Things I Learned This Week ... Most of Which I Already Knew

The National League All-Stars still kind of suck. My mom, aunt and brother-in-law are all officially a year older. We're now just over two weeks away from the start of college football traning camps. But those are all things that were all rather predictable this week. Here are a few other items that might merit a bit more detail.

I drink too much. That's what my wife says, and she's probably right. It should be noted, however, that she doesn't say this as if to imply that I have a problem. Because someone drinking "too much" clearly doesn't mean that he or she is an alcoholic. It's all relative and subjective. By no means am I dependent on alcohol; I simply choose to have a drink or two most nights of the week. And it's not uncommon for a drink or two to turn into five or six on some of those nights. But I'm not worried. It's not affecting my family life (I don't think), and it's not affecting my work (I don't think). I'm going to stick with what works.

Flowers mean "I'm sorry." I bought flowers for my wife this week, mainly because I'm a jackass. Despite being the proverbial loving father and devoted husband, I'm imperfect enough that some bad decisions are still inevitable. (And, no, those bad decisions are not related to the amount of alcohol I consume ... usually.) But not only am I enough of a jackass to put myself in situations that merit the purchase of flowers, I also NEVER buy flowers for the traditional flower-purchasing occasions. Valentine's Day, birthdays, anniversaries, I never go the flower route on those; so my wife could see right through me when I showed up with some roses Thursday. She said it would be nice to get flowers that meant something other than "I'm sorry." I think she's right on this one, too.

Deadbeats will be deadbeats. My degenerate neighbors from across the street moved out this week, heading back to Florida after being here just a few months. They were renting the house and apparently lied to the landlord about the husband losing his job, and they cited that as a reason why they couldn't pay the last month's rent and couldn't provide ample notice to end their lease. I guess this is the kind of behavior I should have expected from them. Likewise with the dozen or so bags and boxes of shit they left on the curb before leaving yesterday, as if our friendly sanitation workers were actually going to pick any of it up. Yeah, that's not a neighborhood eye sore. Oh, and did I mention that their four-year-old son pissed on our floor a couple of weeks ago? Fucking deadbeats. Good riddance.

Some people are really fucking disgusting and lazy. I think it's pretty reasonable to expect that adults would take pretty decent care of the public restroom that they know they'll need to use throughout the week at work. Now I don't expect people to be scrubbing the sinks and toilets, but I do expect them to be using the sinks and toilets for their designed purposes. First of all, everyone knows the unfortunate truth that there are some people who don't wash their hands after using the restroom. Use the sink, use the soap. It's not that difficult. But we know there are offenders, and we just have to avoid the non-washers as much as possible. I also came across a different issue in the men's room this week, as I had to completely avoid the urinal because of the ridiculous puddle that surrounded it on the floor. Seriously, someone gave it the Lloyd Christmas treatment from Dumb and Dumber. Damn it, this isn't a truckstop; it's a professional office building. Who are these losers we're surrounded by?

I don't think I'm at all disgusting or lazy, but I feel really fucking stupid sometimes. After hearing my boss rave about the work I've done while providing me with a rather glowing annual performance review, she actually had to print a new copy for me to sign this week because I had repeatedly forgotten to bring the original copy back from home. What a fucking idiot I am. Good enough to earn the kind words and salary increase, but dumb enough to immediately be brought back down to reality.

It's always something.