Like finding hay in a haystack

Nice product placement, Abercrombie & Fitch. How did you pull that off?



Oh, wait ... that's right. It's hard to find any three random frat guys standing next to each other who are NOT wearing your self-promoting, over-priced t-shirts.

Personally, I prefer my self-promoting, over-priced Polo shirts. They aren't as obvious.

Shame on you, inbound commuters on the west side of Houston

What would you do if you saw this on the way in to work?

Well, apparently all of the thousands of inbound commuters on the west side of Houston either (1) cannot read, (2) don't have working horns, or (3) are stick-in-the-mud fuddy-duddies. We turned the radio down and had the windows cracked so we would be sure not to miss any birthday honks. But we got nothin'. Nada.

"Why aren't they honking for me, daddy?"

After I picked my heart up off the floorboards, I replied with an attempt to lighten the moment.

"Well, buddy, maybe they don't know how to read. Maybe they didn't practice their sight word books like you do!"

"Maybe they're old and don't know how to read," Braden reasoned with his newly acquired five-year old logic.

After a few more blocks of honk-free silence, he chimed in with his assessment of the situation.

"I think this was a bad idea."

That was the last straw. I was determined to solicit some honks one way or another. For a second, I thought about fashioning some sort of "Please honk!" sign that I could flash out my driver's side window. Instead, I decided to "lead by example" and honk myself, thus showing my fellow commuters that it is OK to honk for no good reason other than to bring joy to a 5 year old.

HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

Immediately, the driver of a 99-cent store 18-wheeler in the lane next to us followed my lead.

HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

I quickly turned around to see Braden's face light up with a big ol' grin. ("Whew!" I thought.)

"Hey buddy! Did you hear that? Mack honked for you!"

Right about then, we hopped on the HOV lane in order to make it to school on time. There aren't many opportunities for other vehicles to read your rear window on the HOV lane, so it was quiet from that point on. But, as only a father would foolishly do, I promised him that the day wasn't over yet and that people may honk tonight on the way to soccer practice.

So, if you're on the west side of town tonight and you see the car above, for the love of God -- HONK!

What's In A Name?

Soccer season kicked off last night with our first practice and parents' meeting. One of the items on the agenda: choosing a team name.

This crucial decision was left in the hands of the kids (under the guidance of the coach's wife) while the coach conducted the parents' meeting. She took suggestions from the two girls and four boys assembled in a huddle on the field. One boy offered "tornadoes" and one girl threw out "Strawberry Shortcake" (the character) as possible names.

With a 2-to-1 ratio of boys to girls, you would think that Braden would be playing for the "tornadoes" in his first adventure with team sports. Right?

Wrong.

Turns out, one of the boys loves him some strawberry shortcake for dessert -- so that's how he cast his vote. The results were tied: 3 for tornadoes, 3 for Strawberry Shortcake.

In her wisdom, the coach's wife offered up a compromise. The kids accepted her idea, and thus became the Strawberry Tornadoes.

When we talked about his new team later that night and referred to it by name, Braden advised us to simply refer to them as the "Tornadoes" when we're at home.

Agreed.


(By the way, another boy showed up late and missed the vote. I would like to think that he, too, would have voted for the "tornadoes" thus preventing the need for a compromise. Instead, we'll let this serve as an example to our future voters that every vote counts.)