Waiting for Santa (from the book, "The Guy's Guide to Surviving Toddlers, Tantrums and Separation Anxiety")

Taking a child to see Santa Claus at the local mall is possibly one of the most fun events you can participate in as a parent. It’s not only fun for the child to see this God-like figure in person, but it’s fun for the adults to witness as well. The look in your toddler’s eye when he or she rounds the corner and sees Santa is worth all the bad things you’ve been part of as a parent: the messy diapers, the vomit, the back-talking, the frustrating "crying all night for no real reason" phase…suddenly that all goes away. And as a parent, you’re now left with just a huge grin on your face because you are seeing your child’s true happiness. For a child to see Santa in the flesh must generate the same sort of awe-inspired feeling that we as adults get when we see our favorite rock star or movie star. To a toddler, Santa is this larger-than-life personality who makes the impossible happen in this mysterious and miraculous way, and now to see him in a public place like in front of a JC Penney’s or something must be a complete mind trip for a first-timer. Little boys are screaming "You rock, dude!" and holding autograph books, the toddler girls are lifting their Hello Kitty shirts and shouting, "Santa, I want to have your Cabbage Patch Kids"…it’s bedlam. I think these kids have a similar reaction that my wife would have if George Clooney were sitting in the middle of the mall and allowing fans to sit on his lap.

(As a quick side note here…at any other time in the year if you were in the mall and some strange man asked your child to come sit on his lap, you’d call the police. But give him a white beard and a red suit during the final month of the fiscal year, and suddenly it’s OK somehow. Go figure.)

It is equally fun for me to watch the other parents sweat nervously as they try to get their children to sit up straight, tell Santa what they want and smile nice for the picture. The parents act as if Santa will surpass their children’s house if they don’t say and do the right things. And as a result, the child – who was very excited at the idea of doing this at first – is now utterly freaked out. Santa asks what the little child wants, the child inevitably forgets due to nervousness, and the mother is doing that loud-whisper thing from the sidelines: "Tell him you want a new train and a video game! Tell him! Go on. Tell him! OH, and don’t forget the big-screen plasma television and new Lexus SUV for Mommy." Then the child gets even more scared, decides this isn’t going well and needs to end, and starts wiggling and wanting down off of the fat man’s lap. The mother, in her high-rising "Mom Jeans", self-knitted reindeer sweater (she opted out of her self-knitted apple sweater for just this occasion) and Santa hat covering her frosted helmet hair, will say "No, no, no. Sit still while Mommy takes your picture" as she hopes against hope that her now Prozac-needing child will smile a big, beautiful grin for the keepsake photo that they want to send out for this year’s Christmas card. Instead, the end result is a glossy 8 X 10 of the little kid crying his eyes out with a snot bubble protruding from his/her nose, his/her mouth contorted to where it looks like Sylvester Stallone calling for Adrienne at the end of Rocky and, in the center of the picture, a big wet spot on Santa’s lap where the frightened child pissed all over his or her hero. Then one of Santa’s helpers gives the permanently traumatized child a candy cane to make it all better, the next child walks up for his turn, and the cycle starts all over again. Rinse and repeat.

Yes Lakin, there is a Santa Claus...

Christmas is upon us and the other day my son Ryan told me that a kid in his class claimed there was no Santa Claus. This kid, who I will call Dick (even though his name is Lakin or some other dumbass modern name that makes no sense) told him that there was no Santa and that the parents are the ones who put the presents under the tree. I asked Ryan what he thought of this, and he said, "I know there's a Santa. I met him like six times already." Yeah, so take that Lakin, Dick, whatever your fucking name is. Lakin? Seriously? Sounds like they meant to name him Lincoln but had a head cold on the day he spilled out of his mother's uterus. Lakin...Jesus H. Christ...

I really dread the day when Ryan comes to the realization that the whole Santa Claus thing is a farce. Knowing the way his little scientific mind works, he’ll probably come up to me with a list of reasons why he believes he had been duped for all those years. I imagine the conversation going something like this:

“Dad, I have compiled a list of reasons why Santa is fake and can prove – beyond a shadow of a doubt – that you’ve been lying to me ever since I was a baby. First of all, Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each visited household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop his fat white ass out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever sugar-filled and cholesterol-laden snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back to the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the planet, we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours (sleep, drink, shit, etc.), plus feeding etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times faster than the speed of sound. And don’t let’s forget how the payload on the sleigh and how it adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,000 tons, not counting Santa. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even assuming that "flying reindeer" (which is complete and utter bullshit, which I will debunk later) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons, or roughly four times the weight of Rush Limbaugh. So that’s 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second, creating enormous air resistance heating the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per second. Basically, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, would be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which I’m estimating here for the purposes of this example) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force… Now, let me ask you something Dad. If I lied to you about something of that magnitude, wouldn’t I get grounded? What else have you lied to me about? The Tooth Fairy? The Easter Bunny? For Christ’s sake, is there anything you haven’t lied to me about?”
God, I dread that day. And at the rate his little mind is growing, I fear that day is not far away. But until then, I’ll keep up the Santa illusion and hope for the best.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Well, everyone except Lakin, that is...

Coming to a theater near you...

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Review

Throughout my writing career, I've been fortunate to receive wonderful reviews of my work. With VERY few exceptions, my reviews have been nothing but positive. But there have been a couple of not-so good reviews also. And I'm not talking about the asswipes who write things on Amazon like, "This guy sucks" or whatever when they bought the book and didn't like what I had to say. These people are entitled to their opinion, no matter how stupid and wrong it may be. But I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about industry reviews. My work has been praised by the publishing world's Bible "Publisher's Weekly" and by "The Library Journal", which is also a leading publication in this industry. I've received awards from parenting sites and glowing reviews from the Miami Herald to the Chicago Tribune to Life Magazine...nothing but good stuff. Believe me when I say that I am humbled and grateful for these reviews.

One group that seems to attack me every time I put a book out is a website called http://www.infodad.com/ They call me juvenile and - in the review of my pregnancy book - basically called me a bad father who hated having a child. I went through the roof on that review. Not because they didn't like the book; they can like or dislike whatever they please. And frankly, most of you reading this have never heard of that site before today. Their dislike of my writing isn't going to kill my book sales. So they're really no threat to me or my career. But the personal attack is what pissed me off. I fired off an email and - like cowards - they did not reply.

All that is to say that I was sent the following infodad review for my new book, The Guy's Guide to Surviving Toddlers, Tantrums and Separation Anxiety. I would call it a mixed review at best. There were some good things said, granted. However, they still had a few zingers in there for me, and I just felt like sharing this with you. And again, they question my role as a father, calling me bifurcated as a modern father. They go on to say that the only way I seem to believe that fathers can bond with one another is through sports and (I quote) "Heaven help the boy who’s more interested in, say, ballet." This implies that I am a) heavily into sports; and b) close-minded about the choices my son would make in his life, regarding his interests and/or lifestyle. Now those who know me personally will know that I am NOT that way at all. The truth is, when you write a book for guys, you have to "guy" it up a little bit. So if I used sports as an example, I was trying to help the reader identify with what I was speaking.

Screw it. No more explanation. You don't need anymore explanation. You're smart. These reviewers are not. Anyway, go ahead and read the review below. If you agree or disagree with infodad's review, feel free to drop them a line to let them know your thoughts. And tell them the juvenile humorist sent ya.

Here's the review:

Michael Crider’s concerns are as focused and humor-filled as Montgomery’s are wide-ranging and somber. Crider has written several books about being a guy in today’s dating, marriage and child-rearing scenes, and The Guy’s Guide to Surviving Toddlers, Tantrums, and Separation Anxiety moves his focus up the age ladder to the point at which a child is ready for school – or preschool, anyway. Crider is curiously bifurcated in his role as a modern father. On the one hand, he writes with obvious pride about being “sort of in the beginning of a climate shift in parenting, as a lot of fathers were choosing the stay-at-home route” at the same time he chose it. On the other hand, he is absolutely convinced that the way all men bond, with each other and with their kids, is through sports. Heaven help the boy who’s more interested in, say, ballet. The main thing Crider brings to his books is his rather juvenile sense of humor, which is most attractive when he makes jokes at his own expense: “There were only two times in my childhood when I can remember bringing up the subject of sex. And both times ended up with me knowing just as little as before I asked. …I learned about it the way a lot of Generation X kids first discovered the truth about sex: HBO.” (Quick – alert Kathryn Montgomery and the CME!) Crider ends every chapter of The Guy’s Guide to Surviving Toddlers, Tantrums, and Separation Anxiety with a series of “review questions: what have we learned here?” These are a nicely done sendup of similar chapter endings in many self-help books: “Do you ever wonder who thought of a vasectomy in the first place? I’m guessing it was first performed on a stay-at-home dad, and he probably did the surgery himself after spending too much ‘quality time’ with his children.” For all the joking and silliness, Crider’s book has warmth, which peeps through whether he is discussing the excesses of kids’ birthday parties or the weird interviews of children conducted by some preschool administrators. It’s his heart, not his joke-telling ability, that makes Crider a father worth listening to, at least some of the time.

