Wait.  This is better:  “Having dodgeball to look forward to during January and February is like someone sticking 500 tiny needles into your eyeball.  But then they pull one out.”  Nailed it.

This year marks the 5th year I’ve played dodgeball in a charity sports league.  10% of me likes the dodgeball, and 90% of me is just remarkably and preternaturally charitable.  We’ve been playing for a while now, and we have one division title to our name.  Last night was the last match of the regular season, and although it looks like we made the playoffs, I’m a little sad that the season will soon be over.

The 2006 squad:  What they lacked in experience they made up for in enthusiasm, heart, and creepy single dudes.

I love dodgeball, and not just because it’s something to do at a time of the year when there’s nothing to do.  First and foremost, I love competitive sports.  New York is a hard place to play sports, and as I’ve gotten busier and more out of shape I’ve kind of forgotten how fun playing sports is.  Now, you may be smirking at the idea of people competing seriously at a sport as inherently silly as dodgeball.  I will wipe that smirk off your face with a big red ball traveling 90 MPH.  Actually I won’t, because I can’t throw very hard, but there are plenty of people in the league who could. 

Dodgeball is serious business around this league.  There is plenty of trash talk, arguments with the refs, and screaming at underperforming teammates.  In fact, Melissa opted out of playing for the first couple years we were dating due to the . . . intensity that characterizes our team.  Actually, that intensity really only comes from the women on our team.  Mean bunch of women.  Just really terrifying.

The 2007 squad:  I’d like to make you believe that I’m wearing a different t-shirt than the rest of the time because I’m the goalie, but that’s not true.  You wouldn’t think it was weird that I chose to wear a different t-shirt if you knew just how small the league uniforms run.

Beyond the competition, another thing I really enjoy about dodgeball is seeing grown men and women cheat.  At dodgeball.  I never get tired of watching this, and I especially enjoy it when they go to great and sneaky lengths to do it.  Watching a 29 year-old dude get hit by a ball, and then walk toward the side line, and then kind of slow down right before he leaves the court, and then just sort of hang out in no man’s land between his team’s bench and the court, and then kind of sidle back a little onto the court warms my heart.  Every one has their price, I suppose.  Mine is just a little higher than a win in charity sports league dodgeball.  I’ve never been able to make up my mind as to whether cheating in a low stakes contest is more repugnant than cheating in a high stakes one.  But I am certain that it’s more fun to watch.

Watching this phenomenon has made me realize that there are two kinds of competitiveness.  The first is a function of the stakes involved; the higher the stakes, the greater the desire to win.  Most people would play a game harder with $1 million on the line than they would with $100 on the line.  Perfectly rational.

The 2009 squad:  Once again playing goalie.

The second type of competitiveness is the desire to win solely for the sake of winning.  It’s the characteristic that distinguishes great athletes from good ones – and that leads people to cheat in charity league dodgeball. This type of competitiveness varies from person to person, and for the most part seems to be an innate characteristic.  For example, Kook is a very talented, natural athlete.  He’s tall, fast, can jump, is in great shape, and has good hand-eye coordination.  You’d think you would want him on your team for virtually any sport.  And as far as wanting a teammate who is a great guy who you can count on for some first-rate pranks and jokes, you’d be right.  But as far as winning a family volleyball game through intense effort and focus and concentration goes, you may want to scout out some of your older nieces.

On the other end of the spectrum you have my friend Ron, who at this very moment is trying to read this blog post faster than you are. I have some of this type of competitiveness in me, but not to the degree I’ve seen in Ron and others.  I like to win, but losing doesn’t ruin my week.  With one exception:  I hate losing to the ultra-competitive types so much that I morph into one of them whenever I compete against them.  For example, when we lived together Ron and I never once just rode our scooters home from being out on the town together.  Every single ride home turned into a harrowing race involving running red lights and going down one-way streets the wrong way.

Under normal circumstances I would have just chosen not risking life in a wheelchair over winning a meaningless scooter race, but I hate to lose to Ron so badly that paralysis seemed like a small price to pay for the chance to beat him.  And beat him I did.  Over and over and over again.  And then some more.  And it felt sooooo good. There’s no prize so sweet as beating someone who hates to lose. Which is why I show up to dodgeball every week.

