Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … watching sports in a bar.

It would be fun to talk about how overrated the Super Bowl is, but more often than not we are treated to one hell of a game. Ever since the great Cowboys and 49ers teams stopped making the game a yawnfest by the midway point of the second quarter, the Super Bowl is usually a great game that is decided in the last four minutes.

As for the commercials, even the lame ones turn out to be kind of fun, or at least worthy of some discussion at work on Hangover Monday.
Super Bowl parties might or might not be overrated, but being an unsociable, friendless misanthrope, I can’t speak on that. The invitations no longer come, and even if they did, I know I’d decline.

But what can be overrated, at least when talking Super Bowl, is watching the game in a bar. Okay, watching any big game in a bar is overrated, and there are myriad reasons for this.

I ended up in a bar for the entire Giants-49ers NFC Championship Game. The bar is owned by a former NFL great. The TV set-up surpasses that of any sports bar I’ve ever been in. No matter where you sit, you can watch half a dozen of the more than 30 hi-def flat-screens without having to twist your body or neck. Cool memorabilia covers the walls. The servers are fast and attentive. Bud Lites ran a whopping $2.50 for the entire game. The menu was expansive, the portions huge and the food not terrible.

And it sucked because I seemed to have missed half the game. Watching a big game, regardless of the sport, should be done at home and not in a bar.

Here’s why:

There are too many distractions. If your waitress or bartender is even remotely hot, every time you see her (or him, I guess), you get that rapist-stalker tunnel vision thing going, and instead of focusing on Eli Manning’s big third-and-12 pass, you’re eyes are locked into a set of sweet server ass cheeks that are hard enough to play quarters off of. I’m a lifelong Steelers fan, but I guarantee that I’d have missed all of James Harrison’s epic interception return had I been ordering mozzarella sticks and a beer from some poor man’s Jennifer Aniston at Super Sports Bar Emporiama.

Even if your server isn’t hot [see: Last Sunday night], you still have to deal with the constant interruptions to see if you’re “still working on that,” if you “need another round,” if everything is “all right” (you know, as if you’re going to go all gourmand on the poor girl’s ass and complain that the chicken wings are a tad undercooked and the nachos are a bit wanting in the cilantro department) or to see if you’d like the 12-layer Chocolate Thunder to go with that 8th beer.

Another problem is that the other patrons can sometimes be more compelling than the game itself, and that can be true even when the game is a good one. Despite the epic game transpiring on the 37 TVs last week, I was more involved in what was going on at the tables around us. To my left I had the creepy-looking couple with dyed red hair and too much eyeliner. Yes, that includes the male half of the couple. They looked like they had just come from a casting call for World War Z. They were not at all into the game, yet they stayed in a loud sports bar for over three hours. I couldn’t stop watching them. To my right were the strapping high school boy in the Class of 2012 letterman’s jacket and the hot older woman with him who might have been his mother but was more likely some milfish cougar he was banging. One more beer and I know we’d have gone over and asked just the hell their situation was.

And directly ahead of me was the NFL lineman who, after buying megashots for the skanky groupies at his table, made repeated trips to the outdoor patio so that he could autograph their sweet little ass cheeks. It’s hard to pay attention to an Alex Smith screen pass when you hear drunk, dirty blond chicks yelling, “For another hundred dollars you can sign my other ass cheek!” (And they say Terrell Owens is broke. Gee, hard to imagine how that kind of thing can happen after seeing a second-year lineman throwing around c-notes just so he can sign some ass.)

But it’s not just the visual distractions that take you attention away from the game. Having a set of working ears can prove bothersome, too, because every sports bar has those loudmouth know-nothings who can’t resist the urge to broadcast their sports ignorance to everyone within a 20-foot radius of their never-closed mouth. There’s the guy who yells that someone is lining up offsides on every third play. (No flag is ever thrown, making him more indignant with each missed call.) This same guy, if watching hockey, believes every pass is a missed offsides call. If baseball, why, every at-bat is a prime opportunity to go with the hit and run. (This holds true even when the bases are empty.)

And finally, we have the hardcore fans of one of the two teams playing. They sport $400 dollars worth of team garb and come armed with a big right hand ready to do some nonstop high-fiving. Four-yard run off tackle? High five! Good punt coverage? Up high, bro! 32 yard touchdown pass? The high five turns into a prolonged, shaking, clamplike grab, leaving you with shattered hand bones and a possibly separated shoulder.

So whether it’s the Super Bowl or just some first-round Stanley Cup playoff contest, it’s best to stay home to watch any big game. The beers are cheaper, the bathroom less crowded, the ass-signing cheaper (Mrs. Bitters charges just $25 per cheek) and the only idiot yelling offsides is you.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductees into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” are … post-game comments.

A couple of Sundays ago, always interesting DeAngelo Hall of the Washington Redskins said in a post-game interview that the Skins “need to cut” him because of how poorly he had played that day. Of course, such refreshing honesty provided great fodder for talk show callers and talking heads, who all weighed in on the shocking candor of Hall’s statement. His off-the-cuff comment moments after a heartbreaking loss was dissected more than anything President Obama said that week.

This fan and reporter frenzy over any out-of-the-norm post-game comment goes on year-round regardless of the sport, and it’s about time we all just settle our asses down a bit when it comes to over-reacting to things that athletes say in that first half hour or so after a game.

Most sporting event are a few hours of ultra-competitiveness between the world’s greatest athletes, most of whom are some of the most competitive humans on the planet. (This does not, of course, include any Pittsburgh Pirates game.) Games often involve intense physical contact. Supreme mental and physical strength are required. Athletes exert themselves until they physically and emotionally spent. (Even Alex Ovechkin does this once or twice a week.) Bodies and health are put on the line, and in some sports, athletes actually risk their lives. (NHL skate blades are razor sharp, Major League fastballs move very fast and Tim Tebow believes in an angry, spiteful God who could smite him after a third interception.) They do all of this in front of thousands of live fans and millions of fat, Doritos-stained bastards watching on television.

Yet twenty minutes after a game, with an athlete’s adrenaline still in the red zone, with his body still covered in sweat and dirt, with the pain from the game pounding different parts of his spent body, a pasty, doughy collection of middle-aged reporters are thrusting recorders in his face, shouting questions about the events that just transpired on the field. These often involve the game’s key plays or an athlete’s failure to deliver at a crucial moment. The athlete has had no time to reflect or cool down, and now some judgmental jacknape from the Kansas City Star is asking accusatory questions about a dropped pass on fourth and six.

And when this athlete responds to a question with something other than the 27 textbook athlete platitudes, his comment goes through a week’s worth of intense analysis by the same people who bitch and whine about how most athletes never saying anything honest or genuine in an interview.

