Tag: connection

Million-Dollar Endorsement

Alcoholism, Parenting By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Million-Dollar Endorsement

Audio version now available.

 

While watching football over the holidays, my youngest son asked me why all of the sideline reporters are hot women, and all of the play-by-play commentators are variably attractive men. “Sexism,” I responded without hesitation. “It’s bothered me for years. These broadcasts are just money-generating engines, and I’m sure the networks have done focus groups. I think dudes are just uncomfortable being informed about football from chicks, except the cute ones who fawn over the winning quarterback.”

 

“Exactly,” my daughter said from behind the couch to which my fanny was semi-permanently adhered during bowl season. I didn’t even know she was in the room. Had I known, I might have used a different word. Females in their early-to-mid twenties have strong opinions, and they are pretty unified about reserving the word, “chicks,” for babies with feathers. Other than that, my message would not have been different had I known she was listening. Either way, it is hard for me to describe how it felt to have her agree with me.

 

At first, it was like the jolt of joy you get when you put on your jeans for the first time in the fall and find a five-dollar bill in the back pocket. But the more I have thought about it, the more her one-word reaction means to me. It has been a long time since she felt comfortable endorsing my opinion.

3 Things I Love about Friendsgiving

Alcoholism, Family By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

3 Things I Love about Friendsgiving

Audio version now available.

 

You probably assume that one of my top three loves for a holiday meal shared with friends rather than family is the likelihood of avoiding tense conversations about politics–the conflicts prevalent around a traditional multi-generational family Thanksgiving table. The last Saturday Night Live episode in November almost always features at least one skit that starts with a smiling family watching the patriarch carve the turkey, and devolves into a blur of isms and phobias with a predictable buildup and and eventual crescendo of mashed potato spittle being scream-launched while someone chugs directly from the wine bottle out of desperation.

 

Avoiding such scenes is not one of the three reasons I love Friendsgivings.

Bizarre at the Boathouse, Part 2

Alcohol By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Bizarre at the Boathouse, Part 2

Audio version now available.

 

Boathouse shindigs are my kind of parties. Years ago, we were at a barbeque in someone’s backyard when one of the children of the host fell going up their deck stairs and needed stitches. The hosts both left with their child, and the rest of the party goers pulled together to put away the food and clean up the party. While picking up cups and dishes, I knocked a full glass of red wine left on the fireplace hearth onto their white living room carpet. That experience is why I’ve always appreciated cleanup at the boathouse. It is more of a covered patio. It is elevated with a walk-in basement below, but the party area is a concrete slab with a roof overhead–perfect for spring and autumn nights. And also, perfect for cleanup. A pushbroom, and snow shovel for a dustpan, and maybe some spot mopping, and the renter gets their security deposit back.

 

At a recent church event hosted at the boathouse, I was hanging around waiting for cleanup to start. My wife, Sheri, works at the church, and as is the case with most nonprofit organizations that depend on volunteer labor, the spouses of the employees were voluntold to help clean up. Just like I witnessed the bizarre behavior of the teens when the boathouse was used for homecoming, I leaned against the boathouse wall and watched a peculiar ritual of young adulthood with which I was painfully familiar. The twenty and thirty somethings were well lubricated, and the alcohol gave me a glimpse of how the reserved professionals and parents behaved when they dropped their shields of decorum. Listen, nothing debaucherous took place at the boathouse, much to my disappointment. If people are going to let loose and compile regrets for the morning, I want to see something worthy of my penchant for storytelling. I was left disappointed in that regard.

Progress

Addiction, Family, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Progress

Audio version now available.

 

Waymo cars driven by humans are techno-mapping the streets of Denver. Local TV ads are recruiting D.P.D. officers to fulfill their destinies and become ICE agents (read that sentence in your best James Earl Jones voice). There are over eight billion people on the planet, but a handful of lunatics possess nuclear codes that could wipe us all out. People get their news from platforms that also allow us to sell our old air fryer or garden hose to our neighbors. I miss plays at the high school football game because I get distracted by the drones filming the action. And I just want to go deep in the mountains and build a lean-to out of sticks and mud.