When I was a senior at Davis, a few of my friends and I decided that we needed to do something to give expression to the deep sense of loyalty and love we felt towards our school. Just kidding, we wanted to play a prank on Poomont. I’m not exactly sure how we got from our desire to prank Viewmont to deciding that we needed to go to the huge cement “V” that marks Viewmont’s territory on the side of the mountains in Centerville and cover it in brown and gold paint – the colors of Davis High School. I just know that that’s what we decided, and I’m proud of that decision.

It was resolved that this would take place on the night of the football game between Davis and Viewmont, which also happened to be Viewmont’s Homecoming. Our objective fixed, we made the necessary preparations. The first stop was a hardware store for the paint. In order to evade detection, we made sure to buy brown paint at one hardware store and yellow paint at another. We surveiled our target and hid the paint in some brush a few feet away from the “V.” We decided to sit separately at the game so we could slip out at half time unnoticed. We established a minute-by-minute timetable for leaving the game, changing into dark clothes (the shirt I selected had a white stripe on the chest, so I covered it in electrician’s tape), driving to the drop-off point, hiking up to the “V”, purifying it with brown and gold paint, changing out of our dark clothes, and then hightailing it to the stomp at DHS before anyone noticed we were gone. No detail was left to chance.

The police line-up in Farmington, Utah is a fairly formal affair.

A day or two before the raid, we began to feel a little uneasy. We took for granted that the folks at Viewmont wouldn’t take kindly to the improvements we planned to make to their landmark, and would probably call the police. Now, the police in Davis County, Utah don’t have a whole lot to do. You can imagine how frustrating that is to them, and how badly they want to put their cars and Tasers and guns to use. With no rapes or murders, they park forlornly in cul-de-sacs and parking lots, jumping in anticipation every time the radio crackles with news of a water-ballooning or a toilet-papering.

One night of water ballooning cars in Somerset Farms (the Park Avenue of Farmington) brought down on our heads the full fury of the police departments of Farmington, Fruit Heights, Kaysville, Centerville, and a few stragglers from Woods Cross and Layton. There must have been at least 30 police cruisers patrolling this little subdivision, intent on bringing the water ballooners to justice. It therefore stood to reason that before the paint on the “V” was dry that CSI Davis County would be on the scene with rubber gloves and Q-tips swabbing for DNA. Cops in Davis County are looking for work, and we didn’t necessarily want to be the ones to give it to them.

All of this was occurring at the same time that we were applying to college, and someone mentioned in passing that a misdemeanor conviction for vandalism may not be looked on favorably by admissions committees. I don’t think this statement had much of an impact on any of us at the time it was made, but as the day of the raid drew near it began to weigh more heavily on all of us.

Sure, you’re felony-free records enabled all of you to go to college and graduate school and to get good jobs. But the “V” still gleams white, taunting you for your cowardice. You sicken me.

My sense of foreboding grew with each passing day, to the point that I was convinced that if we executed our plan we’d spend the rest of our days at the Point of the Mountain making license plates. I don’t know which courageous soul was the first to admit that maybe this wasn’t a great idea, but the rest of us quickly and with great relief admitted to feeling the same way, and in the course of a few minutes, the whole idea got scrapped. At the end of the day, we all felt like we had too much to lose, and as awesome as a brown-and-gold “V” would have been, it just wasn’t worth it.

I was reminded of this little chapter of my life by a movie I recently saw called “Man on Wire” which tells the story of Phillipe Petit’s high wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. In a nutshell, Phillipe was something of a prankster and a daredevil, and he became obsessed with getting to the top of the Towers and walking between them on a high wire. This became a mission for Phillipe and his friends, and the movie feels very much like a heist flick, only instead of risking life and limb to rob a bank or a museum, they’re doing it for what is basically a really elaborate prank.

They knew that they’d probably end up in jail for their troubles, and for some reason that I don’t totally understand, they didn’t seem to care. And while I don’t comprehend what makes people like that tick, I’m glad they’re out there, and sometimes I wish I were more like them. I don’t want to give you the idea that I never do anything fun or awesome for fear of the long arm of the law. But I also live with regard to consequences, and there’s a part of me that really admires people who don’t, people who aren’t concerned about their “permanent record.” Which is all a very long way of saying that “Man on Wire” has inspired me to go paint the “V” brown and gold this weekend.