Now, I know that with the big money of pro sports comes the responsibility to be more media savvy and to respond to questions in a somewhat calm and polished manner. Most athletes do just that. But these guys are asked loaded questions night after night and week after week by reporters who can’t contain their drool as they imagine their pointed questions eliciting that controversial sound-bite answer that will make every Sportscenter broadcast for the next four days.

How diplomatic would any of us be if forced to endure a string of reporters’ questions at the end of each work day. Something tells me us workaday regular Joes and Josephines wouldn’t be so diplomatic every single day. Let’s imagine a few examples of how this might go.

Reporter: “Can you tell us why you handled that misbehaving student in a manner that just escalated the situation instead of defusing it, Mrs. Teacher?” 

Teacher: “Because I was tired of that little fucknut’s bullshit, which he’s been pulling all goddamned year, that’s why!”

—

Reporter: “What went through your head immediately after you realized you had mis-measured and then had to tear down two hours of work, Mr. Carpenter?

Carpenter: “I was pissed the fuck off, what do you think? Christ, what a stupid-assed question.”

—

Reporter: “How do you not go slit your wrists in shame immediately after jerking off into your fellow porn star’s face, Mr. Porn Star?

Porn Star: “Well, of course I find this act distasteful, to say the least, and I can only do this with a fellow actress who knows beforehand how we will end the scene, for we both know that our jobs entail acting out the largely unspoken fantasies of the average person, and that while these facial ejaculation scenes might titillate and excite viewers, most people never actually perform these acts in their real lives, so if I just look at from a sociological and workmanlike standpoint, and my scene partner agrees to this act in advance, I can live with what I do.”

(Okay, so maybe some regular people would know how to respond calmly and rationally to loaded questions.)

I’m not giving athletes a total pass on stupid or incendiary comments. If an athlete says something stupid or controversial in a planned, sit-down interview, we can be little less forgiving, as at that point he is no longer covered in post-game sweat and blood and still oozing competitive juices and adrenaline.

But when an athlete rips an opponent, coach or umpire or – bless you, DeAngelo Hall – himself right after a game, let’s just enjoy the juiciness of the quote and discuss it a bit the next day at our much more boring jobs, and then let it go. Let’s not declare the speaker of said quote to be a brainless, classless, tactless moron who is disrupting team chemistry or thinking only about himself or unable to control his emotions

Instead, be thankful that, for once, we didn’t have to listen to how his team gave 110 percent and how they left it all on the field and how they have to give credit to the other team and how his team has to get back to fundamentals and how they just need to play their game and how they came out with their game face on.

(Okay, that last one wouldn’t be so cliche if the porn star said it.)

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductees into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” are …empty expressions.

Words matter to me, which is hard to believe if you look at the quality of the writing in these columns. Maybe I should say, “Other people’s words matter to me.” (File under: Pathetic Double Standard, No. 847) Which is why I get so irked by certain overused expressions that should be used less, tweaked or simply eliminated.

Some of these expressions get heavy usage but then die out rather quickly. Not too long ago, you couldn’t go more than 90 minutes without someone saying “At the end of the day” or “It is what it is.” Now those are used mainly by bubbleheaded ex-athletes on ESPN and people who conduct meetings where you work.

But some of these seem to have an eternal life span, and they are irritating because they make no sense, or are used incorrectly, or are empty and meaningless. I’ve heard each of the following used within the past week and I’ve been hearing them all my life. If you use any of the following, please stop.

“The word on the street …”

No one except actual criminals are allowed to use this expression, and then even if they actually spend time out in streets. How many non-felons or non-future-felons do you know who can use this expression without sounding silly? It’s supposed to lend an air of toughness, I guess, but the person saying it is never actually a person from “the streets.” It’s Steve at work, they guy whose lifetime resume of illegal activities amounts to coasting through the occasional stop sign.

I heard a guy at work use these words just this past week when sharing some sensational rumor surrounding the Penn State fiasco. Because he wasn’t actually talking to me (and because he’s a half-crazy bastard who might not understand the rules regarding violence in the workplace, or more accurately, a fist against my face), I didn’t challenge him on what streets he was referring to and which people on these streets were spreading these allegations. It was probably something he heard while buying his weekly lottery tickets, and now he feels all gangsta saying “word on the street is …”

I supposed if you live a major urban center where people seldom drive and instead do a lot of walking on actual city streets in actual urban neighborhoods, then you get to use “word on the street.” But otherwise, just say “I heard …” when you are sharing some cockamamie rumor or conspiracy theory that you overheard in the produce section of the local Safeway. Believe me, we can all tell by looking at you that are not “of the streets.” In fact, in most cases, it would be more accurate to say, “Word in the pasty, doughy, downy-soft whiteboy club is that …”

“Laughing all the way to the bank.”

This one makes no sense because people have changed the most important word in the original expression. The correct way to make this point is to say that someone is “crying” all the way to the bank. For example, if some singer or novelist gets continually flayed by critics but continues to sell millions of CDs or books, the poor maligned artist is said to be “crying all the way to the bank.” He pretends to be stung by the criticisms while raking in millions of dollars. That makes sense. If Oprah gets all weepy about people making fun of her weight, she can be said to be crying all the way to the bank.

Yet people keep replacing “crying” with “laughing” and it renders the expression meaningless. Hell, we’d all laugh all the way to the bank if we were making millions.

“Having a Field Day!”

This one is used when the speaker or writer wants to express that someone is having a great time. Because most people, especially kids, love a Field Day, it make sense. But to some people, mainly Mrs. Bitters, it means the complete opposite. She is a P.E. teacher, and once a year she is charged with setting up a two-day, schoolwide Field Day. This entails endless planning, creating fun, original activities for ten different stations, finding parent volunteers, assigning resentful teachers to day-long duties, dealing with sunburn and heat-related illnesses and at least three injuries that require the school nurse or an emergency room visit, ordering supplies and then actually running an event attended by hundreds of screaming kids who are already batshit crazy with excitement over the fact that their summer is two weeks away. I get enlisted into helping with this every year.

So when Mrs. Bitters hears the word “field day” used in a positive light, teeth are gritted and epithets are hurled toward the TV, and when Mrs. Bitters ain’t happy, then I can’t be happy, so stop using “Field Day” like it’s a good thing. It’s annual pain in the ass to some of us.

“One for the road.”

