Like It's Your Birthday

The Spare Time Bowling and Family Fun Center in South Glens Falls, New York has seen many a celebration, so it was no surprise when a young man we will call “Stu” decided to have his 16^th birthday party there. He invited friends and schoolmates to what they all assumed would be a routine gala of rented shoes and semi-operational air-hockey tables. What occurred, however, will undoubtedly become local legend.

What we know is this: At some point during the evening, the co-ed party of fifteen & sixteen year-olds were ushered into the over-21  karaoke bar where they witnessed an exclusive performance by a pair of female adult entertainers employed by a service called “Tops in Bottoms.” This performance involved lap dances, grinding, and judging by the photo below a well-executed French wheelbarrow. The performance and party, concluded without incident and everyone returned home. In the following days someone, presumably the birthday boy himself, uploaded several pictures of the festivities to Facebook where they came to the attention of another attendee’s mother.

She alerted the local media which led to the district attorney’s office launching an investigation. It appears that the erotic entertainment was arranged by “Stu’s” parents and now they could face charges of child endangerment. In addition, the bowling alley is under review by the state for apparently allowing a group of minors to have contact with strippers in their bar. The strippers may be facing charges of sexual contact with a minor but haven’t publicly responded to the accusations. Stu and his parents have hired an attorney and thus far have refrained from comment.

With so many unanswered questions it is difficult to know where to begin. Personally, I am hoping the parents give a full statement so that we can all become privy to their thought process. Did this entire fiasco begin with a conversation between the young man’s mother and father?

“Dan, what are we going to do for Stu’s birthday party this year?”

“Well sweetheart, judging by his Internet browsing history he only has two interests and we can’t afford a vehicle right now.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“I suppose we are just going to have to take his pubescent teenage friends to the bowling alley and subject them to the gyrating bosoms of total strangers.”

“If you think that’s best. But Dan, where would we even begin to……”

“Honey please! I’m on the phone! [Yes, is this Tops in Bottoms? Are you still running that Labor Day promotion? Great! Tell Trixie not to forget the Jello canon this time.]

There will be numerous criticisms of Stu’s parents, but their real mistake was tipping their hand too soon. How are they possibly going to top this next year when he turns seventeen? At this rate their son will be expecting to snort coke off a Swedish hooker at the local Golden Coral.

As for Stu, you honestly can’t blame the kid for posting the photos on Facebook. It couldn’t have been easy to convince the other guys in study hall that you spent your birthday staring at the business-end of Victoria’s secret. It was probably all he could do to keep from tagging himself twice.    

It would appear that the only party that exhibited worse judgment than the young man’s parents was the proprietor of the bowling alley. There are only two ways to answer the question, “Can I utilize your family entertainment establishment to subject my underage son and his peers to a professional booty-clap?” and Spare Time Bowling got it wrong. And how did these kids end up in the “No One Under 21” area in the first place? Did management have the presence of mind to move the performance from lane six to a secluded area but the idea of just canceling never occurred to them?

I suppose the culpability of the performers is contingent upon how much they knew. I would like to believe that no seasoned exotic dancer would knowingly place a high-school sophomore in a “thigh vise” in front of twenty-five witnesses and it is possible that Stu and his friends looked mature for their age, but the venue should have set off some alarm bells. Let’s just hope that “Tops in Bottoms” exercises more discretion if they get a birthday booking at a Chuck-E-Cheese.

I am still unable to decipher the group’s name. Does it mean that they are the dominate force in posteriors or that their blouses will eventually be stowed in their shorts? “Tops OR Bottoms” would indicate customization options and “Tops FOR Bottoms” would lend itself to some sort of carnal barter system, but “Tops in Bottoms” is rather enigmatic. Regardless, if they don’t get out in front of this thing they may have to change their act to “Lace & Litigation.” 

A Baby Story Part 5

Not long ago, my wife and I embarked on one of the greatest privileges of any new parent: the baby registry. The concept is decidedly first-world in nature: you pick things you want and other people use their hard-earned disposable income to acquire them for you as a reward for your fertility. So we walked into our local Target store, acquired a scan gun, and covered each and every inch of the baby isles.

First, we agonized over bottle systems, each more vented and ergonomic than the last. Every brand reassured the consumer that it was designed, bankrolled, and recommended by a team of pediatricians working in conjunction with an ASE-certified diesel mechanic. Based on name alone, I was leaning toward Dr. Brown but I felt they really missed an opportunity by not getting into the diaper market.

