Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 469

I told me so.

One year ago today, I set up an “I told you so” event on my infamous “I told you so” calendar.

After writing about WeddingGiftRefund.com, a business that allowed you to purchase insurance on wedding gifts in the event that the couple that received your gift divorced within the first 36 months, I predicted that this business would fail within a year.

Despite the enormous number of gift equity douchebags in the world, I did not think there were enough to support this business.

I entered this into my “I told you so” calendar that night, effectively setting up an opportunity to say, “I told you so” to myself.

Tonight, exactly one year later, I received the reminder from my calendar.

I checked WeddingGiftRefund.com.

It doesn’t exist.

I told me so.

I know it sounds stupid, but damn it felt good to be able to say “I told you so” to myself.

Parenting perfection

This really is perfect.

The strategy. The tone. The ability to utilize the strategy on an almost daily basis.

I love t. 

I’m not sure if it will still apply by the time my children are in need of this kind of coercion (we may have the Internet implanted in our brains by then), but it is an excellent reminder of how easy it can be to manipulate human behavior. 

Is there be anything more tragic than a left handed kid stuck with a right handed baseball glove?

It just occurred to me this week:

I am left handed. I am very clearly left handed. I have always been left handed.

Yet the first baseball glove that my parents bought me as a child was for a right handed player, thus dooming my future Major League career and (more importantly) requiring me to learn how to play the most important sport in a young boy’s life with my non-dominant hand.

I was never a great baseball player, and yet as a child, I never understood why.

Of course I was never great. No wonder why I still throw (pardon the expression) like a girl. I was playing with the wrong hand.

What is the possible explanation for this kind of parenting decision?

Did they not realize that I was left handed?

Was a left handed glove too difficult to obtain?

Did it cost more?

They purchased a glove for my brother around the same time, and they bought him the requisite right handed glove. Did it not occur to my parents (one of whom played in a softball league) that their left handed son and right handed son probably shouldn’t be using the same kind of baseball glove?

My parents made many decisions throughout the course of my childhood that I did not like.

Leaving me at home on a Saturday night to babysit my brothers and sisters at the tender age of 9 until 2:00 in the morning.

Feeding me bologna and catsup on white bread for lunch for entire summers.

Never mentioning the word college to me once despite my excellent grades.

But this baseball glove thing might be the most egregious thing they ever did to me. To take away a boy’s ability to play baseball at an adequate level and make learning the game so difficult seems like the worst thing you could ever do to a boy.  

The $199.99 Wheelbarrow Sundae: Who is with me?

Mortensen’s is a restaurant and ice cream shop located on the Berlin Turnpike in Newington, CT.

Years ago, I stopped at Mortensen’s for dinner with a friend and hadn’t been back since. A couple weeks ago Elysha and I brought the kids to Mortensen’s for ice cream, and since that fateful night, Elysha has complained that we have wasted far too many years not frequenting this establishment.

She loves the place and insists that we visit often in order to make up for lost time.

It’s a quirky place. It originally began as a dairy farm that delivered milk to homes by horse and cart. The restaurant opened in 1976 and has been going strong ever since.

Their dessert case was manufactured in 1941 (a fact to which they proudly attest) and several antique items from their dairy farm days are on display within the restaurant.

They accept cash only.

But my favorite part of the place is the last item listed on their dessert menu. It’s real, though it hasn’t been ordered in “a few years.”

There will come a day, sooner than later, I hope, when I order this item. Who is with me?

Speak Up storyteller: Matthew Dicks

Just six days until our inaugural Speak Up storytelling event at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT.

Saturday, May 4 at 7:00 PM. Admission is free. Beer, wine and snacks will be sold at the venue.

If you plan on attending, please go to our Facebook invite page and let us know to help with the head count.

Today I’m announcing our seventh and final storyteller, which happens to be me. When I first proposed this project to Elysha, my goal was two-fold:

1. Bring storytelling to Hartford, Connecticut, in order to give audiences a chance to experience the magic of live storytelling without having to drive into New York or Boston.

