Fear of Flying

I hadn't been on a flight in almost twenty years; I was not a happy man to be standing at the gate for the first leg of a trip to Europe.  My wife and I had decided that we would move to Europe and participate in evangelistic outreach to people in and around Germany.  In order to set-up our home and gain employment on the continent, it was necessary that I go first and make arrangements.  If successful, then upon my return I would prepare the family to move across the ocean.

Dorothy and I had been married for ten years, and in that time had not been apart overnight at all, except when she was birthing babies or attending a women's group overnighter.  All in all, we had been apart no more than about six days total.  I was now going away for an entire month.  I would not be in town at a meeting, or even in the region at a conference.  I would be more than six thousand miles away in countries with languages I did not speak, and a questionable sense of direction.  It was a tense and tearful goodbye scene.

As I boarded the relatively small aircraft bound for Chicago, my anxiety matured into cold fear.  I tried to take an aisle seat, but the gentleman in my row insisted I have the window.  I could not explain my anxiety because he had only a couple hundred words of in his English vocabulary, and my Italian was non-existent. 

As the plane taxied to the runway and took off in a burst of acceleration I did not remember well, I tried to find some calm.  I looked out of the window and found that it was less scary than leaning back in my seat with my eyes closed in desperate prayer with one hand on my pulse.  Feeling a very slight encouragement, I looked around the airplane cabin a little.  The Italian gentleman was alert and had a friendly expression.  He greeted me in English, heavily accented, honestly just like in the movies.  The conversation was utterly basic, and we probably should not have tried to have a conversation, but I we weren't going anywhere and I felt a little better when I was talking to him.

After some struggling, I got him to understand that I was going to Slovenia to work in a church.  I could not find the words to correct his belief that I was a priest.  He related some form of understanding and approval of Slovenia, but I did not discern any details.  After some time, he saw that I was moving to Europe, and did not plan to live in the United States anymore.  When he said, "It is good you leaving America because is better in Europe, eh?"  When I saw that the sum total of his understanding was that I did not like the United States, I realized I would not be able to make him understand anything, though I did see the humor in it.  When I settled to face the rest of the flight I was startled to find that I hadn't been aware of any fear for the duration of the difficult conversation.  I had been too focused on the task of making my neighbor understand me to think about the flight.  Now it was more than halfway to Chicago and I wasn't scared anymore.  I mused that when flying I should look around for an alert foreigner, to relieve my fear of flying.

Lunch

Go to Work, and Don't Forget Your Lunch

Dad was a working man; he had a metal lunch box.  There are other kinds of jobs, of course, but as a kid, I had the idea from somewhere that men who carried metal lunchboxes were the core layer of American society.  I often looked forward to the day when I too could carry a metal lunch box to work.  Sometimes, mom helped us play "work."  She lined up the kitchen chairs in the living room with sheets over them to form a tunnel we could crawl through to the corner where a blanket formed a tent of sorts.  She packed some food for us in paper lunch bags.  We took out lunches and crawled through the tunnel to "work," which actually amounted to us eating our lunch.

My first "real" job was with Arrow Door.  I had worked for a time in a pharmacy, but there was no opportunity for carrying a lunch to work, as it was part time.  At Arrow Door, I was on an eight hour shift, six in the morning to three in the afternoon.  I needed a lunch.  Unfortunately, I was still living at home, so mom pitched in and make me lunch every day.  She packed in a paper lunch bag.  A little later, I was promoted to junior management, and going out to eat for an hour took the place of the brown bag.  I was going in the wrong direction.  After about six years, I left Arrow Door; my plan was to get back into college.  My plan was not well thought out, and after a year, I needed to work again.  (The Reagan Era was a different time, and school loans were not what they are today)  I applied around and got a call from Haven-Busch, a steel erector facility in Grandville.  By then I was living on my own, but I immediately went back to mom and dad's house to borrow a lunch box.  A metal lunch box.  Dad didn't mind, he had a couple of extras in the back cupboard.  He let me have a black metal lunch box with a big green Philadelphia Eagles sticker on it.  I was very excited.

