could erase the past 10 years in which she has learned new things, met new people, gained new friends, and in general has a new outlook on life; and give her the old life with her husband and her being a stay at home mom, would she do it? She didn’t even pause.
“Yes.”
Ladies, I know this has been long and I won’t take up too much more of your time. While reading this, I’m sure that some of you have gotten angry, some of you may have seen yourself, and some of you may be wondering why in the world my mom was happy in that situation. The truth of the matter is, I really believe that we need more of my mom in this nation today. HOWEVER, I also believe that unless these stay at home moms get out of that “circle” and experience the world a little bit, they will have traumatic times if divorced suddenly or widowed such as my mom was. My wife has a job, and even though we don’t have kids yet, she will probably have a job when we do, even if it is just part time or limited in some way. My wife cooks for me, but I cook too. She cleans the house, but I help. If my wife suddenly finds herself without a husband, she will not experience the culture shock my mom did.
But you probably shouldn’t ask me if I’d prefer her to be pregnant with our 3rd child and greeting me every night with a kiss at the door and dinner on the table. Most of today’s women woudn’t like my answer. But all of that is under my control, and if I got my stuff together and was a responsible guy, that could probably happen. And you know what, she would be happy with that too.
Guys, if you want your wife or lady friend to stay at home and raise your family and have that respect for you that my mom had for my dad, then you need to get out there and be the man my dad was, and take responsibility for your position as the head of the family.
Ladies, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you…
…and I’d probably take that job.
Some of you may remember my lamp giveaway from last Friday.
While it didn’t quite gain me the world wide popularity that I was after, it did have a lot of entries.
178 to be exact, after all the Twitter stuff was accounted for.
So I made a list of all your names out by the number of entries you had and yada yada yada, I won’t bore you with that.
Not surprisingly, the person with the most entries won.
With the random number generated of 16 of 178, the winner is…
GINGER MANDY!
You can totally click her name and go tell her what a lucky bish she is!
She is the winner of a new lamp from the fine folks at csnstores.com
This concludes my posting for the weekend, as I have a lot to do.
Go tell your friends how funny I am, and how I give stuff away sometimes.
By the way, due to me doing a special post on that day:
MEMOIR MONDAY IS CANCELED FOR APRIL 5th!
We’ll pick back up the Monday after!
Ed, Jeff and I decided we were going to play nice when we posted this today.
But seriously.
Are you on the fence about TAR?
(CLICK HERE FOR INFO!)
Why the hell are you on the fence? What could you possibly be doing that weekend that could be any cooler than a bunch of Tornado Alley bloggers getting together and drinking, and doing stuff, and drinking, and staying in a hotel for a special rate, and drinking, and maybe going to a baseball game, and drinking?
*raises hand*
Yes Travis?
NOTHING.
That’s correct, here is your gold star!
So listen. Click those big words up there. GET YOUR FREAKING ROOM RESERVED! GET YOUR SHIRT!
The hotel is booked solid, and when those rooms are gone, it’s over.
We have a few definite’s right now, but we still have about 5 or so rooms left. With double beds in each, that means they can hold more people.
Please get in touch with myself, Jeff, or Ed today to talk to us about having fun! We can promise you this, when you leave St. Louis on Sunday…
…your liver will never be the same.