Scott Nagele's Blog, page 6

Middle-aged man earns right to dress himself – for now

My wife hates the way I dress. The shirts and ties I wear to work are okay (just okay, nothing fantastic), but the clothes I wear in more casual circumstances will not do. The shade of my blue jeans is not right; I wear my shirt tucked in when all the hip older gentlemen are […]

You can depend on the Tooth Fairy – eventually

Our Tooth Fairy has always been flaky. She was unreliable when she first started calling at our house, and she’s unreliable still. Poor Big Man had to have a tooth extracted. He took the news better than his big brothers would have. He didn’t cry or have to be dragged kicking and screaming. He was […]

Are you sicker than a 5th grader?

This school year is off to a fine start. In four weeks, I’ve missed a combined five days of work nursing sick kids. That’s 1.25 days missed per week, and it’s still warm out. I can’t wait to see what January looks like. Maybe I’ll be lucky and get fired by then, so I can […]

Hi, I’m Grumpy, and this is my brother, Sleepy – and this is my other brother, Sleepy

I know it’s going to be a difficult morning when I go to wake Buster. Buster is the closest kid we have to a morning person. After one week of school, I’ve formed the habit of getting him up first. I start off easy and work my way up to the hard cases. It’s Tuesday […]

The many itches of summer

You haven’t seen a lot from this blog over the summer. There’s a good reason for that: I’ve been super busy scratching my butt and fantasizing about my retirement years. (Notes to self: 1- You are over 50 and still have three children under 11; 2- You will never retire; 3- Milk those fantasies.) In […]

Conversations with my wife: Diversity

In the car, my wife tells me about something she read online that has her very excited. WIFE: There’s this company that will pay you $6,000 to eat just junk food for a month. ME: Why are they doing that? WIFE: They want you to eat just junk food and take their herbal supplement and […]

Two good reasons why your pizza can’t be pepperoni

Buster (1st grade graduate) and Big Man (preschool graduate) were playing a video game together. From what I overheard, the game allows players to create and name their own pizzas to sell to the customers in the game. Big Man was designing the pizzas and Buster was helping him type the names of them into […]

For whom the summer vacations

They should stop calling this thing between school years summer vacation. They should call it “Summer intense non-school-related activity period” or something like that. I swear, when I was a kid, my mom fed me breakfast and sent me into the woods for the day, armed with only my imagination and a hand-me-down BB gun. […]

Portraits of the artist as a 1st grader

As of noon yesterday, the school year is officially over. Truth be told, we’ve been phoning it in for a couple weeks now. Even though this June has been cool and wet, the sun still stays up late, and that’s enough to make it feel like summer vacation. Besides, with all the field trips and […]

Vastness of father’s ignorance inspires child to stay in school

Big Man graduates from preschool tonight. It will be a proud and happy moment for his parents. Proud because it’s another step completed on his journey to becoming a man of substance. Happy because it means the end of tuition payments. Big Man is learning on your dime for the next 13 years, Dear American […]