jonathan friesen

The Coolest Wife

Okay, I have the coolest wife. I win. You lose. You can argue with me. You can think that you know of a different coolest wife. I'll let you live in ignorance. Wait, no I won't. I'll splat it all over this blog where . . . 59 people, if stats are accurate, will read it tonight. 

Why is she the coolest? That's trickier to explain. See, yesterday I was anxious. I had no reason to be. I had no terrifying deadline, no creditor at the door, no psycho-census taker. It should have been a great day. But it wasn't. I was anxious. Jittery. Almost dizzy anxious. You can think panic attack all you want, but I don't think so. I've been there and this felt different. 

And when I get anxious, I get nasty. Short. Bite your nose off nasty. Especially my wife's nose. Which is too bad because she has an adorable nose. But if she sticks it near me, I'll go for the chew. I jump on everything, make her nice comments into offensive ones. Okay. You get it. So I'm like that yesterday, and she just smiled. Just worked on cleaning my office and smiled. Listened to my junky self and smiled. How frustrating is that? Very. For about ten minutes. And then something happens, and I start to see that nose differently. I don't want to bite it off. I don't want to do anything but see her smile because she turned a grouch into a guy again.

I have the coolest wife.

Green Cars. If I watch a commercial, automakers all brag about their green cars. This one's greener. This one's the greenest. Okay. Fine. So I decided to start paying attention, close attention. I decided I'd watch every car that passed by and do you know what? HELLO! There are no green cars. Red, white, silver, blue. Black? Yep. Yellow? Lots of yellow bugs around. But green? No way. Now, this isn't completely true. I DID see green mini-vans, and a few green trucks, but only one green car, and it was so yellowish that it hardly counted. Oh, I'm sure there are more. But I think it's time to stop all this foolishness about buying green and admit it--THE WORLD HATES GREEN CARS! There. I said it. Good-night.

I'm looking at our Christmas Tree. Most of it is lying on the ground. A few needles still up there. Catch 22. I water it. I jiggle it. Needles rain on my head. I leave it be, maybe I could fake you into thinking it's full of life. But it's not. It's not even a Frasier fir. And I always get a Frasier fir. Soft needles. Nice. This bugger fires out little Incan blow-darts that draw blood and welt my skin. Now maybe it was Mayan or Aztecs who did that. I must have had mono the weeks we covered that in fifth grade.



But none of that is important. Well, the blow-dart part isn't. Come to think of it, I just lost interest in what I was going to say, so I'll stop and leave the rest of this post to your imagination. Enjoy!

Grace periods. I love them. I love people and companies that have them. Oops! Forgot about that bill. No sweat. There's a grace period. My garbage man has grace. So does the license tab guy. My health insurance company (one of those cruel ones you hear about) has thirty days of grace. Very kind. Not so the credit card company. No grace there. Only penalties.



I said something stupid today. Something very credit card. To you, and you know who you are, forgive me. I'll try and be more garbage man tomorrow.

One hour ago a kind lady stopped by to get supplemental information for the Census. Just a few questions. 120 questions later, not exaggerated and far from done, I gave her the boot--right after she asked if I'd had a mental breakdown in the past year. No kidding. It was one of her "more invasive" questions. Her words. I asked, "who wants to know these things?" She said THEY do. Ah yes, THEY. THEY need to know if I've slept in another house at any point in the last year. If I've taken a vacation in the last month, if there are any other entries besides the front to my house. (All questions from the "supplemental" Census). And when she left, she said she'd be back. THEY didn't get a clear enough profile of me. Why does the government need my profile? THEY can ask the IRS and get my numbers. THEY can ask the bank and get my net worth. THEY can ask the phone company and get my contacts. But up until now, THEY left my profile alone. THEY left me alone. No more.

Horrors

The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a study. They asked Oklahoma high schoolers ten questions from the citizenship test given to immigrants. Percentages show the number of students who answered the question CORRECTLY! Here you go. (I can only bear to give you the first four. The next six aren't any better.) 

1. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?   14%

2. Name the two major political parties in the United States.  43%

3. Who is in charge of the executive branch?   29%

4. Name the first president of the United States.   23%

I love Oklahoma. I have family there. No way this can be an Oklahoma thing. It's probably everywhere. 

Well, except here! If you are visiting my website you are most certainly in the brilliant minority. But it's everywhere else.

Horrors. 

Scruffy Guy

My car stalled today. This is not newsworthy. My car did not start up again. This is. If you've driven on Hwy 65 through Blaine, MN you know it to be a very busy Hwy, especially at 4:30 when this event occurred.

My son and I were headed to his soccer practice, and poof, nothing. No power. A police lady pulled behind me and turned on her hazards. My battery was too weak to do the job. I was out scraping the battery terminals. Problem? I needed a new battery.

"Immediately enter the vehicle!"

The police lady megaphones me. I close the hood and obey.

"Why is she yelling at you?" My son's window was down.