How in the hell did this one ever come about? You’re getting plowed at a bar or party, and as you are getting ready to stagger out to your car and plop your drunk ass behind the wheel of your half-ton killing machine for a game of potentially hazardous Highway Zigzag, the helpful bartender or caring host implores you to suck down one more drink, using the words “one for the road” as an irresistible convincer. You know, as if a bit of sobering up for that boring car ride is simply not acceptable, and that one more drink would be sufficient to keep you plastered and thereby consistently dangerous, for the entire ride home. The message is, “There’s no reason the party has to stop when you leave the actual party! Have one more so you’ll still be shitfaced for that harrowing entrance onto the beltway!”

And finally …

“Our thoughts and prayers.”

Is there any expression more meaningless than this one? It’s a platitude usually offered for someone who is going through some unimaginable horror, such as, ohhh … getting anally raped at ten years old by a former bigtime college football coach in the shower of a major university. (Allegedly, of course.)

I’d love to know how many people who use this expression actually do keep the victims in their thoughts in a sympathetic manner. Or how many actually pray and, of those who do, how many actually pray for the victims of whatever the Tragedy of the Week is.

Worst of all, those thoughts and prayers, if indeed followed through on, don’t amount to shit. You think a victim of childhood sexual abuse gives a rat’s ass about your concern now? You think your prayers are going to erase the permanent psychological scars that kid has? I bet that boy did some praying of his own when he was (allegedly, of course) being railed in a shower by a man he trusted, and if his goddamn prayers weren’t answered then, yours aren’t going to be worth two shits now.

No, the victims of crimes and abuse and natural disasters don’t need your by rote vow to keep them in your thoughts and prayers. They needed God when the trauma was occurring, but he didn’t seem to give a shit then, so there’s no use asking His Incompetence to intervene now. If you get fucked in the ass at age ten, God hasn’t got enough heavenly balm for that damaged soul.

The victims don’t need your platitudes. At the end of the day, just send cash, and plenty of it.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

In the past, I’ve been able to gin up two-page rants for topics that a well-adjusted, rational person would not even bother to notice, let alone work up a churning cauldron of stomach acid over. Not being a member of Club Sanity, I’ve been able to wax apoplectic about hot-button topics as incendiary as, oh … messages on a T-shirt, the all-American diner and Christmas songs. (God damn “Silent Night”! Don’t get me started.)

But some things piss me off only a little bit, and as a result, I can only rage about them for a few paragraphs. So today, instead of wearing you out with two pages on the bullshit concept of the American “Hero,” which I’ll do in a few weeks, I’ll just hit on a few items that are mildly overrated, but still worthy of some of my bitching.

Your Halloween Mask: No, not your costume. Although I’m not a big fan of Halloween, but I enjoy seeing a well made or witty costume. What irritates me are these unoriginal jackholes who buy a plastic or rubber mask and then on Halloween show up at work or school or the nearest shopping center in said mask, looking for some sort of reaction. They’ve reached into their shallow, tepid pool of originality and this was all they could dredge up.

Tell me, Mr. Masked Man, just how am I supposed to react to your standing there in front of me with your face covered? You show up not in a costume, but in just your regular clothes and a mask. Then you stand there and stare at me, waiting for me to … well, what exactly? Guess who it is? Okay, I’ll play along. Let’s see … I know you’re not a friend of mine because I could never be friends with someone unoriginal enough to buy a mask at a store and then try to pass it off as some kind witty statement about … again, what?

I’d laugh, but a mask alone is never funny, especially if you’re just standing there. Oh, you’re Ronald Reagan. I see. Oh, you’re a furry monster or werewolf. Okay. Oh, you’re wearing an ugly old man mask. Well, well. I believe I saw that exact mask at Target. And you went ahead and bought it and put it on. Kudos on your stunning wit. Now can you please move along and bother someone else, because I have no reaction or comment for you. Oh wait, come back, I do have a comment. I just want you to know that your mask is covering up not just your face but the fact that you are such a mind numbingly boring human being that your only hope of eliciting a reaction from others is to put on a five dollar mask and then stand in an office or classroom doorway and wait for a reaction. Okay, now you can go.

The U.S. Military Going Green: I saw a headline on the front page of the Washington Post a while back that said that our military was going to up its greenness factor by using different fuel and who knows what else. I read part of the article and then bailed, as the whole concept seemed too absurd.

What, at its core, is the main function of the military? No, not national defense. (Okay, its main function is actually fighting bogus wars drummed up by businessmen and orchestrated by crafty, flag-waving politicians all for the sake of making already fat corporations downright obese with tax dollar cash, but that’s a bitchfest for another day.) The military’s primary job, when called into action, is killing. Everything the military does is aimed at making killing easier, more cost efficient and more effective.

So this vast entity, which has perfected the art of killing humans, is going to get greener, which means they’ll start doing more to protect the earth’s resources while they are in the process of killing the very humans who, had they not had the bad, collateral luck to get killed by a not-so-smart bomb, would have availed themselves of the precious resources the military is trying to preserve.

We’ll still drop bombs that will cause huge pillars of toxic black smoke after they’ve leveled homes and buildings where actual humans lived, but at least the jets dropping these bombs will be greener.

Bashing Courtney Love: Sure, the chick a batshit crazy, self-promoting revisionist, but her music isn’t that bad, the “early good stuff” wasn’t written by Kurt Cobain and she didn’t kill that suicidal narcissist. He offed himself. The level of hatred directed at this woman is baffling. If you worshiped Cobain and are pissed that he disappeared before he was 30, don’t take it out on his moderately talented widow. If you think she profited from his death, imagine how much richer and more popular she’d be if Cobain had lived and if they had stayed married? Killing him would have been bad for her brand.

The most absurd thing about all of this? The fact that my insane, perpetually pissed off ass is telling others to quell their irrational anger.

Frank Zappa: Some people hear the name Zappa and they seemed programmed to have to exclaim, “What a genius!” Frank Zappa was no genius. He was a shockmeister who didn’t write one singable tune. Go ahead, sing one Zappa song right now. Hell, even hum a few bars of one of his songs. See what I mean? You can’t, because you don’t know any. But he’s a genius, man!

This genius’s songs never really made it onto radio, but not because of the raunchy language. He got no airplay because his songs were garbage. The technology to “bleep” out objectionable material predated Zappa by decades, so had he written good songs, commercial radio would have found a way to get them steady airplay. Even in this age of satellite radio you never hear his music. I don’t know one person who has or had a Zappa record or CD. I can’t name more than two song titles, and the only riff I can hum in my head is the chorus to “Catholic Girls.” If you know any disk jockeys, ask how many request they get each year for Zappa songs.