After my interview and job acceptance, I found that, not only did I need to bring lunch, I needed steel toe work shoes, and even better than that, I was issued a hard  hat.  I bought a couple of flannel shirts to complete the outfit.  At work, we wore safety glasses and thick denim aprons, wore thick gloves in addition to our steel toe shoes with special metatarsal guard and the awesome hard hat.  Every time I walked in the front entrance, I saw dad walk off in another time, when we dropped him off at the old Reynolds Metals facility when I was small enough to wear pajamas with feet in them.  He always had his lunch box with him; now I had mine.

It probably doesn't matter that the job was not a good arrangement for me.  I was trying to go to school, and I was on the most evil Second Shift, from three in the afternoon to eleven at night.  Most of the jobs in the facility were welding related, a skill for which I had zero training; there was absolutely no patience for a rank novice, so there would be no job openings for me, past the one I hired in for.  Of all things, I was the assistant to the guy who ran a punch, which was irrelevant.  This important thing about the guy was that he was the union steward.  Now this was still the early eighties, and working with the union steward meant one thing:  he was never in a hurry, ever.  I was the assistant to an employee who really didn't need one.  I followed him when he looked at his schedule.  And when he looked for a stack.  And when he brought the stack over with an overhead crane.  And when he lifted one beam and put it in the machine, (though I did get to help him line it up).  I followed him when he punched one hole, and retraced his steps in reverse, putting the beam with a hole in it back where it was before.  It was boring as hell.

That summer, I met Dorothy, my wife-to-be.  I quit the steel erectors in favor of a quality manager job at a machining shop in Grandville, where I stayed for seven years and grew up professionally.  There would be no more steel toe shoes or hard hats.  After only three months in the "real man's job" I had fulfilled my childhood dream, however, and I didn't need to overdo it.  I had gone to work, flannel shirt and all.  I smelled the acetylene and had seen the flashes of arc welding.  I had sweated my ass off underneath the most extensive protective layer imaginable, but I was fulfilled.  I had taken my lunch to work in a metal box.

Remember the Fat Man

Remember the Fat Man

I learned a lot of things from watching my dad.  When dad needed to have his gall bladder out, he simply used some of his accumulated sick days to take of a couple of months off from work.  So, in the six years I worked at Arrow Door, I missed three days.  When dad went on vacation, he took his family everywhere he went, or he didn't go.  So, my kids will report that their childhood is studded with little vacation trips where we packed up the car, lined the back seat with three child car seats, and drove somewhere.  Goshen, Morley, Traverse City, Charlevoix, and Fayette State Park in the Upper Peninsula.  We didn't have much money, but we went as far as a half days driving and a full tank of gas would take us.

Some of the things I learned from dad were less fundamental, and some of these things I can't say I kept over the years.  For example, dinner time was supposed to be eaten at exactly five-thirty in the afternoon, at the table in the kitchen with the news on.  Apparently, being a dad meant eating with your head at a ninety degree angle to the family, so as not to miss anything Howard K. Smith said.  The plate was to be arranged consistently, trisected into meat, potatoes, and (canned) vegetables, with a slice of buttered white bread propped on the top right hand quarter of the plate.  It was milk to drink, with no exceptions, well maybe sometimes.

There were actually quite a few "different" meals, rotating on infrequent and low frequency intervals.  For example, we ate venison when dad shot a deer and trout when he went fishing.  If I came home to find dad shredding bread into the casserole dish, I knew we were having meat loaf, made with either hamburger or salmon.  In the sixties, we did not eat pizza.  We had something special, though.  Up on South Division, just across Maplelawn Ave. from the old Meijer's, one over from the Dunkin' Doughnuts Shop sat an ugly yellow cinder block building with gaudy neon signs from an earlier time.  It reminded me of something, but I did not know what, because it "reminded" me of a time I as to young to have seen.  Apparently, after the big war, everyone came home and opened their own business on the spot.  From the look of some of the buildings around my side of town, they constructed their own buildings too.  The ugly, gaudy building was called Fat Man's Fish Fry, proof that heaven sometimes appears in strange packages.

To the uninitiated, Fat Man's deep fried fish.  To the experienced, Fat Man's provided perfectly golden, steaming nuggets of savory white filets from the bounty of seven seas, skillfully seasoned with salt, pepper, and malt vinegar, if you like.  I like.  When I was a kid, dad always ordered ocean perch and fries.  It came in paperboard boats, generously double wrapped in real butcher paper.  Each time we unwrapped a package, it like a birthday present.  When the butcher paper was folded back, the steam rose in a visible column, sending sharp scents to every corner of the kitchen.  Our cat Tom always appeared, tail stiff as a flag, wearing his friendliest face.  There were never any leftovers.