Decline of the Western Civilization

Some things in life just don't always work out as planned. It's a fact of my life that, I'd venture to say, has proven to be true more times than not. In my thirty-six (almost thirty-seven) years on the planet, most things have ended up being completely different than I had originally intended. For instance, as a child I figured that by age twenty-five I would be a thin, long-haired 6'4" rock star with more women and money than God himself could ever fathom. As it turns out, I'm a disappointing 5'8", I'm bald with a George Costanza-like build, never made my bones as the next Sammy Hagar, and have - on more than one occasion this month alone - had a negative balance in my checking account.

So my life didn't turn out as planned. So what? I'm not the first person in history whose plans went awry. Take for example the person who came up with the idea for the internet chat room (which for this example, we will credit Al Gore before he pokes his head in here and credits himself). I'm sure that the original vision was this: People would gather from all over the world via the World Wide Web to discuss topics that were near and dear to their hearts, and they would share insights and ideas in a thoughtful manner, thereby strengthening the world community on a whole. The theory was that chat rooms and emails would bring back the art of letter writing and communicating with others. What happens instead is that in every chat room, herds of sexually-frustrated men with no self-esteem log on to these sites to communicate with women (who are, in all probability, other sexually-frustrated men POSING as women). They make lewd comments to each other and talk about the hot and steamy things they want to do to the other, should they ever meet in real life. And the act of making these lewd comments becomes increasingly difficult since they're typing with one hand and furiously whipping their own "hard drive" with the other hand. As a result, typos fly fast and furiously. "Oh yeah, baby. Take off your pankies." Then the other person has to decipher what the fuck "pankies" are, and then they type back how much they want to "sock your cuck"...it's just a mess. So basically, in their attempt to strengthen their communication skills, the opposite occurs. They misspell words, disregard punctuation and capitalization, they abbreviate words with wild abandon and use terms such as LOL and LMAO. These two abbreviations in particular really chap my ass. How difficult is it to type "That was funny" or even "Laughing Out Loud" as opposed to LOL? Sure, there are a few more letters in there. And maybe those who use these abbreviations really do find it hard to type complete sentences, given that they're really only using one hand...

But I thought that maybe, just MAYBE, fans of political banter would be different. So I went hunting for a group of passionate people who wanted to discuss politics on the internet. So I joined a chatroom, logged on under the ever-so clever screen name "MichaelRCrider" (to protect my true identity) and began chatting. Below you will find the result of my little experiment. I simply copied and pasted the text below so you could read it in its entirety. Only the names have been changed to protect the dumbfucks...

"MichaelRCrider" HAS JOINED THE GROUP
Country_Gal: Howdy
erecterset: wow this rooms dead today isnt it
MichaelRCrider: It's nice to see that we have a group of caring, concerned citizens in here. I've been looking for a place like this. Let's talk issues, shall we?
erecterset: hello
Country_Gal: Hmmm
Loco: Whassup
MichaelRCrider: I read a poll today which indicates that Hillary Clinton's lead is growing among African-American Democrats and particularly among black women. Thoughts?
Loco: I saw Justin Timberlake live last night. That wigga's brangin Sexy Back.
erecterset: hey country gal what you wearin
Country_Gal: I liked Justin better when he was in N Sync
MichaelRCrider: So the black vote isn't really a concern to you. Is that what you're all saying with your silence?
Country_Gal: I'm wearin spurs, cowboy hate, bandana and nuttin else. LOL
erecterset: lol how old are you country gal
Loco: Yo country, don't you mean "In Stink"? LMAO
MichaelRCrider: Moving on...it appears that Canada's antitrust agency is attempting to interfere AGAIN with Astral Media's acquisition of a number of Telemedia's stations. Astral is going to court claiming that the CRTC, not the Competition Bureau, has the authority to regulate media mergers. I know it's not the US, but how do you think that will affect future acquisitions here?
Country_Gal: I'm 18 baby! Barely legal. LOL
Loco: LMAO
erecterset: do you do phone
MichaelRCrider: Is anyone paying attention to a word I'm saying? Doesn't someone want to have an actual meaningful conversation?
Country_Gal: I don't do phone, but you can come to Mississippi anytime and see me! I seen your picture. Your hot!
erecterset: hey michaelrcridder f.u. man
Country_Gal: LOL
Loco: LMAO
MichaelRCrider: F.U.? No, I think you're mistaken. You must be looking for the Fordham University chatroom. But feel free to visit http://www.fordham.edu/. Perhaps they can help you there.
Country_Gal: Loco, I'm just playin'. I dig N Sync and Justin stuff both.
MichaelRCrider: I thought I would be able to have a grown up conversation here of all places. I guess it's just not possible in a chatroom full of mouth-breathing simpletons.
erecterset: i got ten inches of love for you country gal
MichaelRCrider: Fuck it. Who wants to see pictures of Britney's snatch? I've got them saved on my hard drive.
erecterset: i do
Loco: Fuck yea!
Country_Gal: Ooo, does she wax?
MichaelRCrider: LOL, LMAO and all that stupid shit. You ignorant fucks.