Still not convinced that he sucked? How about this. You probably know more of his kids’ names than his song titles, and that’s because he burdened them with silly names just to get his untalented ass in the news. And don’t tell me he was brave and ahead of his time. You could call him brave if he had been an established rock star who then, with new controversial and profanity-laden lyrics, pushed boundaries that threatened the money train’s monthly stop at his bank account. But that wasn’t the case. His “music” didn’t make any grand statements. He was just shocking, but shocking in an unwitty, unlistenable manner. It took Rap to make “shocking” listenable.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … being labeled a high school football player.

Every so many months you’ll hear or read a news story announcing the death of some high school boy who smashed his car into a tree, caught a bullet in a drive-by or died in some other devastatingly sad, premature fashion. Even a miserable bastard like me can’t help but feel awful for the kid and the kid’s friends and family. Sure, being a teenaged boy, the kid was probably a total douche-nozzle, but that’s no reason for the kid to die young.

But sometimes, when I hear or read these stories, my sadness can be shortlived, and my normal mood setting – irrational anger and irritation – returns, and then all is right with the world again. What could possibly piss me off about a poor kid dying in a fiery highway death or bleeding out on a city street? It’s when an anchorman or reporter leads the report by referring to the kid as a “high school football player.”

How in the hell can a kid’s entire life be summed up as “high school football player,” as if that was the young man’s entire identity? Oh wait, I know. Because this country has a sick, over-the-top obsession with that lunkheaded sport.

This kid probably had dozens of interests in his life. Perhaps he was a music lover. Or an artist. Could be he was a member of a choir. Or one hell of a gamer. Maybe he was a boyfriend. He was no doubt somebody’s son, and there’s a good chance he was a brother, cousin, grandson and nephew. He was most certainly a friend. And a student. Maybe he was also a cashier or dishwasher.

But the headline in the newspaper or the teaser before we go to commercial is that a “high school football player” has died, which sickeningly implies that out of all the other things he did with his life, being a football player was most important and what sums up who the kid really was, and all the rest was just filler. Then again, maybe it is just stating a sad and disturbing fact. Maybe to most people who knew him, and maybe even to the kid himself, that is what he was.

Many parents start identifying their sons as “football players” when the little shits are playing mite ball. They don’t say the kid “plays football.” Damn it, he’s a football player. At six years old. This insidious molding of a kid’s persona into an athlete above all else only intensifies as he ages and climbs the ladder of crappy kid football. (And let’s be honest, all kid football is crappy kid football and not worthy of our intense emotional investment, unless one of the kids is your close relative, then it’s okay to get into it … but only a little, for even then it’s still just kids football and should therefore serve only as a pleasant diversion from the mundane daily activities of regular life for those of us not actually on the field.)

If a kid goes to the right (or wrong?) high school, this can cement the sad and inevitable evolution of the kid’s false identity. I work at a school in which the two main administrators are ex-football players whose favorite smell in the world is not perfume on a pillow or pussy on their faces; they get off on the sweaty, musky odor of a high school locker room. So, of course, they foster a school atmosphere in which the words “high school football player” are actually supposed to mean something special when it is screamed over the PA. Exceptions are made, corners are cut, schedules are changed, infractions are covered up and unseemly adoration is encouraged. This message is sent loudly and clearly.

Now, I’m not some ex-high school nerd who harbors a decades-long resentment against high school football players. Okay, that’s not completely honest. I was a super mondo nerd. But I was so much of a dweeby dork that I was beneath being bullied or ridiculed by high school football players. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even register on their radars. And I’m not bitter about one of them stealing a high school girlfriend. I had no girlfriends for the stealing. But I do remember a sizable percentage of them had a high percentage of asshole-ishness about them, an asshole-ishness cultivated by fawning parents and coaches. But I didn’t hate them. Just like I don’t “hate” them now, even thought that disproportionate level of asshole-ishness still exists.

I actually admire the kids who play high school football for several reasons. They are willing to give up sitting around the house for the last few weeks of summer for the privilege of sweating their balls off in sweltering, twice-a-day August practices. They lift weights throughout the year. They are willing to go out and bust heads and bodies with kids from other schools who have also lifted weights all year and are looking to knock them into next week. It takes balls and dedication. And at certain times, that affords them the right to be called “football players.” You know, like during the actual football season and especially on Friday nights.

But don’t let that appellation sum them up when they die, especially if they die in March or June. Or even while they are still alive. If you’re a parent, don’t say your kid is a “football player.” Say you have a kid who plays football, and probably mediocre-ly … or, more likely, badly. He’ll almost surely never play for a D1 or D2 school. He might, if he is decent, find his way onto a shitty D3 team, where he’ll have four more years of fun playing a game he hopefully loves. Chances are, because he grew up believing that he was a “football player,” he won’t have the grades or brains to get into a college.

Because a lifetime of playing football might be why so many high school football players are window-licking mouth-breathers. Many of these kids were enrolled in organized football soon after mastering the whole potty training thing. This means they’ve taken a few thousand shots to the head by the time they make the big, bad varsity squad. I don’t care how “safe” today’s football helmets are, ten years of banging your head into knees, the ground and other helmets has to take a toll on a kid’s intellectual development.

Add in the fact that many parents and coaches have sent, throughout the course of a kid’s life, the implicit message that learning and academics aren’t that important, what with a lucrative NFL career surely in the offing, and you can see why too many kids who wear a high school football jersey struggle to read, write and actually give a shit about learning. Not all of them, of course, but a damn high percentage of them.

A teenager who plays football isn’t a football player. Calvin Johnson is a football players. Aaron Rodgers is a football player. Steve with the pimples, who is failing Algebra II and who is having trouble with his girlfriend and who hopes to get his job back at Safeway after the season and who has a sick grandfather he worries about and who wants to go to culinary school because he loves to cook and who can kick every one of his friends’ asses at Madden … he isn’t a football player. He’s just another one of the countless American teenagers who play football.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductees into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” are … commercial tributes to the dead.

If you’re the type of baseball fan who actually attends live games, you know all too well the hokey tradition that transpires ten minutes before every game: The Ceremonial First Pitch. The home team trots out some C-list local celebrity or a wounded vet or the good congressman from the third district. He is met with something below the level of “smattering applause” despite the public address announcer’s high decibel plea for a hearty [fill in name of the good ol’ home team] welcome. Then no one pays much attention as the beaming honoree bounces a “pitch” to the team’s third-string catcher.

But once the post-season begins, teams start looking for ways to make the first pitch more of a spectacle. Perhaps a few dozen First Responders will throw out a group first pitch. Or the governor himself will make an appearance, smiling broadly as he is booed on his way to and from the mound. The deeper a team goes into the post-season, the greater the chances are that someone actually worth seeing – a Hank Aaron or Sandy Koufax – might show up to sling a first pitch that does not bounce. (Unless the heartless public relations arm has a sadistic streak and somehow convinces a one-foot-in-the-freezer Ted Williams to let his half-blind ass be wheeled out to the mound at an All-Star Game.)