As a young adult, I had to fetch my own Fat Man's fish.  I discovered there were more items on order than fit within dad's narrow view of food.  I counted over thirty items, including baby turbot (no idea what that is), and frog legs.  Absolutely everything was run through the fryers.  I gorged myself on liver, smelt, and perch, of course.  There were vegetables, too.  I loved the pressed veggie sticks, cauliflower, and mushrooms.  (Don't argue, I know that fungi are not vegetables.)  As for condiments, I have never before, or since seen such a gigantic collection of tartar sauces, mayonnaises, ketchups, and a couple of things I didn't recognize.  I used to joke with my friend Scott that I would one day order "a pound of everything."  Sometime later, he told me he actually came home with two full grocery bags of "everything" after having a few beers.  Knowing his wife Lori, I could easily imagine her response in the morning.  (I was not married at that time.)

Full decades have passed, and with them, my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.  In all my marriage, we only visited the gaudy yellow building once.  It was years ago.  I had waxed so eloquent upon the wonders of Fat Man's that we had to try it as a family.  Funny, (strange) how things change.  We sat together and chowed down some perch and fries.  It was sort of similar to my memory at first, when the steam rose.  We were in the car, and the wonderful smell was overpowering, and the windows steamed up.  As we dived into the fish, everyone raved how good it was, at first.  We had been very hungry and it was tasty.  As we ate, though, we were not exactly transported to fairy land.  It was good fish, and prepared correctly, but my wife pointed out that it was, essentially, just deep fried fish.  What!  It was "just" deep fried fish?  No, it was a wonderment, food of the gods, it was…a break from the meat and potatoes that dad insisted upon.  But that was a long time ago and I was small.  And I don't mean that mom's cooking needed relieving.  It was something different, something related to trying new things as a kid.  I try to imagine what the Fat Man's kids would think; (I presumed they ate fried fish every day).  Did they, on occasion, try a little Swiss Steak, and find it magical?           

Ho Ho Ho

Santa Claus should come on the days

of freezing ice and snowy blast.

He is not welcome on the week

when turkey is eaten at last.

I heard a Christmas song today

on the radio in my car;

If I had known the DJ’s name

I’d dress him in feathers and tar.

Muca Je Stara Mačka

Muca Je Stara Mačka
            -- Muca is an Old Cat

She sits unconcerned

upon my shirt on the chair,

placidly watching the

movements of the other cat.

Once lean and quick,

experienced in killing mice,

she prowled among shadows,

solitary stalker of the small.

Her frame lies buried beneath

the folds of time and easy food,

content to rely upon a friendly hand

for a meal or an unwanted scrap.

Does she remember the days

when she lived to climb high

and swat down at her inferiors

who dared to waggle their fingers?

There was a time of youthful pride

when arrogance of strength

fed confidence that life goes on

the same and every day is one.

When does the heart of flame

grow cold and dim within,

to tolerate the passing of the days

in peace and dull repose?

TGIF

TGIF

Come sit with me my love

and tell me all about your day

The week’s been long and bad

I want to hear what you have to say

about the things we both enjoy

the food, the kids, your subtle way

of telling me I’m the one you love

and trust, with whom you’ll play

the part of lover, friend and when

it’s late and time to sleep, you lay

down and rest in my bed.

Switch

I am dressed head to toe in form fitting leather, with boots made for running through field and forest.  These boots have seen plenty of action, propelling me at times as a pursuer, and other times as the pursued.  I carry two long, razor sharp daggers, scabbards laced tightly to my feminine hips in such a way that they make no jangling sound from my movements and also to minimize the span of time required to whip them out, when I assume poised stances of attack or defense.  My choice in clothing invariably tends toward the shades of grey and black which best blend into back street shadows and alleyways, as well as late night forest cover.  Unfortunately, I cut a sufficiently distinct profile that I find it nearly impossible to enter a pub without collecting unwanted attention.  There are always stares and whispers, and sometimes hasty exists from the back rooms.  After all, I am gracefully tall and built like a female panther, with attractive features, and the establishments I frequent are filled with aggressive male types.  I have full lips with smoky eyes.  I keep my copper-red hair cut to manageable length, and tie it up when I go out.  Whenever someone asks my name, if I answer at all, I say “Dorothea,” even though my mother named me Brian.  I am a deadly rogue, who knows how it feels to pierce a man’s lungs with a dagger from behind.  I am a player of the on-line video game called World of Warcraft.