"She doesn't want me to get hit, likely enough."

"Put your car in neutral and steer toward the shoulder!" That's her again.

I do, she shoves my car into the ditch, smiles and drives off. Like she's done me a favor. What a kind lady. 

I don't want to be in the ditch. I just want a new battery. And presently, I want a jump. I want some car, any car (well that's not true, I don't want a Prius or some funky electric hybrid--they'll electrocute me) to stop and give me an old-fashioned jump. 

So I reach in back of of the Escort, and pull out my jumper cables. Then I stand behind my car, holding them up for cars to see. I hold. And I hold. And I wave and I hold. For an hour. One stinkin' hour. Thousands of cars whip by me. Drivers peek, but don't dare risk looking. Then they'd have to feel bad. As it is, they can whip by me and say, "Oh, I would stop but it's so busy, and I'm in the wrong lane, and someone else will stop soon, and I heard on the news . . .blah, blah." So they stare at me and my son in their rear view mirror until we're specks, and you can't feel guilty about blowing by a speck.

Yeah, I'm a 6'5" guy. I don't expect a single lady to stop. But the guys. Man. I even have a kid out there with me! 

I know the problem. Cell phones. We all expect that everyone has help on the way, but I'm an hour from home. I need five minutes of someone's time. One hour later, from the OTHER side of the highway, a pickup rumbles down into the ditch. It's the kind of guy who always helps. Before I describe him, close your eyes. Who helps on highways? You already know! He was one scruffy man. If I'm ever in a jam and I have a choice, let me run into a scruffy guy, the more unkempt the better. Don't let me bump into clean shaven, well-dressed, nice-car guys. They rarely stop because they have one life to live. Their own. Give me a smelly guy in a rusted truck.

If you've lived over forty years, you know what I'm talking about.

So the scruffy dude jumps my car. Three minutes is what it takes. Does he wait so I can thank him? You know that answer too. Of course not. I grind out of the ditch and get my kid to the last part of practice.

Yeah, we have to be careful. But thank goodness for scruffy guys who don't give a rip and don't rationalize that I probably have a cell phone. In that one guy, I found more kindness than I did in ten thousand well-dressed men.

Thanks, scruffy guy.

Little Painted Horses

I took the kids to the local History Center. No, that's not quite true. Well, yes, technically, but the reason for going was the insistence of my two eldest that my lovely wife would like some cute little painted horses sold in the gift shop.

I don't want to go to town. (That's my line. Notice what's happened to this city boy. Now driving two miles into town for anything seems a waste, unless I have other business there.)

But we need to! (This was more like a chorus of little, but persistent voices.) She really wants the horses. They're not that expensive!

The last line convinced me--I had to stop at the post office anyway. We saddled up and went to town, to the little History Center gift shop. They pulled me through the front door and ran up to the horses. Those! 

Yes, I see. I looked at the cheap, cute little painted horses. A two-incher was $22, a three-incher $28, and on up to $60 six-inchers.

It was a sad moment then, because the kids had their ziplock bags filled with quarters gained from allowances. My oldest looked at the price and shook her head. They're more than I thought.

The lady at the desk behind us piped in. They are expensive because they are hand crafted. They are hand painted. They are made in Sweden (or Norway, I wasn't paying attention). And because they are hand painted, they are all unique. In addition, we have to factor in shipping.

My kids nodded at this explanation. 

They're still too much; probably made in China, anyway. (Detect grumpiness in my voice? It was there. I never know what my wife wants, I finally get a tip--two stupid little painted horses--and the dust-speck sizes are more than I have in the bank account.)

You know, I can purchase a living, breathing, galloping horse for $22 right now. Yes, the two-incher eats less, is much less work, and has a longer shelf-life, but I can't ride it, and it doesn't make cool nickering sounds.

So we left sans horses, but I told the kids not to fear. I, your father, once carved a horse. A cute little horse. 

That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to carve a whole bunch of 'em. Big fellas. One foot tall. I'm going to set up my big painted horse stand right outside our cute little History Center and sell my carvings for . . .$59. Yep. Less than inside. They might be ugly but they'll be cheap. I'll show those Scandinavian woodcarvers what a real bargain is, and by the time I'm done, they'll be forced to drop their prices to reasonable.

And then I'll go buy my wife a two-incher. She sure won't want one of mine.

RUSH!!!

Move over big red JERK.

Make way for the yellow RUSH!

My next YA novel about an adrenaline junkie's discovery of a deadly California firefighters' brotherhood releases spring/summer of next year. But the cover releases now. Here 'tis!

 

Reform This

So the government just sent stimulus money borrowed from my children to thousands of prison inmates who, even if serving life terms, get to keep it. Why can they keep it? They fit the government's criteria for receiving my children's money. The reason for this blunder? Our gov. was not aware the criminals were in jail.

Of all the issues to reform, perhaps that would be a place to start. Know who's in jail. Know who's dead. That stuff.