Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 506

Worst barcode placement ever

A reader (@jpetroroy) posted this earlier this week.

Covering up my name was bad. The choice of letters left behind is just wrong.

Real men don’t use umbrellas, but if we did…

… this should be the umbrella of choice:

Our little dinosaur

I hope Charlie likes his Halloween costume as much as we do!

  

Bunk

I hate this.

Why not try to be better than everyone? Crush the world, damn it. Don’t be better than yesterday. Be better than everyone’s yesterday.

Imagine how many remarkable accomplishments might have never happened had every inventor, explorer, athlete and entrepreneur failed to chase down the frontrunner and competed against the very best in their chosen field.

Also, the comma after the word than is superfluous and grammatically incorrect.

A grammatical error in an inspirational message?

Perhaps the person who created this should have set his or her bar higher, too. 

Early morning walk in my underwear

It was 3:00 in the morning. I was standing on a stranger’s lawn about a quarter mile from my home. I was wearing a tee-shirt, boxer shorts and no shoes. The air was chilly. It’s late October in New England and the leaves have turned, though I cannot see their colors in the darkness that surrounds me. The grass was wet with dew. The stars twinkled in a moonless sky.

My dog awoke me, which is unusual. I brought her downstairs and attached her leash. I thought we would be making a brief excursion onto the front lawn. I didn’t bother to put on anything other than what I had worn to bed.

My dog had other ideas. She took a right after hopping off the stoop and pulled me toward the neighbor’s lawn. “Fine,” I thought. “A few extra steps won’t kill me, and it’s 3:00 in the morning. No one is going to see me in out here in my underwear.”

My neighbor’s lawn became my neighbor’s neighbor’s lawn, and before I knew it, we had turned the corner at the end of street and were making our way around the block.

I should’ve gone back for shoes and pants, but I was tired and annoyed. I was almost mindless in my movements.

Fifteen minutes later I was farther away from my home in my underwear than than I could have ever imagined. My feet were cold and wet and my dog was dawdling, in no great rush to return home. A car drove by, its headlights illuminating my underwear-clad frame.

I tugged on the leash. My dog would not budge. My annoyance was verging on anger when I looked up into the sky, saw the stars above my head, and realized how lucky I was.

There will come a day when I can no longer walk around the block in my bare feet with my dog.

There will come a day when I will yearn for the cool, wet grass between my toes.

Regardless of the hour or location or temperature or paisley design on my boxer shorts. I was here, alone with my dog, surrounded by the quiet of the witching hour.

I would return to bed soon enough. For now, I decided, I should relish the moment. Take it in as best as I could.

Days are short. Years are shorter. Lifetimes are but blinks of an eye. An early morning jaunt on a crisp, fall morning is something to be embraced.

I decided to do just that.

My three year old is attempting to take control of my clothing choices. And succeeding.

My daughter has been sleeping in a bed for some time, but she still insists on being plucked off the bed every morning in a fashion similar to when she was in a crib.

Yesterday morning I entered her bedroom and was greeted by a befuddled look.

“Daddy, why are you wearing that stripy shirt?” she asked.

“I dunno,” I said. “It was clean. Do you like it?”

“I like the stripes, but it’s too big. It makes your belly pop out. Go change.”

I laughed and reached to pick her up.

“No, Daddy,” she said, pushing me away. “Go change your shirt and then come back and get me.”

I laughed again, but this time I saw the look on her face and knew she meant business. And she was right. The shirt was a little big, a relic of a time long since past, so I returned to my closet and changed my shirt.

When I reentered the room, Clara smiled and said, “That’s better, Daddy. Now we can go.”

She’s three years old and already dictating the clothing choices of the man in her life.

Sexist? I initially thought so, but now I am not so sure.

A parking lot decorated in pink has been designated for women only at a shopping center in Shijiazhuang, capital city of Hebei Province, China.

The lot offers wider parking spaces especially designed for female drivers, who tend to cause twice as many collisions in parking lots than in other places, according to Chinese insurance company data.

The shopping center parking lot also provides three lights in every parking space to improve visibility for female drivers.

Bright colors, such as pink and light purple, and cute cartoon pictures decorate the parking lot.