Some time ago, I joined a worldwide community, over ten million strong, made up of people who are all connected, directly or indirectly by a virtual environment accessible by personal computer.  The reason I joined was the combination of moving back home to Michigan after seven years in Europe, and the advancing ages of my children.  I was no longer total master of family time; my three kids had interests outside the home and personal investment in the lives of their friends from both school and church.  Joining the on-line gaming community gave me additional common ground with my son, and to a limited extent, his friends as well.  This activity continued, night and day, for more than five years, before it waned and eventually ceased.  During the course of the activity, I appointed myself the family psychologist, concerned that the volume of gaming would have ill effects on my son, if not on me as well.  My final analysis, from a perspective one year hence, is almost completely positive.  There have been some interesting surprises along the way, and the current media, including scholarly sources, confirm some of the things I already know.  In particular, on-line gaming, which specifically involves direct contact with characters which are extensions, or avatars, of actual people is not merely healthy, but actually beneficial to the players in two or three distinct ways, one of which I will introduce by way of first-hand experience:  Players of such games grow in the understanding of their opposite gender, through spending some time in their shoes, facing problems and interacting with other people as a member of the opposite sex.

I might never have believed the article I read about the increased awareness of their opposite gender that players gain, if it weren’t for a total jerk who called himself Max.  I had been playing the game for months before venturing into the virtual world in the form of a woman.  My characters were totally masculine.  My best character had the appearance of a Viking; I named him Thaeldor, a variation of my son Theodore’s name.  I had a dwarf named Thorfinn, after an actual medieval Norwegian king.  The dwarves were suitably masculine, literally bulging with muscle and harsh, ugly facial features.  My wife was skeptical about the value-versus-waste aspect of spending hours per day on any game.  In order to appease her, I not only showed evidence of my very extensive and diligent job search in the face of the leading edge of a brutal recession and near collapse of the automobile industry, I created a character based on her.  There weren’t any game options pertaining to body type, so she noted the excessive bust lines, but I countered with red hair which matched hers, and an adventurous variation on her name, Dorothy.  She was appeased, so I kept the female character to play when I could show it to her.  I ended up putting in quite a lot of game time as Dorothea, to advance the character, since the game was progressive through eighty levels which were accessible only through game play.  My biggest lesson, however, was in the first ten minutes of play as a woman.  In short, I met Max.

The game is very realistic.  There is full, three hundred and sixty degrees of view, with buildings, cities, forests; entire landscapes that were always there when you travel in a particular direction.  In order to get around a character must walk or ride through the landscape.  There are many characters engaging in various activities all of the time.  Sometimes, public areas become crowded with “people.”  Movement quickly becomes second nature, and the player may gain the illusion that the character is impelled to walk, rather than being moved by mouse or keyboard.  Communication between people is as easy as approaching an interesting character and typing desired speech; speech can be selected to appear for all surrounding characters to see, or “whispered,” the a single character alone.  In the latter case, only the two characters see the dialogue box.  So, I need to explain the incident with that jerk, Max.

In less than ten minutes of playing as a woman, Max approached me.  I thought he wanted to work together.  We had identical quest assignments, since we were both new players, and the game allows sharing of achievements, so naturally I suspected nothing out of the ordinary.  Max opened conversation:

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“What do you really look like?”

In a millisecond, my piqued right brain flashed a message to my logical side:  “Play along.”  I hesitated, but obeyed the instinct.  I “said”:

“I try to create characters that look as much like me as possible.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m of age.”

“Do you want to exchange cell numbers so we can trade naked pictures?”