However, a lot of the time, these ceremonies can go from hokey tribute to downright nauseating display of disingenuous public relations. Take this past Friday’s first pitch at the Texas Rangers-Tampa Devil Rays series opener in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers organization, which apparently has as much shame as it does World Series championship history, used for a first pitch little Cooper Stone, the son of the man who died at the stadium earlier this year when he toppled over a railing trying to catch a ball tossed by Rangers centerfielder Josh Hamilton. It was a freak accident with no one at fault.

Friday, this little boy, all of six years old, walked out to the center of the infield with his (smokin’ hot, by the way) mom, the widow of the poor dude who died, and tossed a pitch to – who else – Josh Hamilton. Then, Hamilton shared a few words with the mom and boy before he and the boy hugged. The crowd went crazy, tears were shed and announcers gushed about what a classy and touching move it was for the Rangers to have that boy throw out the first pitch.

I found it sickening. It was exploitive and orchestrated to elicit a cheap, Disneyesque type of emotion by people conditioned to respond without thinking. The Rangers’ gesture was not, at its core, about doing something for the kid and his mom. It was a calculated effort to make themselves look classy and to ensure touching pictures on Yahoo the next day.

From what I’ve read, the Rangers had, up to this point, handled the situation perfectly. Team President Nolan Ryan and Hamilton, who probably feels a bit of unnecessary guilt, have both reached out privately to the family beyond the perfunctory first contact to offer condolences and mitigate the damages of any potential lawsuit. They have raised the height of the railings at the stadium to prevent another blameless tragedy. Even Mrs. Cooper has praised the Rangers for the first pitch opportunity, and she’s probably being sincere. Her little kid got to go onto a Major League field and meet his idol.

But the Rangers still dropped the ball (okay, bad euphemism for this situation) by making their outreach a spectacle for public consumption, a phony act of magnanimousness that had one purpose only: To coax easy, icky tears out of people who already felt genuine sadness for the man’s widow and now fatherless child. But it wasn’t truly touching. It felt dirty. Everything they did for these people should have been done in private.

I don’t doubt the surface sincerity of all involved, from the public relations hack who first hatched the plan to the no doubt greatly disturbed Ryan and Hamilton. But as soon as it was put on display for a national TV audience, it became not all about the kid and the mom but instead mostly about the Rangers’ ability to tug at hearts and get the moment covered on ESPN.

But hell, maybe they’re just giving the American public what we love, which is to be pulled by the nostrils through a two-minute group grieve before we can go back to forgetting about the haute tragedy du jour. We experienced this a few weeks ago when every home MLB and NFL stadium tried to create the biggest, bestest 9-11 blowout bonanza … er, I mean solemn tribute.

Those ceremonies weren’t about the victims as much as they were about the home team’s ability to unfurl the biggest flag or cobble together the biggest group of survivors or firemen or cops. It wasn’t about the 3000+ dead as much as it was about the coolest commemorative sleeve patch and the most stirring rendition of “God Bless America” and the Air Force fighter jets that screamed overhead at just the right time.

I’m not so heartless that I don’t feel for the kid who lost his dad, or the man’s widow, or Josh Hamilton (who did nothing wrong) or for anyone directly affected by 9-11. Just ask me to shut up and reflect for half a minute and I’ll do just that. And who knows, without an adorable, towheaded little kid and a big hug near the pitcher’s mound and an 80-yard long flag and a terrible song like “God Bless America,” I might actually feel something true and genuine.

Instead, because it was so contrived, all I remember is the perfect, blue-jeaned ass of the kid’s mom.

Play ball.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductees into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” are … postcards.

Another summer is almost over and that sucks. But me being me, I always find the silver lining to any dark cloud. Don’t believe me? Just check the Ned Bitters archives, where you’ll find column after column oozing joy and uplift.

The silver lining to the end of summer is that post card season is about over, too. Oh sure, you might get the occasional mid-winter post card (more on that and the sonofabitch who sent it later), but most people still take their vacations in the summer, so we’re pretty much spared the 4×6 cardboard slap in the face for the other nine months of the year.

You – who might dabble in sanity – possibly enjoy the post card, seeing it a symbol of being remembered by a friend or relative who is far away. You, who knows inner peace and holds a certain degree of love for your fellow man, appreciate the fact that someone bought the card, wrote a message, addressed it, procured a stamp and found a mailbox.

But I, who has a master’s degree in illogical anger, sees it as a 29-cent “F-you” from someone who wants to stick in my face the fact that he is enjoying a vacation in some exotic spot on the planet, a spot where I am – unfortunately – not. I, who knows a gnawing, baseless contempt for my fellow planet-mates (based mainly on, I’ll admit, a searing self-loathing), see the post card as an act of spite sent by a Bermuda shorts-wearing, sunburned blob of passive aggression who deep down just wants to make my day a little more miserable.

Everything about the post card is disingenuous, starting with the scribbled exclamation point-filled message. Your friend (prick) or relative (also a prick) gushes, “This place is incredible!!! Having a great time!!! Wish you were here!!! Miss you!!!” I’ve gone on plenty of vacations, and I don’t once recall, while melting on a beach or getting plastered in New Orleans, wishing anyone who was not with me was, in fact, with me. The whole damn point of a vacation is to get away from your everyday life, and friends and family are, alas, part of everyday life. And don’t make me feel even worse about my regular, not-on-vacation ass by telling me how great things are in sunny Cancun. I’ve never been there, but I can say with great certainty that it’s a damn sight better than the shithole town where I spend 50 mundane weeks out of the year. I don’t need a breathless, taunting reminder of this sad fact in my mailbox.

Some messages are not so peppy. Instead, the writer, confident he’s just one Lorne Michaels sit-down away from joining the SNL writing crew, pens what he thinks is a tweet-like morsel of vacationland wit. If there’s a picture of an unscalable snow-capped mountain, he’ll go all Algonquin on your ass and write, “We climbed this yesterday!!! Before lunch!!!!” (This is considered even more sidesplitting if the writer or his traveling companion is enfeebled in some way.)

(The preponderance of exclamation points belies the writer’s belief in his wit, and a Yale study proved that the number of “!!!!!!’s” rises exponentially with the unfunniness factor of the message.)

(I lied about the Yale study.)