At first, I thought that this was sexist and wrong, and while I might still feel that way, consider the facts:

Provided that the Chinese insurance data is correct (and I assume it is, because why else waste valuable real estate on larger parking spaces), what is wrong with expanding parking spaces for women? From a financial and safety standpoint, it only makes sense.

And while the use of the color pink at first struck me as condescending and sexist, pink is without doubt the color most closely associated with women. The ratio of women to men wearing pink is incredibly lopsided. The mere existence of tee-shirts that read “Real men wear pink” is proof enough that the number of men who wear pink is miniscule. In fact, is there any other color that slants more in the direction of a single sex or gender than pink? Why not use a color that women seem especially attracted to?

The additional lighting in these parking lots also makes perfect sense. I can’t tell you how many times I have escorted a woman to her car on a dark night, but no woman has ever offered to walk me to my car under similar circumstances, nor I ever have I felt that I required an escort. What woman hasn’t wished that parking lots or parking garages be better lit?

As for the “cute cartoon pictures” decorating the lot, I’ll reserve judgment. I haven’t seen the pictures, nor do I fully understand the role that cartoons play in Chinese culture. From an American standpoint, they sound sexist, but I just don’t know.

So I am left wondering:

Is there really anything sexist about this parking lot?

Would American woman complain if a parking area was designated for their use only at the local mall and designed for their specific needs and tastes?

I’m sure many would, but should they?

Is is unreasonable to expect my daughter to cure cancer or fly to Mars someday?

Yesterday my wife told me that she has started playing audiobooks in the car for our daughter while Clara simultaneously holds the book and follows along, trying to determine when and where to turn the page.

Clara is only three years old and cannot read yet, but I thought that this sounded like a terrific step on the road to reading.

And it got me thinking:

The advantages that my daughter has over the childhood version of myself are astounding.

Clara attends preschool.

I did not.

Clara spends an extraordinary amount of time in museums, zoos, aquariums, libraries and the like.

I did not.

Clara lives in a house filled with books and is read to every day.

I was not.

Clara will presumably not be left home alone for long stretches of time,  oftentimes into the wee hours of the morning, at the age of 8.

I was.

Clara will be assigned a reasonable bedtime throughout much of her childhood.

I was not.   

The amount of television that Clara watches is limited, and the programs that she watches are specifically vetted by us.

This was not the case for me.

As a result of these advantages, is it unreasonable to expect that Clara will one day be considerably more intelligent and better prepared for adulthood than me?

And therefore, is it also unreasonable to expect that her level of success will far exceed my own?

In short, based upon the advantages that my daughter has over the childhood version of me, is it wrong of me to expect greatness from Clara?

And be at least a little annoyed if it is not achieved?

Cardboard boxes rule

The cardboard box was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame in 2005.

The idea of a Toy Hall of Fame is fairly stupid, but if there has to be one, the cardboard box most certainly belongs there.

I wrote a poem in honor of the cardboard box a few years ago, based upon a spring day when my friend and I spent an entire afternoon with a muddy hill and a refrigerator box. It actually won a contest and was published in the Beginnings magazine.

________________________________________

Save Your Money Next Time and Just Give Me the Box

Thank you Mother,
for the red, aerodynamic toboggan
that I found under the Christmas tree this morning,
with its chiseled runners and
precision steering wires.

But Mother dearest,
in the future,
please know that I have found nothing more exhilarating
than a steep, muddy hill
and a sturdy refrigerator box.

Read Shakespeare and avoid children’s theater

On Saturday night I had the honor of joining nine other authors and audiobook narrators for Books on the Nightstand’s Celebration of Authors. Each of us were asked to speak on a topic of our choice (presumably pertaining to books and literature), and I decided just a few minutes before my turn to speak to talk about Shakespeare and the horrors of children’s theater.

Unbeknownst to me, friends and readers of my work were recording my talk and posted it to YouTube shortly thereafter. An audio recording on my talk, as well as the talks of Tayari Jones, Ann Packer, Tupelo Hassman, Simon Vance, Grover Gardner, Cara Black, Sarah McCoy, Adam Johnson, and Lynne Cox, will be available on the Books on the Nightstand podcast in the coming months, but if you can’t wait, you can hear and see my talk from that night.