Porch Pirates, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Winter Beach Walks

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P

Porch Pirates- A term that has come into vogue in recent years to refer to low life bums who swipe Amazon packages from the doorsteps of online shoppers. One way to combat porch pirates would be to go out into the real world and purchase physical goods in person, but that suggestion seems utterly ridiculous in the two thousand and twenty fifth year of our lord, Jeffrey Bezos. A more practical approach would be to take after Kevin MacAllister and lay down booby traps to deter the robbers. Sure, you might take out a few well-intentioned UPS workers, but they get workers comp (I’m pretty sure) and while they might be pissed off about a fractured tibia in the moment, they’ll eventually be thankful for their injury settlement and paid time off. The golden ratio is 1 UPS worker for every 3 porch pirates. If you can straddle that fraction, you should have no qualms about the ethics of your defensive strategy. If you fashion yourself as more of a jokester, you might want to start ordering prank packages to your house containing bags of animal shit or human hair. “Honey, why is there a $250 charge on our credit card bill for ‘baboon shit’?” “I’m defending our home vessel from the porch pirates!” “The post office is threatening to sue us” “We go down with our ship!”

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R

Rich Dad Poor Dad- A finance self-help book that I don’t ever plan on reading. From what I’ve heard regurgitated from the mouths of Wall Street lizard people, the gist of the book is that wealthy parents have niche financial knowledge that they employ to sustain generational wealth, while poor parents spend all their time haggling for deals on Facebook marketplace as a savings strategy. I’m willing to become the latter if it means I never have to read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I will gladly shop for both food and clothing at Walmart so long as I am spared from devoting my precious time, and even more precious reading-for-pleasure time, to the marketing worlds’ Mein Kampf. Please punch me square in the face if you ever catch me teaching my 11-year-old daughter how to open up a Roth IRA instead of playing softball with her in the backyard. Forgive me if I want her to drive a Subaru and have thick thighs instead of living a life as some pawn in her father’s financial chess match versus the IRS. What the book should really be titled is Emotionally Invested Dad, Financially Invested Dad.

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W

Winter Beach Walks- These peaceful, yet brutal strolls are a popular method of combating cabin fever during the chilly winter months. After all the TV has been watched, all the movies have been binged, and all the books have been begrudgingly skimmed or sparknoted, one is left with no choice but to leave the confines of one’s comfy, insulated home, and to brave the elements. For some odd reason, normal, otherwise intelligent people are convinced that the beach in winter will offer the same warmth and serotonin injection as the beach in summer. This is like trying to cheer up a 72-year-old divorcee by bringing him along to a bachelor party in Tampa involving a lot of cocaine. It used to be fun, but times have changed. He’s older now, things are different. It feels like self-flagellation to go on a winter beach walk, with the wind acting as a whip, smacking the fool who chooses to approach the churning cauldron of frosty blue slush on a day when even Eskimos are inside watching videos about how to dry salted fish, or taking Percocet, or showing up hammered to an intervention for an 11-year-old alcoholic in their tribe, or whatever it is they do to unwind when the temperature outside approaches absolute zero. “I’m bored, let’s go to the mall” “We can’t, it closed early today for renovations” “Okay well how about a movie?” “The theater wasn’t making enough money, so it shut down last week” “Any bars open?” “They all blew up” “Restaurants?” “Exploded. Drone strikes.” “Winter beach walk it is!” “I think I’m going to stay here and use a toenail clipper on the head of my penis instead”