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Dear Jack: You Were Proudly in Disguise During the Easter Egg Hunt

7 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack,

Fortunately, you didn’t receive too much candy during the Easter egg hunt this past weekend. (I’m pretty sure we’ve still got leftover Halloween candy up in our pantry, actually.) The surprises inside the eggs this year at the egg hunt included a lot of Cracker Jack types of toys.

Honestly, I really don’t know what else you got at the egg hunt, other than a classic disguise kit:

Round glasses attached to thick eyebrows and a big nose.

You ended up wearing the disguise for the rest of the time after the actual egg hunt was over. You even wore it in the picture of you with Nonna and Papa and your cousins.

I guess I could have stopped you. But I didn’t.

You were having fun, so I let you.

One of my favorite parts about you wearing the disguise is that you didn’t acknowledge you were wearing it. You just acted like your normal self during the festivities, almost as if to test the theory:

Will anyone notice I’m wearing this disguise if I don’t talk about it?

It was like you were secretly playing a prank on our family; if not, everyone at the egg hunt.

I think the ironic twist in your social experiment was that no one really said anything because they just assumed, “Oh, that’s just Jack being Jack.”

Or even, “Oh, that’s Nick’s son. That makes sense.”

As for hunting eggs, sure; you still gave it your all. But as you’re now 7 years old, and as you’re finishing up 1st grade, I can see that you’re finding new ways to have fun; beyond just the obvious event.

And this totally reminds me of how I was as as boy, and really, how I still am.

So really, I guess it truly could be summed up as I said before:

“Oh, that’s Nick’s son. That makes sense.”

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: Your Sister is Horrible at Doing Mazes

7 years, 3 months.

Dear Jack,

Last weekend we spend the morning with some friends for breakfast at First Watch. Fortunately, it was early enough in the day that you nor your sister had any kind of behavioral issues. Instead, the two of you were quite occupied, largely in part due to the kids’s activity sheet and the pack of crayons our waitress gave you.

During most of the wait for our food to arrive, I didn’t hear a word out of you. That’s because you were completely focused on completing all the activities in front of you.

After you completed the whole thing, you then turned to your sister to help show here what to do. She grabbed a crayon and immediately got to work on the corn maze; in which the goal is to draw a line from one end of the maze to the other.

Your sister was so happy to be at work, the way her older brother had been. A few minutes passed and then sort of turned to you for your approval.

What she received from you was this sincere statement:

“Holly, that’s horrible. You didn’t come anywhere close to getting through the maze!”

Being not even 2 years-old yet, she appeared to be completely unfazed by your overly direct criticism.

I laughed out loud.

She was just happy and oblivious that there was some sort of bigger concept, beyond just dragging a red crayon across some lines, as well as a picture of a mutant cob of corn and completely conscious fried egg.

Ultimately, the activity sheets perfectly served their purpose. You and your sister were able to behave in a restaurant, while being intellectually challenged at your own individual levels.

Give it a few years though, and I think your sister will be able to improve your maze skills.

Love,

Daddy

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How My Song “Dudes From Different Latitudes” Surprisingly Ended Up Being on Lifetime’s “This Time Next Year” (Lyrics Included)

Even though I was just one of 6 guests featured on the Episode 6 of “This Lifetime Next Year”, the episode was actually named after the song I wrote for my 7 minute segment of the show. Here’s what’s interesting though: That song was more of an accident, an afterthought, and a shot-in-the-dark attempt to introduce the world to my jingle-writing abilities.

Since I found my doppelganger earlier on in the year, yet I was still expected to keep submitting weekly video diary entries for my journey, I decided to have a little fun. I figured, “Hey, if I’m going to be on national TV, then I might as well make everyone aware I have a special talent of writing theme songs and jingles. This is my big chance…”

So I wrote a theme song for my portion of the episode and submitted it to my producer that week.

Then about a week of wondering if anyone had even seen it, the producer was asked me to bring my guitar to perform the song on stage in front of the audience, for the final recording of the episode.

For the next couple of months, I practiced that song until it became muscle memory. It was important to me that I sang perfectly on key, on rhythm, and didn’t need a 2nd take when it was recorded for the show.

Fortunately, my obsessive practice paid off and I was very pleased with the performance.

And here’s what’s funny to me about all this:

The whole episode was about me meeting my doppelganger, yet the majority of the feedback and the hype I’ve been receiving online from people who have seen my episode has been more about the song that I wrote and performed about actually meeting my doppelganger.

And apparently, the producer of the show recognized that the song was important, because not only was the episode named after the song, but the thumbnail they chose to promote the episode on their website is of me playing the song.