No!  I was shocked, extremely offended, and totally un-amused by this complete and total shit.  I imagined his character was leering at me, as if he could see me.  The game doesn’t actually have leering faces, and a player cannot be seen.  I typed “asshole,” and “walked off” in an imagined huff.  Incredibly, he started following me.  No matter where I turned, he positioned himself in front of me and repeated requests for my cell number, appealing for naked pics.  He referred to me as “baby.”  My blood pressure raged so much my hands were shaky, and I earnestly desired to do another human some actual bodily harm.  Max was a real person, but his location was unknown; he could have been anywhere in the entire world.  There was nothing I could do, but block his multiplied messages. (What’s with him thinking that repeating his disgusting suggestion would somehow entice me?)  I had to leave the game for a day, so he would go away.  I was livid; he was violating my personal space.  I was afraid to report him to the game masters, however, because if he made any kind of counter accusation, it could result in an arbitrary decision to limit my game use as well as his.  I could also be slandered by him on a game message board, which might lead to harassment by other players.  I kept quiet, though I did speak with my wife about it.  I developed a sense of foreboding regarding my experience as a woman.  My curiosity impelled me to make a decision:  I would never reveal that I am not a smoky hot woman.

I had another notable experience as Dorothea; this time, the table was turned in a way.  During the course of the game, a player usually does make virtual friends.  After some months, I had played Dorothea enough to have seen some players in and around the landscapes and towns I operated in, and working on the same quests.  I often joined “parties,” and some name became familiar.  There was a guy I became acquainted with who was from South America.  I forget his name now, but we shared a couple of quests here and there.  He was chatty, so I let him talk about his home in Argentina.  It sounded picturesque to say the least.  He described green forests and clear mountain lakes.  When he became a little forward, I tried to back off some, but he persisted to the point that at least half the time I logged in as Dorothea, he immediately greeted me.  (The game had a function that indicates when your friends are online or not, and what “realm” they are currently in.)  He always traveled to where I was at, which took between five and ten minutes in most cases.  He was always polite, but I was becoming wary of his intentions.  Suddenly, he popped an idea:

“What if I visited you in the United States?”

“What?”

“I’m coming to America soon, on a trip with my school.  We could meet, maybe, if you aren’t too far away.  Or, maybe, if you live too far away this time, you could visit me.”

I thought to myself, “Holy shit, major trouble…”  I replied:

“You know, I think I’m quite a bit older than you.”  It’s not what I should have said.

“I don’t mind, I think you’re beautiful.”

I thought, “No, this isn’t happening.”  What I did next is something I can’t explain to this very day.  Whenever I think about it, I just shake my head and wonder.  Of course, I knew I had to cut this thing completely off.  I waited until the next time I logged on.  He immediately greeted me:

“Hi, where are you today?”

“Oh, I’m over in Dun Morogh.”  It is the dwarven district where the capital city Ironforge is found.  It takes ten minutes to get there from Elwynn Forest.

“O.K., I’ll come right there.”

The thing is, I didn’t wait as usual.  I played a little cat and mouse with him, just to see how far he would follow me.  He thought I was waiting in the pub in the village of Kharanos, but I was jogging down the path toward the next district.  I was not there when he arrived in Kharanos:

“Hey, where are you?”

“Oh, I was tired of waiting; I’m in Loch Modan now.”

“O.K., are you in Thelsamar?”

“Yes, come and find me.  I’m at the inn.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

It takes another ten minutes or so to jog all the way between these two villages.  When he got there, I wasn’t there either.  I actually thought for a minute, I’d lead him further along, again, just to see if he’d follow.  I thought the better of it, and blocked his character; I logged off without another word.  I didn’t dare go online as Dorothea for a week.  He could no longer find me by the friends function, but he would undoubtedly be waiting for me in the city of Stormwind.  It was virtually unavoidable for a player because, among other reasons, it’s where the auction house is.  That’s where people buy clothes, weapons, armor, and other necessities, not to mention getting further professional training.  The kid from Argentina didn’t actually ever find me again.  I was relieved, but I worried about him finding me for some time. 

Surfing the Economic Crash -- Some Timely Advice

Surfing the Crash

-- Timely advice on making ends meet in the postmodern economic decline of the empire.

Perspectives:

Your Mom
The voice of responsibility and duty, also known as the most boring and tedious method.  Unbuttered popcorn and a Disney movie on a Friday night.

College Sophmore       
Go you!  Finally free of the disorientation of freshman life as well as mom’s rules and tater tot casserole.  Also comes without the voice of experience and so turns out to be the most expensive (if stylish) method.

Iowa Farmer                
The epitome of the tight-fisted dad.  A master of logistics and thrift, he really knows the value of a dollar; he can actually calculate the hours and minutes of work in a basket of groceries or a Big Mac.