Unfortunately, music carries a lot of baggage. Some types of music are strongly associated with a particular cultural identity. I’m not sure what the reason behind this is, but I am sure that it’s not a good one. If you avoid a certain kind of music because it’s the not the kind of music associated with your particular cultural identity, or because you don’t like the particular cultural identity associated with a certain kind of music, you are going to miss out on some good music. I sort of did that for a while, and I offer my experience as a cautionary tale.

I listen to country music because it is part of my cultural identity.  But even I can admit that it is terrible.

When I was in college I dated some girls who were really into indie music. For the uninitiated, “indie” stands for “independent,” meaning it’s not associated with a major record label, although the word has outgrown that original, literal meaning. It’s an amorphous, inexact term, but it’s applied well enough to bands and artists who make a certain kind of music that sounds a certain way. Anyway, being someone who really likes music, I was open to listening to some of the stuff that these girls liked. The problem I had was that I associated this kind of music with some of their friends – friends who all seemed to dress exactly the same way and who seemed to have a vested interest in making sure that other people didn’t discover the music that they loved so much.

Just because the people who listen to my music are annoying doesn’t mean that my actual music is annoying.  But yes, it probably does mean that I, as a person, am probably pretty annoying.

These people seemed pretty annoyed when a band they’d liked for years finally hit the big time and got discovered by more casual music fans, but they also seemed pretty annoyed with people who hadn’t heard of the bands they loved to listen to. In fact, they seemed pretty annoyed at most things. The indie crowd didn’t really seem to have much variation in the kind of music they listened to; they weren’t ever going to bop their heads to the latest ear candy from Britney Spears, and they’d stifle the desire to sing along to “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys (I heard or read somewhere that there are two kinds of people in the world: people who admit to absolutely loving “I Want It That Way”, and liars).

One of these girls even sang in a local indie band, and one fine evening I went to see her sing at a house party. She probably should have warned me not to come wearing khakis and a polo shirt. There was one other guy dressed like me, but I’m pretty sure he was doing it ironically. The other accessory I seemed to be missing was a sad, knowing, faraway look in my eyes. After a few experiences like this I pegged all indie music as emaciated people singing songs that were long on melancholy and short on melody – with plenty of strange guitar solos and lots of self-indulgent, experimental boops and beeps and screeches – to a group of people who were all dressed exactly the same and who had a huge chip on the shoulder of their thrift store shirts. Not my scene.

I can already tell that you won’t be able to understand the art behind those screeches and boops and beeps because I see the regular edition of Jenga over there on your shelf.

The ensuing years have led me to discover that I was wrong. Really, really wrong (about the music; I still think a lot of hard-core indie music fans are super annoying). Indie music is probably my favorite kind of music. It’s not atonal. It’s not experimental or high concept or self-indulgent, or at least it isn’t necessarily those things. What it is – or what a lot of it is – is really, really good. And contrary to popular opinion, you can like it with adopting the associated cultural identity, allowing you to continue liking other types of music, too! Indeed, one of my favorite things about Melissa is the fact that she likes a lot of good indie stuff while at the same time liking literally the worst music ever made. Case in point: The Christmas mix she made this year was 98% 98 Degrees.

Anyway, I don’t claim to be at the forefront of indie music, or to have an encyclopedic knowledge of it. I just claim to like it. I think there’s a decent chance you’d like it, too, and that’s actually why I wrote this post in the first place: My friend Craig has a blog, You Should Be Listening to This, devoted to helping you discover really good music. Most of it is indie-ish, some of it isn’t, but all of it is good. Craig is out there, kissing a lot of frogs and then introducing you only to the princes. That metaphor is a little unfortunate, but you know what I mean. So go on, give You Should Be Listening to This a visit and a listen.

(A few of my favorites are here and here and here).