Or perhaps the card contains a shot of bikini-clad women with perfectly toned and bronzed bodies. The writer, a woman, will write, “I had my picture taken for this post card.” Because the woman writer is of rather doughy proportions and because the joke is of the unfunny variety, she will feel compelled to add not only a string of Bic-draining exclamation points but also a very bold, very all-capped “LOL”. You know, to show a little self-deprecation and, more importantly, self-awareness. (“LOL” = “I know I’m fat.”) If a man sends this same post card, he will write a rollicking “Nuff said!” in an attempt to maintain the bro-ness factor from 800 miles away. My, but the nation’s mailmen must suffer laugh-induced hernias at epidemic rates each August as they read these Oscar Wilde-like quips.

Then there are those travelers who believe that we, the non-travelers who are stuck in our non-vacationing lives, are actually interested in hearing as many on-holiday details as can be crammed into a 4 x 6 post card. They fill every bit of white space on the card with mind-numbing minutia (“… then we visited the Ministry of the Interior building, a 17th century landmark commissioned by …”) in an infinitesimal handwriting that requires the services of a National Institutes Of Health microscope to read. That is, if one were actually going to read the scintillating details your cousin’s five-day trip to Copenhagen. But one is not then nor is one ever going to actually read said card. Instead, you’ll pop it under a refrigerator magnet until said cousin comes to visit and sees said card properly displayed, after which it can be ripped with extreme prejudice into 20 pieces and thrown into the trash as soon as said cousin departs the premises with his 400 Copenhagen pictures in tow. (But that’s another column.)

But the real slap of a post card is in the very act of sending the card itself. Ostensibly, the post card says, “I’m thinking about you and wishing you were here.” But the message that the sender is really trying to convey, in my batshit crazy interpretation, is: “Look where I am, sucker! You’re sweating your balls off in evening rush hour traffic on a sweltering July evening, or you’re freezing your ass off in six inches of northern snow and contending with a wind chill that would shrivel an Eskimo’s nuts, but I’m luxuriating under palm trees and a warming, restorative sun, just like the ones you see on the flip side of this post card, and tomorrow, instead of heading to work in a frozen car that takes 13 minutes to warm up, I’ll once again be lying on a beach just like the one on this post card, sweating out last night’s margaritas and watching sweet, tight, almost naked island bodies stroll by.”

This might be a new low – or high? – in my irrational irritability department, but I don’t like phoniness, and I just don’t see genuine geniality in the sending of a post card. A person has to have a lot of anger issues to rub their good time into the faces of those not having the same good time. You have to be a master of passive aggression. A post card sender must possess the inner desire to make others as miserable as he is for the rest of the year. In other words, you gotta be real prick to send post cards.

I sent ten from Paris this summer.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … your “less government” rant.

The Republican presidential candidates are holding another debate this week. I’ll read all about it the next day, but I won’t be watching. My Sony Bravio flat screen was damn expensive, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist hurling my nearby bottle of scotch through the screen when millionaire Rick Perry answers every question by blaming the overwhelming presence of the evil federal government in our lives.

My politics skew to the liberal side, but I always listen to reasoned, intelligent arguments from level-headed conservatives who base their arguments on reason, facts and news sources not owned by Rupert Murdoch. (Perhaps you’ve met those same three people.) I usually understand their views, even though I passionately disagree. Usually.

I get incensed every time I hear some Tea Party yahoo or some pandering politician scream mindlessly about how we have to reduce the role of the federal government in our lives. It’s a surefire soundbite for lazy network news producers, and it’s always the second biggest applause line at conservative rallies. (After, of course, the subtly racial anti-Obama slur.)

If you listen to these politicians and far-right wackos (hey, I didn’t say I engage in reasoned, intelligent argument … I just enjoy listening to those who do), you’d think good ol’ Uncle Sam has been overthrown by an ever-intrusive Big Brother who tells us what to eat, when to shit and how to fuck.

Now, I’m certainly not one of those flag-waving, rah-rah America types. I’ve railed about the potentially insidious dangers of the Patriot Act and the expansive powers of the Department of Homeland Security. I’m not comfortable with the ever-increasing presence of surveillance cameras (called “security” cameras in clever attention to the power of connotation). But other than that, I can’t really think of any ways in which our federal government is intruding upon my daily life and making me more miserable and less free.

If you are one of these angry, anxious Americans who want the federal government to butt out of your life, consider the following.

Do you have a child? If so, that child has probably ridden in a car seat. You can strap the little brat in the seat and be pretty sure that the slightest fender bender isn’t going to snap the kid’s neck, because car seats must now be built to certain standards, federal standards set down by those buttinski politicians.

The next time you’re cruising on some interstate and you see an 18-wheeler loaded with steel pipe barreling down the mountainside behind you, you can be pretty certain that the truck isn’t 2000 pound overweight and that the brakes have been inspected and that the driver hasn’t been behind the wheel for 28 of the past 30 hours. You know, federal regulations and all.

You probably eat three meals a day. (Okay, you’re an American, so make that 5.7 meals per day.) You no doubt snack as if the secret to eternal life can be found in the bottom of a Doritos bag. How many times have you suffered from food poisoning? I don’t mean the salmonella you got because your drunk ass left the raw chicken set out for six hours or the E. Coli you got at the Memorial Day picnic because drunk and dipshitted Uncle Charlie still can’t figure out how to get the charcoal hot. I’m talking from that pack of Oreo’s or that box of Count Chocula. Never? That’s probably because despite the occasional glitch in the food processing and distribution systems, 300 million Americans, for the most part, get through the day eating safe, albeit unhealthy, foods, thanks to federal standards. (Yes … yes, I know. Occasionally people die from E. Coli and salmonella, but when you consider the population of this country and the amount of food consumed, it’s amazing it doesn’t happen more often.)

The economy tanked a few years ago. Most of us know at least a few people who lost jobs through no fault of their own. Some of these people have homes and families. I have three relatives that got laid off. Thank god for unemployment benefits, which have kept the entire system from collapsing, which seems to be the preferred option of all the less-federal-government people.

And what about those old people in your family, the ones who rely on that monthly Social Security check because they have the gall to want extravagances such as food and a place to live? It seems the federal government’s presence in their mailboxes is not such a bad thing, because those are your deserving relatives. I guess it’s not Aunt Helen or Pop Pop who are robbing us blind and milking our tax dollars, it’s all those other undeserving cretins who feel a sense of entitlement.

Perhaps you’d have us do away with OSHA, too, that meddling agency that has worked for decades to make it harder to get electrocuted, blinded, burned or paralyzed at work. And once we’ve scrapped OSHA, let’s scrap that minimum wage those quasi-commie feds make businesses pay. Perhaps if we let companies go back to paying workers in the $2 per hour range, we can recoup some of those sneaker manufacturing jobs that are done by yellowish people … in factories that are not monitored by the likes of OSHA.