Greek Spartan              
Really over the top; so austere, the Amish quail at the prospect of giving up so much.  On the other hand, when the negative odds are mounting, and your situation looks like two million Persians to three hundred defenders, he’s your man.  He doesn’t merely make pennies scream, he squeezes them literally to death.

Pirate Captain               
Aaaaargh!  A man of particular tastes and a sense of style, who would risk hanging to lay hands on eggs Benedict and Café Latte, he’s not about to let a little poverty strip him of his comforts.  “A little fight, a  little flight…” All in a day’s work, eh mate?

Internet:

Mom                
Buy dial-up and use free email services, “no frills.”  Keep a log of internet time to help keep usage below a half hour a day.

Sophomore        
Buy premium cable package, pay extra for the Hotmail without advertisements.  Click on all the “free” stuff and chances to win when they pop-up.  

Farmer              
Buy into the system that built the West and get ample supplies of stamps, envelopes, and paper.  That suspicious looking “www” just might translate into "666” somehow, anyway.  

Spartan            
Use the internet at work, with permission, on your own time.  

Pirate               
Equip the full boat wireless technology, then tap into an unsuspecting neighbor’s active internet.

Fashion:

Mom                
Buy what’s on sale at K-Mart; they have designer stuff now!

Sophomore        
Buy only from the trendy stores, the ones on the second level of the mall, you know, right?  The better fabric will last longer and so will prove to be cheaper in the long run.

Farmer             
Denim and flannel, my boy, and that there wool will see you through anything short of a cyclone.

Spartan            
Take all those offers for hand me downs from relatives and do-gooders at the church.  You don’t have to actually watch NASCAR to wear the shirts.  If you absolutely must shop, check out the deals at the local Goodwill.  The Salvation Army isn’t as cheap as it used to be.  

Pirate               
Hey!  Did you ever notice that the clothes worn by store mannequins don’t have magnetic security strips?  I have, mate, and I personally know two mannequins who sport clothes that are strangely familiar…

Gasoline:

Mom                
Drive the speed limit and buy gas at Costco.

Sophomore        
Turn off the air conditioner and wear sundresses!  Have male friends pump the gas; they will say “forget it” more often than you would ever think.  If you are a male sophomore, see # 1.

Farmer             
Take the side roads and carpool whenever.  Short of carpooling, pick up hitchhikers and make them pay.

Spartan            
Walking is healthy, friend!  For trips over ten miles, they make those mechanical devices with two wheels and a chain drive.

Pirate               
Keep several gas cans and a rubber hose in the trunk of your Caddie for emergencies.  When your gas gage reads low, it’s time for sharing.  Don’t inhale as you siphon, get the rubber siphon ball; being a pirate doesn’t mean  you have to risk the “Big C.”

Lawn Care:

Mom                
Lay-off the gardener, hire a nice college student.  They’ll work for almost anything, like cookies!  Observe odd/even watering schedule.  

Sophomore        
Lawncare?  Eeew!  Why do you think I live in an apartment?  I think we pay a little extra in our rent for that.

Farmer             
Lawn, what lawn?  There wasn’t a lawn in the garden of Eden, just crops that needed tending.  Get back to work.

Spartan            
It rains in your state, doesn’t it?  What’s the question?

Pirate               
You have clippers, your city has golf courses.  If you just make a couple of little nocturnal withdrawals from the municipal Green Bank, no one needs to notice, so long as you don’t get greedy with the putting greens.  How about that nice patch there between the sand trap and the water hazard?

Seasonings for Cooking:

Mom                
Buy the big container of Italian seasonings already mixed.  It’s the best deal, and all of your food can taste like your favorite.

Sophomore        
Lots of salt.  They have so many pretty colorful salt mixes from countries with places with nice beaches and exotic mountains.

Farmer             
You are free to get anything you like the looks of in your garden, the bounty of the Lord!  Why pay for what you can grow yourself?  What?  You didn’t work for it?  No planting or watering?  It is written, “He that shall not work, shall not eat.”  Get on the stick.

Spartan            
Seasoning?  That which does not make us stronger, is a waste of money, friend.