An exercise in futility

So I've been out whoring myself on this book tour, touting my latest tome The Guy's Guide to Surviving Toddlers, Tantrums and Separation Anxiety. I've done radio and print media mainly during this tour, but I've had to do some personal appearances also. The latest was an in-store book signing event at a Borders Bookstore. This was another one of those events where I had to sit at a table, meet people, smile and pretend to not loathe myself for agreeing to participate in this exercise in soul-selling.

If you're a writer reading this, you know how humiliating these book signings are. Even if you're not a writer though, you've probably seen your share of authors sitting alone at a long banquet-style table with a defeated expression on our face with no one - absolutely no one - coming near us for fear that we might actually try to talk to you and sell you something. And you may even notice us browsing the Self-Help titles looking for a book such as 101 Simple and Painless Methods to End Your Life.

These events are always hit or miss, I must admit. Unless you're Stephen King or someone like that, you're not going to have a huge crowd. Sometimes you have folks show up, sometimes you don't. It's the nature of the beast. The first one I ever did - to promote the pregnancy book - was pretty cool. It was at a Barnes and Noble and they treated me really well. I had people showing up left and right. One woman even said she had planned her entire day around the event and getting the chance to meet me. Pretty cool, right? Well, that signing was the exception to the rule.

Fast-forward to last month at this latest book signing at Borders. When I first arrived at the store with my wife and son, I was pleasantly surprised at the big poster they had up with my face plastered on it. I had to do the obligatory "Oh God, look at that" thing where I pretended to be unhappy that my mug was being used in this promotional picture when in reality I'm thinking, "I'm famous! I am a golden God." Ryan, my seven-year old, thought it was really awesome that his daddy is a big time writer, and Julie was happy because she took the photo that was now gracing the walls in a major book store. So I must admit, I felt pretty good about myself. I have a multi-book deal, awards under my belt, reviews that most writers would kill for, my works translated into different languages all over the planet...God DAMN I was happy. Yeah, well that feeling didn't last long. I walked in the main entrance and saw a long table with an ugly table cloth - red - with stacks of my books with the school bus and ugly kid - unread. There were four or five rows of chairs in front of the table for anyone interested in sitting down and discussing the ins and outs of writing and parenting with a world famous author. In the two hours that I spent there, those chairs remained empty.

No one was coming up to me asking for an autograph, asking me about my books or even asking me directions to the shitter. Since I had plenty of time on my hands, I looked around for a few minutes and noticed that at the front of the store was a pen of greyhound puppies for sale. I had to laugh when I realized that you couldn't have fit another person around that cage with a shoehorn. It was packed. People were flocking to the puppies and buying them up left and right AND I COULDN'T SELL A SINGLE FUCKING BOOK!

Eventually - after the puppies had all been sold to what I was hoping was a Vietnamese family who were going to eat the little fuckers - a few people came my way and I actually sold a handful of books. I walked out the door, ego bruised and spirit broken, a few inches shorter due to the weight of the world crushing my spirits. This is when I decided to retire from writing and become a greyhound breeder.

The next time you're in a bookstore and you see an author doing one of these god-forsaken signings, stop in and tell him/her hi. Tell them how much you appreciate what they're doing and wish them well. Then ask them where the shitter is. They'll be happy you did.

Welcome to Bloggerdome, bitch!