Yummy Summer of Turd

Alcohol, Emotional Safety By Matt Salis, MPS 6 Comments

Yummy Summer of Turd

Audio version now available.

 

She looked at the back seat of my open-top, two-door Jeep Wrangler and asked, “How do I get in?” Her face lit up with delight as she watched her bandmate step on the back bumper, throw a leg over the roll bar, and plop into the seat next to hers. “You mean I can just climb in? Ooh fun!”

 

My youngest kid’s high school band played at halftime of the Colorado State University football game Saturday night. Just before the performance, my son texted asking if we could take a couple of other kids home when the bus got back to Denver around midnight? I didn’t recognize one of the names, so I asked for cross streets to gauge against my feelings of hospitality. I’m a nice guy, but I’m not building a resume for sainthood. And I follow the Herm Edward’s doctrine that nothing good ever happens after midnight. She lived close, so I “generously” agreed.

Rubber Stamping a Toxic Culture

Addiction, Self-Esteem By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Rubber Stamping a Toxic Culture

Audio version now available.

 

I bought a rubber stamp from a door-to-door rubber stamp salesman once. It was early in our whole grain bread bakery career–maybe 2005. He was wearing a suit and tie long after Friday business casual had seeped into the other four days of the week. He carried a brief case that he opened on our bakery counter. It didn’t actually have briefs in it at all. He had dozens of rubber stamps in little molded foam compartments. He had big stamps that said, “PAST DUE,” in all caps, and small round stamps that said, “Have a nice Day!” in letters arched around a smiley face. He had stamps with rotating numbers so you could adjust the date, and stamps with custom corporate logos. Of course, he had bottles of various colors of ink, and ink pads with lids to keep the ink from drying out.

A.B.D.

Alcoholism, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 4 Comments

A.B.D.

Audio version now available.

 

I subscribed my wife, Sheri, to a paid Spotify account for her birthday several years ago. To help you gauge how incredibly cheap I really am, I think a Spotify account is like $10 a month. Or maybe $15. Or maybe it was $10 back then, and now it’s $15. Anyway, the point is, $10 a month took thoughtful consideration for me. “That’s $120 a year, don’t you know. Why can’t you use the free version? Do you really need to be able to create playlists? Can’t you just sit by your boombox and press the cassette record button when the radio plays your favorite songs like the seasoned Gen-Xer you are?” Generosity just oozes from my thoughtful consideration.

 

This gift for Sheri allows for three logins using the same username and password. I immediately signed my phone into her account, and within a week, I found another of my devices I could use to occupy the third loggin. Happy birthday, Sheri. I’ll be commandeering 2/3rds of your cheap-ass gift.

 

Believe it or not, that’s not the end of the Spotify story.

(Un)Lone Bone

Uncategorized, Underlying Issues Series By Matt Salis, MPS 10 Comments

(Un)Lone Bone

Audio version now available.

 

Middle school is brutal. In all the states where I have lived, both growing up across the Midwest and East Coast, and as an adult in the Midwest and Mountain West, middle school is three grades: sixth, seventh, and eighth. Elementary school is kindergarten through fifth, and high school is ninth through twelfth. I am convinced that middle school is the shortest experience because neither the parents nor the students could survive more than three years being subjected to the cauldron of hormones, body odor, and curse words. The gymnasium during a middle school dance smells like the violent collision of B.O. and Axe Body Spray. If the only risks to unsupervised middle school dances are teen pregnancy and burning down the gym, it might be worth rolling the dice to spare the parent and teacher chaperones from the exposure trauma.

Bitch

Underlying Issues Series By Matt Salis, MPS 6 Comments

Bitch

Audio version now available.

 

“You a bitch!”

 

I answered a call from a restricted number after 10pm on Saturday, and I immediately wished I had not. It sounded like a young man, and my first thought was to applaud the gender fluidity of his insult. When I was a teen or a young adult, insulting another male was to call him a dick or a prick or an asshole. I would never have dreamed of calling another man a bitch. That open mindedness aside, I was concerned about the caller’s grammar. Maybe I am a bitch, but it’s definitely not correct that I a bitch.