This will mark only the third time in my life I haven’t spent Christmas in Utah with my family, the first two being those I spent in Argentina as a missionary.  I arrived in Argentina in October 1996, fresh-faced and full of zeal. I was assigned to be trained by a missionary I will call Elder Vasquez, of Uruguay. In the unlikely event that I am ever elected President of the United States, my first official act will be to launch a full-scale nuclear attack on Uruguay. After a few years, when the radiation clouds have subsided, I will send the Marines to kill any survivors and then sew their fields with salt. Other nations of the world will no doubt characterize these actions as “unprovoked.” But other nations of the world didn’t spend 5 months living and working with Elder Vasquez.

It’s hard to know how to describe Elder Vasquez. Actually, it’s easy. The hard part is trying to do it in language appropriate for a family blog. If I were to write a memoir of my mission but present it as a novel, any astute reader would view the “character” of Elder Vasquez as a mash-up of every “bad missionary companion” cliché: lazy, trunky, covetous of leadership positions, overly familiar with the members, and highly interested in spending as much time as possible around women. And that’s just describing him as a missionary. In order to describe him as a person, I wrote down every adjective that I believe characterizes him, put them in a hat, and randomly drew out the following five:

1. Sadistic
2. Irrational
3. (Is probably a) murderer
4. Self-pitying
5. Terrible person

“This isn’t going to make much sense now, but in about 15 years, you’re not going to want to live downwind of Uruguay.”

Within a week of my arrival Elder Vasquez told me, in the spirit of full disclosure, that the only American he didn’t hate was Gordon B. Hinckley. Either Presidents Monson and Faust weren’t highly-placed enough to escape his ire, or he just really hated their faces. I don’t know. Regardless, if those two weren’t qualifying for an exemption, I certainly wasn’t going to, either. It was all downhill from there.  In one corner we had the eager, young American who actually wanted to, you know, do missionary work, and in the other we had the lazy, homesick Uruguyan who wanted to spend all day licking ice cream cones while watching girls in the plaza. By the time Christmas rolled around we’d spent two utterly miserable months together consisting of me dragging him out the door to do missionary work, which in turn consisted of me trying to stop people on the street in broken Spanish while he stood 10 feet away with his arms crossed, smirking whenever people refused to stop or when I made a mistake in Spanish.

I should mention here that the way Christmas is celebrated in Latin America is much closer to the way we celebrate New Year’s Eve here, with people getting dressed up, going out dancing and to parties, and lots of noise and fireworks at midnight. And by fireworks I mean fireworks, but also guns and probably some grenades and mortars. It’s incredibly loud and a little dangerous in that fun “It’s not a certainty that someone is going to lose an eye, but there’s a decent chance” Third World kind of way. For this reason our mission president gave us strict orders in no uncertain terms: Be inside your apartment by 6 PM, and don’t leave until the next morning. No exceptions. This rule was mentioned every time we saw the president or a mission leader for about a month in advance, and as Christmas grew closer, it was reiterated more and more frequently and with greater and greater force.

Well, I’m sure you can see where this is going. A little before 6 PM we picked up some food to eat in miserable silence and headed back to our apartment. Thankfully, we received a visit from a member friend, Fabian, who agreed to eat with us and hang out for a bit. At some point around 8 or 9 PM Elder Vasquez declared that we needed some soda to celebrate. I told him we weren’t going to get soda, and we argued for a few minutes about the rule, at which point he seemed to back down. A little bit later I stepped into the bathroom, and when I came out neither Elder Vasquez nor Fabian were anywhere to be found. I went to open our front door, which required a key to open from the inside or the outside, and found I’d been locked inside the apartment.

“No, I’m serious.  The shelter needs to be resistant to radiation.”

Worn out and depleted from this confrontation and the last couple months of near-constant strife, as well as the difficulties of being away from home and trying to learn a new language, I crumpled onto my bed. Before closing my eyes, I looked at my watch and realized that at that moment my family was gathered around the dining room table in my parents’ house, eating turkey, drinking wassail, warmed by the glow of love and tradition. The contrast between the beauty and peace associated with that setting and the misery and conflict of my current one was so great that I briefly wondered whether my former life was simply a figment of my imagination. And then I started to cry.