OK, I've been told that writing a blog will bring even more attention to my books, bring attention to my upcoming radio program called "The Guy's Guide Show" (details to come soon) and possibly garner a few more readers. Basically what I'm saying is, I'm using this blog to get some money out of you folks reading this on the internet. And thank Christ that Al Gore invented this medium for us all, right? Who's with me, people?

So who am I, and why should you give a damn? Allow myself to introduce... myself. I am Michael Crider, self-proclaimed book whore and best-selling author. I have a series of humor books out all with long titles that I can't remember, the most successful of which so far has been The Guy's Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth and the First Year of Fatherhood. I have been featured on hundreds of radio shows all over North America, numerous magazine and newspaper articles and - most famously - featured on the Rachael Ray Show last October. My books can be found on your favorite online retailer or at any bookstore in the world. They've been translated into different languages, none of which I understand. Hell, I barely understand what I wrote in English. Basically I'm a bilingual illiterate; I'm stupid in multiple languages. You can buy my books by going to amazon.com, bn.com or going directly to my publisher's website (http://www.dacapopress.com/) and searching for Michael Crider. And for those who are interested, here are the titles of my books:

- The Guy's Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth and the First Year of Fatherhood
- The Guy's Guide to Dating, Getting Hitched and Surviving the First Year of Marriage
- The Guy's Guide to Surviving Toddlers, Tantrums and Separation Anxiety

Go buy my books.

There. End of commercial. Now let's move on while I still have an ounce of dignity left.

Now, onto what I was saying before. I was talking to one of my friends last night - a marketing genius named Lenny - who told me that I need to do one of these here fancy schmancy blogs in order to get my name out there. The idea being that when people log onto Google and search for Michael Crider(and by "people", I mean "probably only me") they/I will find not only listings for my books on Amazon.com and the like, but also they would be directed to this blog. This is basically a free way for you to check out my writing style and decide whether or not you want to buy my books. Also, it's a way for me to keep my writing skills sharp, say what's on my mind and stay busy in between my rigorous masturbation schedule and playing Texas Hold 'Em on Full Tilt Poker.com. (come find me at a table - I'm mstmrc)

I know that having a blog isn't exactly a novel idea. I mean no one is going to be impressed by my having my very own blog. It's not even a good pickup line at a bar. "Holy shit. You've got a blog? Put your dick in my mouth right now!" And having this little page is not going to earn me the Pulitzer. God knows I'm not the first person on the planet to have a blog. It seems that everywhere you turn, some asshole is espousing his or her views on what's hip, cool and blogworthy. Now you can add me to the list of sychophantic dipshits who think their words are important enough to be read by you. There is certainly no shortage of bloggers. In fact, a recent Gallup poll shows that more people have blogs than have color TVs, cell phones and computers combined**.

My blog isn't going to change your views on anything. I'm not going to try to sway you with political views, religious views or show you how you can save car insurance by switching to Geico, for that matter. No one is going to learn an important life message in my writings. I'm not going to preach to you, I'm not going to inspire you and you're not going to walk away from your computer thinking to yourself, "I can now go take on the day, make millions in the stock market and have a bigger penis! And all because I read the inspiring words of a chubby, bald guy from Tennessee!" It's just not going to happen. I'm no Tony Robbins. Hell, I'm no Tony Randall, for that matter. I'm not nearly as successful as Tony Robbins, and not nearly as dead as Tony Randall. I'm just a dick and fart joke writer who is going to share some funny thoughts with you, show you humor in even the most serious and/or mundane topics, and try to work in the phrase "cunt pickles" here and there.

Thanks for stopping by. Come by every so often and see what's going on in my neurotic brain.

(**OK, that Gallup Poll thing was completely untrue. But I couldn't find any stats to back me up, so I said "fuck it" and made one up.)

Michael Crider is the author of the highly acclaimed parenting book, The Guy’s Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth and the First Year of Fatherhood, which was praised by the likes of Life Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and received Parent-to-Parent magazine’s Adding Wisdom Award for 2005. His follow-up effort, the humorous relationship guide entitled The Guy’s Guide to Dating, Getting Hitched and Surviving the First Year of Marriage, was released in early 2007. His fiction piece, From Afar, was released in 2003 and read by roughly six people (five of whom actually enjoyed it). He recently finished his promotional tour for his latest title, The Guy's Guide to Surviving Toddlers, Tantrums and Separation Anxiety. He lives in Tennessee with his wife Julie and their son, Ryan. When he’s not busy writing, he enjoys poker, watching Marx Brothers movies and checking his books daily sales ranks on Amazon.com.