Let’s also shred that Passenger Bill of Rights. Without those bothersome federal regulations, we can board an airplane secure in the knowledge that we can sit on a hot tarmac for five hours before that four-hour flight to Phoenix, knowing there’s not a damn thing we can about it then or after.

And the next time your area gets hit by a tornado, hurricane or flood, don’t you dare go pleading for FEMA or accept one goddamn bottle of free water, because that’s the federal government once again sticking their noses into your homeless, thirsty and hungry business.

Okay, the point has been belabored, but the point has also, I hope, been made. Most of the regular people in America screaming for less federal government often live lives that are repeatedly made better by the federal government.

Stop doing the bidding of big business, the real force behind this less government tide. “Less Government” means just two things to these corporations: lower corporate taxes and fewer regulations on the way they do business.

Sure, there are issues worthy of serious debate in terms of the fed’s role in our lives, such as abortion, taxes, guns and health care. Bring on your best argument and make your point with intelligence, reason and depth. (In other words, no Fox News talking points allowed.) Just stop carrying signs with silly anti-government slogans, and stop shouting down your congressmen at town hall rallies, and stop making veiled racial comments when attacking a president whose policies you don’t like. Of course, that’s just a request. You are free to do all of those things. Because the federal government protects your right to do so.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … the Pledge of Allegiance.

Another school year is about to begin, which means 180 days of kids being pressured into unthinkingly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Of all the time-wasting activities that take place in school (and oh boy, do we waste a lot of time there), nothing is more meaningless than the Pledge. It’s recited by rote and performed only out of peer – and authority figure – pressure.

I’ve been teaching for 24 years, and I always make the Pledge optional. Hell, I actually discourage it. I don’t make the kids stand up. I don’t even stand up. I refuse to be coerced into chanting a poorly written recruiting tool that makes it easier for this warmongering country to send soldiers to die in conflicts aimed not at protecting the country but at fattening big business coffers.

Not only is it subliminally coercive, it’s poorly written. It’s 31 words of empty phrases and flowery verbosity that pretty much amounts to: “I support the United States.” Let’s parse this 30-second meaningless chant.

I pledge allegiance: Just a flowery way of saying, “I will be loyal to …”

To the flag of the United States of America: You’re going to be loyal to a “flag”? A flag is a hunk of fabric. I might be fiercely loyal to my wife, the Pittsburgh Penguins or Honda cars, but a red, white and blue cloth rectangle? If you want me to profess my loyalty to the country, just say that. Leave textiles out of it.

And to the republic for which it stands: More wordiness. Just say “America” or”The United States.”

We could basically end the Pledge here. Just say, “I will be loyal to the United States.” Or, if you want to hip it up a bit for those crazy kids, maybe a “Yo U.S … I got your back, yo!” or “I’m down wit’ all things U.S.A., youknowwhatimsayin?”

One nation under God: When Middle Eastern masses praise Allah in unison at public events, many Americans see them as brainwashed zealots. But when American kids are bullied into professing their loyalty to a nation that the “real:” God for some reason favors over all others, why, that seems just about right to most Americans. Germany made kids praise the Fuhrer and they were controlling mindfuckers. America injects God into every kid’s school day and calls it patriotism.

Indivisible: Talk about word that doesn’t belong in the Pledge. Not divisible? I direct your attention to Fort Sumter, 1861 and the ensuing four years. And 600,000 deaths. And Presidents Lincoln and Davis. We were one Gettysburg away from having this country permanently split into two nations. Yes, split. As in “divided.”

With liberty: Ah yes, the promised liberty that is our birthright … unless your government arbitrarily deems you an “enemy combatant,” in which case your promised liberty can be removed without due process.

And justice for all: This might be the funniest line in the whole damn Pledge. Shouldn’t it read, “And justice … the level of which will depend on your income level, for the more money you have, the greater the chance you’ll have to beat the most iron-clad rap, and the poorer you are, the easier it will be for lying cops and dissembling prosecutors to pad their closed case files and conviction rates by railroading your impoverished, publicly defended ass right into prison.”

If you’re too naive to believe that’s how justice works in this country, I give you Exhibit A in the name of O.J. Simpson and Exhibit B in The Memphis Three. Seriously, do you think those three small-town Arkansas goobers, with all that shady evidence, would have spent one day behind bars if their names were Kennedy, Bush and Trump?

So, instead of asking kids to recite a 31-word joke, perhaps we could rewrite a more meaningful Pledge and call it something like the “Oath of Good Citizenship.” I’d sign on and join in in saying it every morning. Perhaps it could sound something like this.

I pledge to be a good citizen of the United States.
I will not commit treason.
I will pay my fair share of taxes.
I’ll take care of any kids I make.
I won’t break the law.
I will l pay my bills and will not amass unpayable debts.
I’ll drink and do drugs responsibly.
I’ll respect all religions, even atheism, and won’t try to force my religion into the public arena.

There, that about covers it, doesn’t it? Oh, sure, we could add some more, but I’m not sure our underperforming kids could memorize it. Let’s see, we could add:

I will understand that watching Fox News Channel means that I will be greatly entertained but not well informed.

I will not carry protest signs that say, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” (Yep, that’s a real one.)

I will not allow myself to become a 300+ behemoth by gorging on a nonstop diet of snack foods and 60-ounce sodas, thereby becoming a nuisance on airplanes, at sporting events and in the aisles of Walmart.

I will not feel better about the wars, which I mostly ignore, by clapping for wounded troops at baseball games and slapping an “I support the troops” sticker on the back of my gas gorging Escalade.

Okay, so now I’ve gotten verbose, too. Let’s just go with the original “Oath of Good Citizenship.” If I’ve offended with this attack on the Pledge, I hope you’ll forgive me. If it makes you feel better, I’ll go directly to God with a heartfelt, original and very meaningful plea for forgiveness. Ahem … Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name …

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … family reunion angst.

Most people I know look forward to an impending family reunion with all the enthusiasm of a Tea Party member headed to a Logic Convention. Lots of pissing and moaning fills the weeks beforehand, and when The Big Day finally arrives, the world’s greatest coping mechanism – alcohol – helps a person plaster on a fake smile and pretend to be fascinated by cousin Dave’s riveting tale about the trouble he had putting up that prefab tool shed out back behind the garage last April. The next week is spent ruing one’s membership in the family gene pool.

But I always look forward to the annual family reunion I attend, but that’s because it’s not my family’s. This coming weekend marks my wife’s family’s 29th consecutive mega-blowout family reunion. It’s massive. The party starts Friday night and culminates Sunday with a huge golf tournament. (Never attended by me, as golf sucks.)