I don’t mean that I got some tears in my eyes. I mean that I cried really, really hard. To the point that I was doing the fast suck-in thing that people do when they cry really, really hard. I cried like this for a few minutes, and then went to the bathroom to try to get rid of my “cry face.” After being gone who knows where for an hour or so, Elder Vasquez and Fabian returned. Fabian left a short while after, abandoning us to our mutual contempt.

Well, I wish I could tell you this story has a happy ending. I mean, it does, in the sense that I didn’t beat Elder Vazquez to death with a baseball bat. But it doesn’t in the sense that we never really came to like one another. I suppose there are a few redemptive nuggets to be gleaned from my story. The first is that I was able to feel less guilty for waiting for Elder Vazquez to get in the shower before opening and gobbling down the Christmas treats my Mom had been sending me. The second is that my second Christmas in Argentina was much, much happier than my first. I had a companion I liked, we were working hard, and we had a really enjoyable Christmas. The third and final one is that even if Lyla somehow burns down our apartment, my third Christmas away from family and Utah won’t be as bad as my first.

(Ed note: I should specify that neither of the missionaries pictured with me is Elder Vasquez. I’ve burned any pictures that he’s in. And yes, these pictures are evidence that I wasn’t always a big guy.)

As we mentioned in this post yesterday, we’re instituting a new series called Tiebreakers.  The point of this series is to have readers submit a quarrel or tiff they had with their spouse or significant other in order to have impartial observers (us) give their take on who was right and who was wrong.  In other words, we’re offering you the opportunity to find out once and for all if you’re the crazy one or the sane one. We also invite readers to add their comments and votes, which we’ll tally at the end of the day.

And now, on to the inaugural installment of Tiebreakers:  The Case of the Law Firm Trick-or-Treat, which comes to us courtesy of Ryan and his wife, Macy.

Plaintiff (Macy): One day as I was thumbing through emails on Ryan’s phone (which I do occasionally, and feel just fine about) I came across an email from his office manager saying that everyone was invited to bring in their kids on Halloween in costume to trick-or-treat around the office.  I thought “we might have a lot going on that day, but it could be fun.  He must have forgotten to mention it.”  The day before Halloween, he still hadn’t mentioned it, and I heard from a friend of mine who was taking her daughter down to her husband’s law firm to trick or treat.  So I decided to call him on it.  I picked up the phone and asked him if he’d forgotten to tell me something.  Turns out he hadn’t ‘forgotten’ to tell me, just that he didn’t want to invite us.  That’s when I got pretty weirded out.   Fine if he doesn’t approve of the activity –  I wasn’t desperate to go.  But if your office is having a party for your children to come trick-or-treat, don’t you think you should at least mention it and leave it up to your wife and kids?  They might actually enjoy it.  Pretty crotchety, if you ask me.

We’re just sitting on the doorstep because our Dad doesn’t think we’re cute enough to show to his friends.

Defendant (Ryan): Three things:  1. Halloween these days is crrrazy. Kids now do ten to twelve costumed events prior to the big day, and by the time Halloween actually rolls around,  the novelty is gone, and the light sugar buzz has morphed into clinical dependency and mild diabetes.  They didn’t need this.   2.  Not only would my office trick-or-treating activity have been literally the sixth costumed event for my kids, but also the only one involving serious professionals sitting in their offices trying to accomplish real life things in the middle of the parade.  Every smart parent operates by one simple rule:  To me, my kids are heaven’s own cherubs;  to most other adults, they are just one level above germ-spreading vermin.  Lawyers in their offices rarely even have any candy, and are even less likely to be interested in being interrupted by someone else’s masquerading kids.   3. My kids are really, really cute.  But it makes me really uncomfortable to put them in situations where adults feel compelled to tell me how cute they are.  When the adults are grouchy lawyers who also happen to be my bosses, in the middle of their work day, forget about it.  When the email came, I dismissed it as something I wasn’t interested in, and then forgot about it.   It’s not that I ever intended to hide it from Macy and the kids.  It’s just that I didn’t intend for them to come.  Happy Halloween everyone!

Am I cute?  Yes.  But so are koala bears, and you don’t see any of them running around law firms.