Pirate               
Just you pour a little of that what you’re drinking over the meat on the grill, it’ll be fine.  For all other dishes, a little of that herb there will do nicely.  It’s not a crime to pick what you find in the wild; that trendy neighbor of yours sure has some wild herbs there, behind the shed in the back where the sun shines all the time, and no one can see, funny thing about that. 

Dental Care:

Mom                
Brush and floss three times a day, and ask the dentist for the old style plain fillings.

Sophomore        
They say that special gum prevents cavities.

Farmer             
Vegetables, my boy.  You’ll never need a dentist; I never did trust those big city people.  Bum tooth anyway?  Well, you remember how we fixed the horse, right there in the barn, don’t you?  Hey, where are you going?

Spartan            
Go to the local dental school and sign up for the “free care by students.”

Pirate               
Hey!  There’s a bone chip in my sandwich!  Look what you did to my tooth!  I’m calling my layer!

Medical:

Mom                
Make regular payments, even when you aren’t having anything done, just to get ahead for the inevitable.

Sophomore        
If I buy a membership at the gym, I won’t really need a doctor, right?

Farmer             
See Dental (above).  Hey, where are you going?

Spartan            
Early to bed and early to rise, friend.  Maybe throw in an apple a day.

Pirate               
Interview for jobs until hired.  Go for pre-employment physical, don’t show for work.

Shoes:

Mom                
Buy quality sensible shoes in classic style so you can wear them for years.

Sophomore        
Find a flaw and demand a discount.

Farmer             
Get shoes resoled when worn, don’t buy new until absolutely necessary, like never.

Spartan            
Did you ever notice how your feet get tougher when you go barefoot?

Pirate               
Get army surplus, set a new trend, at least until you can trade with somebody in the locker room.

Underwear:

Mom                
Handwash delicates, they will last longer, and here son, take some of your father’s, he has so many pairs, he can spare some.  

Sophomore        
Buy Victoria Secrets, just On Sale

Farmer             
Buy JC Penny On Sale

Spartan            
Go Commando

Pirate

Go to holiday events at relatives' homes and use the bedrooms the change clothes instead of the bathroom.  Don't worry, they'll never miss these two in the back that look like they've never been worn ...

Guitar:

Mom                
Please come and pick up that guitar you never play

Sophomore        
Play that guitar you never play.

Farmer             
Sell that guitar you never play.

Spartan            
Learn to sing, play for money on the street.

Pirate               
Get a marker and forge a signature on that guitar you never play.  Sell it for ten times its original worth.

College Textbooks:

Mom                
Sell back the books you are done with.  Five dollars can still buy a lot.

Sophomore        
Use loan program at school bookstore; keep books away from the crazy roommate.

Farmer             
Buy used books, select “ground shipment.”  Order a year in advance to allow for shipping.

Spartan            
Form study group; buy one book for four people.  “Collaborate and Graduate.”

Pirate               
Sell used books directly to freshman at an inflated cost to cover “valuable notes” inside.

Church Offering:

Mom                
Pay your tithe, give to the missionaries, and support an orphan.

Sophomore        
Tithe?  How much is that?  Is five dollars enough?

Farmer             
I can read.  The Bible says “ten percent,” right there in my King James.  That’s the meaning of tithe, it’s ten percent.  Anything more than that will have to be earned by that smart alec, know-it-all preacher.

Spartan            
“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.”  If the Lord wants some money, let him come and take what he wants for himself; he doesn’t need your help in collecting it.

Pirate               
Proclaim your own ministry and collect your own, tax-free good-will offerings, love offerings, special offerings, etc.

Eating Out:

Mom                
What!  What!  Here, I slave in the kitchen for you, and all you want it to go out?  You hardly visit, you never call your old mother; what is this world coming to?  Is that how I raised you?

Sophomore        
You can order more food if you just skip the tip.  My friends say they do it all the time…

Farmer             
What you do, is look for where the truckers go; they always go where there are free refills.

Spartan            
Kill something, barbecue it at home.

Pirate              
a.)  Eat forty-five percent of a fine meal.  Be sure to have some wine.  Order exotic side dishes you intend to get sick on.  Make a fuss, wait in the bathroom until they forget you.
b.)  Eat same meal.  Go for the fake heart attack.  Lie motionless after the performance.  When at the hospital, assure the doctor that you merely fainted due to severe motion sickness, no problem, I’ll just be on my way now…