2. More selfishly, provide an opportunity for me and other interested storytellers to tell stories to interested audiences without having to drive into New York and Boston to do so.

So yes, I plan on telling a story as well on Saturday night. Oddly enough, I’m feeling a little nervous about doing so, even though I frequently tell stories to large audiences in New York City and rarely feel nervous.
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Matthew Dicks

Matthew Dicks is the author of the novels Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, Something Missing and Unexpectedly, Milo, as well as the rock opera, The Clowns. He has also published pieces in The Hartford Courant, The Huffington Post, The Houston Chronicle and Educational Leadership. He has also published poetry and blogs regularly at matthewdicks.com/blog.   

When he is not hunched over a computer screen, Matthew fills his days as an elementary school teacher, a wedding DJ, a heathen minister, a life coach and a Lord of Sealand. He is a former West Hartford Teacher of the Year and a three-time Moth StorySLAM champion.

Matthew is married to friend and fellow teacher, Elysha. They have a daughter named Clara and a son named Charlie.

Matthew grew up in the small town of Blackstone, Massachusetts, where he made a name for himself by dying twice before the age of eighteen and becoming the first student in his high school to be suspended for inciting riot upon himself.

Spamming scumbag of the week: Phone Beauties

Each week, amongst the many interesting, insightful and occasionally scathing comments on my blog, I find comments by businesses and/or spammers who are clever enough to construct comments that avoid spam detection technology.

I delete these comments and ban their IP address, but I know that I will be doing the same thing again tomorrow for a new spamming scumbag.

In response, I write a post each week that highlights these businesses that either engage in this spamming behavior on their own or have hired spammers to do it for them. My intent is to shame these vile companies and cause them to reconsider their means of advertising in the process.

I realize that both goals are unlikely to be achieved, and that even mentioning them in a post boosts their SEO, but doing so makes me feel good, and that is enough.

This week I present Phone Beauties, a company that sells decorative phone cases and spams the comment sections of humble bloggers like me in order to improve their search rank.

I suggest that you forgo aesthetic considerations and look toward functionality by purchasing a Mophie instead. The Mophie is a protective case that also serves as a juice pack, allowing me to carry an extra full charge of battery life with me for those days when plugging in is impossible.

I cannot tell you how reassuring it is knowing I have another full charge at hand when needed. 

Also, it doesn’t look stupid like the Phone Beauties cases.

New definition of “pizza face”

Unfair assumption #9

Women who don makeup before heading to the gym are suffering from traumatic brain injury.

This is truly unfair.

Just because a person does something incredibly stupid doesn’t mean that the person is incredibly stupid.

I am a living testament to this rule.

I wrote a poem. I need a critique. Please help.

I wrote a poem about my son today. I’ve been working on it for three days, including about an hour this morning. I’m ready to hear what people think.

Suggestions?

The second line was especially troubling for me (I’ve written it about three dozen ways), as was the transition from the second line into the third line.

I also need a title.  I have many options. I like none of them.

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Untitled

Watching my baby boy crawl across the polished kitchen floor,
low to the ground like a Marine traversing a field of barbed wire, 
thinking he’s making his way to me,
his Daddy. 
only to realize that his target
was the rogue Cheerio
on the floor beside my sneaker.

Ann Coulter is racing me to the finish line. I hope she gets there first.

There are days when I don’t feel like going to the gym.

On those days, I think of Ann Coulter.

Ann is a decade older than me (even with all that plastic surgery), which means that if I take care of myself, I have a reasonable chance of outliving her.

I have never existed in a world in which Ann Coulter did not also exist. But if I exercise regularly, get routine checkups, and eat a healthy diet, the day could come when I exist and Ann Coulter does not.

That is my dream.

Thank you, Ann. Your continued existence gets me back on that treadmill everyday, working hard in an effort to outlive you.