So, there’s the case.  Here are the rulings from our panel of distinguished judges:

Christian: First, I strongly condemn Macy’s email snooping practices.  That said, my vote on the larger issue goes to her.  Ryan should have shared the information about the trick-or-treat with her, and then made his arguments against it.  Although, this being a law firm function, the kids would have to pay per piece of candy as well as time spent handing it out, so that’s a downer.

Rebecca (Christian’s wife): Why in the world would you NOT mention the trick-or-treating to your wife just to let her know and to hear her opinion on the matter?  She might have strong feelings (maybe she just wants to meet your co-workers and make sure your secretary is ugly).  My vote goes to Macy.  Creepy maneuver, Ryan.  Makes a woman wonder what else you’re hiding.

Davis: In not telling Macy, Ryan sought to get the result he wanted without engaging in the process of negotiation and compromise, which, as I think about it, is what most authoritarian rulers want when they overthrow democratic governments.  So, I’m ruling in favor of Macy/George Washington and against Ryan/Kim Jong-Il.

Melissa (Davis’ wife): I’m with Macy on this one.  I think it’s strange to keep secrets from your wife.  I think that even if you don’t want your significant other to do something, it’s better to let them know about it and then explain why you don’t want them to do it rather than just hide it from them. What else are you hiding from Macy, Ryan?

Ron: (I guess we’re just ignoring the fact that Macy was snooping through Ryan’s emails.)  If Macy were a member of a woman’s club and received an invitation from said club to bring her family to a function that she did not want to attend, would she be obligated to see if Ryan felt differently?  No.  In like manner, I don’t think Ryan was obligated to check with Macy regarding his work function.

So, there you have it:  4 votes for Macy, 1 for Ryan.  Ryan should apologize to Macy, and to invite her and the kids down to the law firm on a random Tuesday in January, where he must take them office to office to meet all of his colleagues, without explaining why they’re there, exclaiming at least five times, “Seriously, though, can you believe how cute these kids are?”

Commenters: What’s your take? How do you vote?

Submit your own dispute to the Tiebreakers by writing to tiebreakers at dontdodumbthings dot com.

I’m not going to bore you with the details.  The salient facts are these:Melissa and I got engaged, I lost my job, my good buddy and roommate Ron was working part-time, he and I were stuck with the lease for the apartment we’d been sharing, none of us wanted to commit to a new apartment when we could be leaving New York for new jobs, and so when Melissa and I got married in April she moved in with me and Ron.

This arrangement obviously raised many an eyebrow, including our own.  We all had our reservations about doing it, but our hands were forced, and we did what we had to do.  And the truth of it is, the five months we spent as a trio went swimmingly.  It wasn’t perfect, of course.  Perhaps the greatest threat to peace in our home were the tense skirmishes over how to train Lyla.  I’d go into more detail, but I don’t think either Ron or Melissa is quite ready to laugh about this one quite yet.

“My Mommy and my Second Daddy are always fighting about me.  Is it my fault?”  “Yes.  It is.  Everyone was happier before you came.  You should probably kill yourself.”

All in all, though, we loved living with Ron, and if we had a house with a basement, we’d have him live with us forever.  Melissa enjoyed having someone around who would watch Oprah and So You Think You Can Dance with her, and I liked having someone to hang out with during Melissa’s 12-hour baths. Of course, the main reason we enjoyed this arrangement is because Ron is good company and we just liked having him around.  But a close second was that he served as judge and jury in instances where we needed an impartial outsider and/or a tie-breaking vote.

Anyone who has ever been in a relationship has had the following thought when engaged in a disagreement or fight with their partner:  “Sugar Bear, I love you.  But you are clearly insane, and if you and I were to present our respective sides of this disagreement to an impartial observer, this observer would laugh in your face, have you committed, look at me with eyes of sympathy, and call the Pope to start the process of having me canonized.”

That’s where Ron came in.  For the most part, he broke the tie on smaller matters, like choosing restaurants or movies.  And because these matters involved him, his vote was binding.  Even when the vote went against me, I kind of enjoyed not having to engage in the bargaining and compromising that these small disagreements can sometime entail.  Except for the time when Ron and Melissa both voted to go see Twilight.  I didn’t enjoy that.

“Ok, all those in favor of Ron using less product in his hair say ‘aye.’”  “Aye.”  “Aye.”  “Aye. Wait, what?”