Some of these people are of Mexican heritage, so the food is outstanding. These women know their way around an enchilada and can wrap the shit out of some tamales. The little kids get to bash the hell out of four or five pinatas. An all-night poker game runs through Saturday night. (Never attended by me, as poker sucks.) There is karaoke, fireworks and a 50-50 raffle that sees some nice chunks of change doled out.

I will be attending for about the 12th time, and I never want to miss another one. But it’s not the food, booze and other fun bullshit that makes me so greatly anticipate this weekend. The fun comes from where it takes place. This reunion is held in the hills of West Virginia. I’m talking in the hills of West Virginia. Allow me to describe some of the events that transpired just last year.

Some of the family attendees – in the form of in-laws – included Reese Cup, Dan’l and Baby Doll. Or maybe it’s Babydoll. I’ve never asked her how it’s spelled. I’d like to, but I’m afraid she’d crack my upside my citified head with the leather-bound beer mug she has carried in her hand throughout the entire previous 11 reunions I’ve attended. Dan’l’s name is actually Dan’l. Not Daniel. Dan’l. It’s on his birth certificate. I have no idea what Reese Cup’s story is, but now that he is deep into his 40′s, most people no longer use that childish appellation. Now they just call him Reese. Some family friends showed up again. These would be the twins, Chicken and Mustard. I am not sure if those are their real names or nicknames, but I’ve never heard them called anything else, and since the very mulleted and very whiskey-drunk Chicken and Mustard always show up in sleeveless Skynyrd or Molly Hatchet t-shirts, I think I’ll refrain from asking that question this year.

My sisters-in-law eschewed their usual Bud Lights and instead spent the day drinking vodka and … I’m not really sure. I think it was lemonade. They each had a special plastic cup that had a sealed lid and sippy top, for we wouldn’t want to spill any of that super expensive Gordon’s vodka. (Please note that these women are not native West Virginians. One if from Pittsburgh, the other from the Jersey shore. But it takes only a few years of redneck reunioning to turn one into a good ol’ girl.)

At one point, the one woman’s five-year-old daughter came running over to our circle, tired and thirsty from an hour or so of engaging in one of the three main forms of children’s entertainment throughout the day: Chasing redneck children in circles, getting chased in circles by other redneck children or messin’ round up there near the fishin’ hole. Whatever, she was thirsty. So she ran up to us drunk adults and, before her mother could stop her (for as we know, alcohol slows one’s reflexes, and vodka lemonade and vodka jello shots damn near put one in reverse), the little five-year-old girl grabbed her mom’s lemonade sippy cup and took a big long swig. She put down the glass, blinked a few times, then her yelled, “It burns! It burns!” Five years old and she just did her first triple vodka shot. She began sobbing. How did we adults react? I’d like to say “with horror,” but the only horror was in the eyes of the soon-to-be-buzzed toddler, who had to watch eight 40-something adults convulse with laughter while she screamed that her esophagus was on fire.

One man was giving little kids rides up and down this insanely steep hill that no vehicle should ever go up or down. I don’t know enough about vehicles to tell you what it was, but it looked like a souped up golf cart with jeep wheels and a roll bar. He would fly down the hill with these little kids who were simultaneously terrorized and laughing. One mother (the same mother who found it so funny when her daughter got her vodka drunk on), upon seeing her daughter as one of the passengers, yelled at the driver when the ride was finished, but not because of the danger of the hill. She was mad that the driver had a beer can in the cup holder. His response? “Well hell, it ain’t fun until you catch a buzz.” Somehow, he got through these joy rides without becoming a CNN story about “a tragic mishap at a West Virginia family reunion.”

I overheard the following lines but not the stories that went with them:

“I’m sorry, but a homemade potato launcher is not my idea of fun!”

“… and I was dancing with this man who had one leg, so my husband comes up …”

“I just met a half sister of my mom’s who I never met before. She said she met me in 1966, but I was born in 1966, so I guess she saw me when I was a baby. She seemed insulted that I didn’t remember her. I wanted to say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember you! You’re that lady from the hospital.’ What a dummy.”

But my favorite memory was from the egg toss. This is a major event every year. At least 30 pairs of adults buy an egg for a buck, and the pair with the last egg intact wins the pot. But the money is of secondary motivation. The real prize is bragging rights. I guarantee that this weekend, last year’s egg toss heroics and failures will be discussed before this year’s epic battle. It’s pretty pathetic. (I’ve won twice.)

However, before the adult egg toss, they let the kids have their own contest. Any age kid can participate, and the smallest kids can toss with their parents. I was sitting up on a hill watching this madcap fun and was treated to a memory that already has me licking my chops for this year’s hillbilly hoedown.

One little girl, perhaps about five years old, was paired with her mom. The director (yes, there’s an egg toss czar, and he runs these contests with a severity last seen in sports when Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was banning the Black Sox) made everyone stand about eight feet apart for the first toss. The mom was going to toss first, and the little girl stood across from her with he hands outstretched, ready for the first throw. This should have served as the first warning sign that egg-toss disaster would soon ensue, for this girl had her arms held so far apart that you’d have thought she had mistakenly entered the Beach Ball Toss. The egg toss commissioner made everyone hold up their eggs.

The mom, with that been-drinking-for-four-hours glow, beamed at her waiting daughter and nodded her head in encouragement. However, she offered no helpful hints along the lines of, “Honey, you might want to move your hands a lot closer together.” She just showed her the egg. So the little girl just stood there looking like a mime doing, “I’m holding a boulder now!” She just smiled and awaited the harmless little eight-foot egg toss. The egg toss kommisar gave the signal and the first toss was made.

The woman lofted a perfect little lob toward her daughter, an underhand offering that saw the egg transverse the air in that ideal egg toss arc. The little girl quickly closed her arms and caught the egg just as … oh wait, that’s how it was supposed to work. It did not work out this way.

Instead, this poor little girl, who I’m betting will not be seen on any future U.S. national softball teams, never moved her wide-apart hands, and alas, the egg did not magically turn into a beach ball in mid-air. Instead, the egg landed right on the top bone of the little girl’s left eye socket, cracked immediately and began running – yolk, white and shell – down into the little girl’s eye, down her cheek, into her mouth and onto her neck.

She stood there for a second, and then, like a little girl who accidentally chugged vodka, burst into tears. The best part? She still had not moved her arms. She stood their bawling. arms wide apart and hot tears mixing with fresh cracked egg. The mother tended to her daughter, but only after falling on the grass and laughing like, well, like a mother whose five-year-old daughter had just chugged vodka.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.