I am happy that the world now knows about talent for writing theme songs. This is not my first go at this.

Back a few years ago, I wrote and performed the theme songs for both of my children’s series on YouTube:

Jack-Man

Uncle Nick’s Enchanted Forest 

My inspiration for the title of the song, by the way, was Jimmy Buffett’s 1977 song, “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes”. Because after all, British Columbia in Canada is undeniably a different latitude than Tennessee.

So yes, the song was the result of me deciding to make things a little extra exciting for my 7 minutes of fame. It was a plan that came together and turned out even better than I had hoped.

I guess “Dudes From Different Latitudes” became an unexpected hit!

Here are the lyrics:

Perfect strangers, doppelgangers, it was just their fate

A soup package, a text message, a Facebook friend request

Dudes from different latitudes, Canada and America

Same face from another place, identical twins but they’re no kin

Dudes from different latitudes

 

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Dear Jack: Teaching Your Sister How to Use a Cardboard Box

7 years, 3 months.

Dear Jack,

It had been a particularly difficult night, with your sister waking up several times every couple of hours. I received little rest, as I got up each time to help get her back to sleep. So by the time Mommy left for work around 6:15 AM, I collapsed on the couch in the living room, as I trusted you to take care of your sister while I was out of commission.

When I woke up about an hour later, I was delighted to see that, in your creativity, you took it upon yourself to transform an Amazon shipping box in to a couple of helmets for both you and your sister to wear, in the boat you also constructed from the same box.

I am always so proud to see you take initiative to lead your sister in fun activities, which require no direction from me or Mommy. It’s important that you figure out on your own what to do with your time, without needing me as your entertainment supervisor all the time.

The look on your sister’s face, too, is just priceless. She obviously didn’t quite understand why the two of you had box helmets, but she gladly went along with it; just like the day before when the box actually arrived:

You convinced your sister to walk back and forth from the far end of the living room, to the far end of the kitchen, with both of your heads in the box. For good reason, it reminded me of the kind of horse costume where it takes two people to walk; one in the front and one in the back.

I’m just glad that because of your creativity with a shipping box, I was able to catch a solid hour of sleep, while getting confirmation you’re old enough to take care of your sister with your sleeping dad on the couch.

Love,

Daddy

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3 Reasons This True Story is Perfectly Hilarious: “United Airlines Forced Emotional Support Peacock to Give Up Its Seat”

I am definitely a fan of satire. I love the feeling of, hopefully, being the one who is clever enough to be in on the joke, meanwhile passersby of the mainstream may find themselves being fooled without even realizing it.

For example, just this morning I published a video making fun of the fact that people in Spain are often are annoyed by the way some Americans assume that a person of Spanish descent is automatically Mexican.

As I was checking out the headlines on Google yesterday, I noticed one that seemed too good to be true. My immediate thought was, “Oh, it’s just an article on The Onion. How’d that show up as one of the main stories?”

I then saw the source of the article. It was People.com.

Here’s the headline: United Airlines Forced Emotional Support Peacock to Give Up Its Seat

Yes, that’s right. Even though one passenger on a recent United Airlines flight bought a separate seat for their “emotional support peacock”, the animal was still refused a seat on the flight.

This story would be funny enough if it were simply satire. But I feel the fact that it’s true actually makes it even funnier.

Here are 3 reasons why this true story is perfectly hilarious:

1- It’s a peacock!

Yeah, just the sight of a peacock is already funny. It’s basically a prehistoric turkey on LSD. But then, imagine a peacock in an airport, trying to catch a flight. Yes, peacocks can fly… but not as far or as high as they could on United Airlines Flight.

2- There is a human being who specifically needs a peacock for emotional support.

I can easily began to understand how a dog or cat could provide a sense of therapy for a person recovering from trauma. Okay, fine. I would even accept Big Bird as a legitimate solution. But a peacock? It really makes me wonder what kind of trauma a person has to go through to specifically need a peacock; not a dog or a cat.

3- It’s ironic that a peacock, whose job is to comfort others, is the one who probably                      ended up needing the most consoling.

Just picture how the peacock woke up that morning, so excited to go on the biggest adventure of his life. But then, the evil corporation shut him down! I love how the author, Elizabeth Preske, knew she had to add an extra touch of absurdity to the headline by including these words together:

 Emotional peacock.

I’m pretty sure that’s a brand-new phrase in 2018.

Ah, I had several good laughs from this peacock story. Though I do feel bad. The true victim in this story isn’t the passenger, but instead, that poor bird.