Occasionally, Melissa and I sought a non-binding judgment from Ron on a disagreement that pertained to our relationship.  Sometimes he ended up taking my side, which was obviously nice.  But sometimes he took Melissa’s side, which actually caused me to think a little harder about her point of view.

Fortunately for you, we here at Don’t Do Dumb Things have decided to extend this same service to our readers, but without having to live with a guy who sneaks the puppy you’re trying to train to sleep in her crate into bed with him every night.  Here’s how it works:

You submit to us a disagreement or tiff you had with your significant other, large or small.  You’re welcome to submit them anonymously, or you can let us know who you are while specifying that you’d like your name withheld.  Or you can put your name in big red font.  The process will work best if each side writes in, briefly explaining the facts of the matter and the reasoning behind their stance.  To ensure fairness, each side is limited to a single paragraph of advocacy (feel free to submit a joint statement of factual background if necessary).

Ryan, Christian, and I will review these statements and will each write a brief response ruling in favor of one party or the other.  In order to keep things gender-balanced, our respective wives, Macy, Melissa, and Rebecca will do the same.  In the event of a 3-3 tie, we’ll bring in Ron (who, as a flaming metrosexual, acts in a gender-neutral role here) to cast the final vote.  After which you will submit to our judgments (we are especially good on family planning issues).  So there you have it:  the opportunity to confirm once and for all that you’re not the crazy one, you’re the sane one.  Please send submissions to tiebreakers@dontdodumbthings.com.

In our infinite foresight, we’ve already prepared the first entry in our special DDDT Series: Tiebreakers.  Tune in tomorrow for the first episode.

When it comes to the proper role of a spouse in praising his or her partner for things that he or she does well, my wife and I come from two very different schools of thought.  Melissa subscribes to the “I’m Here To Keep My Spouse From Getting a Big Head School.”  The motto of this school is:  “He’s already prone to arrogance and pomposity, why would I add fuel to the fire?”  I’m a devotee of the “Spouses Should Be Loving and Supportive School,” but that’s just my personal and probably crazy take on things.This dynamic has created a situation where I point out to Melissa pretty much every single tiny thing I do well throughout the day.  Whether it’s weaving like a gazelle through traffic on my Vespa or singing amazing high harmony to “Winds of Change” by Scorpions, I’m prone to turn to Melissa immediately afterward, widen my eyes while nodding slowly, and say, “Nailed it.”  In those instances where I’ve nailed something beyond my ability to comprehend, I’ll accompany my verbal “Nailed it” with a hand gesture mimicing the action of hammering a nail in slow motion, just to drive my point home.

This is the face my “Nailed It” word/action combo typically elicits:

An example:  Since Melissa and I moved into our first place a few months ago we’ve made a real effort to decorate it and make it feel like a home.  This has entailed doing things that I’m not naturally good at and don’t have much experience doing.  Like using tools.

I was once able to stomach half an episode of “Extreme Home Makeover” before the combination of Ty Pennington’s face, voice, and puka shell necklace gave me a case of the heroin junkie trembles.  The large and elaborate homes on this show are built from scratch in a week, largely by volunteers.  I am sure that among the large group of volunteers every week there are a few guys like me, which is why I’m also sure that in a year or so we’re going to be seeing news reports about Extreme Home Makeover homes collapsing because the chimney was duct-taped on or because someone tried to caulk a tub with a hot glue gun.

Back to our apartment:  We don’t have a lot of counter space, so I thought it might make sense to mount a paper towel roll dispenser onto the cabinet rather than have it take up space on the counter.  I went out and bought a dispenser and installed it, and the whole thing went off without a hitch.  Here’s a photo of my handiwork:

As you can clearly see, this was a great success.  Having ably conquered a task I found intimidating, I turned to my wife and gave her a solid, grave “Nailed it,” complete with the accompanying hand gesture.

After gazing at my triumph for a minute or two, I opened up the cupboard to which the dispenser is attached to retrieve a glass (for some richly deserved root beer).  Here’s what I saw:

Turns out I didn’t “nail it.”  I actually screwed up.  Hey-ooooooooo!  Just nailed that.