Then came the nipples, oh sweet humanity, the nipples. It isn’t enough to select a brand based on the liquid delivery system; one must insure that said system is dispensed through a bottle nipple that will closely mimic the mother’s factory equipment. If the dichotomy is too great, your infant could suffer from “nipple confusion” which sounds more like a Cinemax production than a medical diagnosis. We were assured by the packaging that each offering had been designed by a team of nippleologists to guarantee interface compatibility.

Once our bottle system had been established, we had to decide how we wished to take our child’s temperature. While the oldest, and apparently most reliable, method still involves an unmentionable area, many companies have begun offering less invasive techniques for ascertaining your child’s body temperature. For the undecided, one product offered a single device with interchangeable attachments. You could choose forehead, ear, rectum, or armpit simply by affixing a separate probe not unlike most modern weed-eaters.

Next, it was on to the pacifiers. As with the bottle nipples, we were inundated with claims of “natural contours” and “soothing design” that would mollify the most violent of infantile outbursts. One company had even trademarked the name “Binky” in an attempt to conjure up the buyer’s childhood nostalgia. We spent almost ten minutes agonizing over which brand of later-to-be-recalled Chinese plastic our son would have the privilege of drooling on. Needless to say, we simply registered for all of them.

Finally, we needed to choose some mentally-stimulating interactive manipulatives to improve our child’s cognitive development. Marketed simply as “toys” just a few decades ago, these items utilize colors and sounds to enhance your offspring’s neurological prowess. Apparently, the same set of colored plastic rings I played with as a child suddenly has the ability to prevent dyslexia.

Off course, the juggernaut in early development is the Baby Einstein series. Personally, I feel it is misleading to associate a few re-branded toys with one of the greatest theoretical physicists the world has ever known. Plus, it creates an inflated set of expectations for the parent. While I may envision my 1-year old son dissecting Rachmaninoff concertos after I hand him the Baby Einstein Neptune Ocean Orchestra Musical Toy, the truth is that he will simply giggle at the pretty lights while soiling himself. I propose a line of toys with a more balanced and realistic approach to my child’s cognitive abilities like “The middle-management play set” or “The 3-year associates degree jungle gym.” 

By The Numbers

• Statistically speaking, the American most likely to own a gun is a white 50-64 year-old Southern male who has never attended college and makes around $50,000 a year. The least likely to own a gun is a minority female aged 18-29 who possess a doctorate degree, lives in the eastern United States, and makes around $30,000 a year.

While this information could easily be used to justify the stereotype that the south is comprised of uneducated rednecks that collect guns, I found it somewhat reassuring. After all, between the two of them who is more likely to be angry at the world: a redneck with a low cost of living who managed to land a $50,000 annual salary on his GED or someone who just realized they spent $100,000 on a Ph.D. in order to live just below the poverty line? If that poor girls hears one too many stories about Bubba “I Don’t Read So Good” Scooter leapfrogging her tax bracket I don’t think it is in anyone’s best interest for her to have easy access to a firearm.

• The contestant most likely to win a Miss America Pageant is a 22 year-old, 121 pound California / Ohio / Oklahoma resident whose talent is singing, wins the preliminary bathing suit competition, and does not believe evolution should be taught in public schools. The contestant least likely to win is a 22 year-old, 121 pound Idaho / Vermont / North Dakota resident whose talent is dancing, loses the preliminary bathing suit competition, and believes evolution should be taught in public schools. 

Critics of scholarship pageants might scoff at this statistic, highlighting what appears to be a glaring endorsement of physical beauty over intellectual prowess, but I feel this could be a motivational tool for future contestants. One day, despite her climatological disadvantage in swimwear, a future Miss North Dakota will take her Biology degree and dance into the hearts of Americans everywhere. It is high time the velvet ropes came down and we allowed all 22 year-old, 121 pound, unmarried women with no criminal history, and a sub 20 B.M.I to highlight this country’s diverse beauty.

• Often, unrelated statistics can offer valuable insights into our nation’s demographic. For instance, we know that Idaho has the nation’s lowest percentage of single adults. We also know that 52% of singles say they are too busy to meet other singles and even though 63% of married couples were introduced by a friend, only 17% of those introductions lead to anything.

While these figures might be depressing if you live in California, just think about the poor single guys in Idaho who cannot get a date because every well-proportioned available woman in the state is off at dance lessons so that they are adequately prepared to be eliminated in the first round of the Miss USA pageant. Either Idaho is a romantic, monogamous haven of traditional marriage or it is so sparsely populated that when two single people finally run into each other they exchange vows just to remind themselves they are not the last remaining vestige of humanity in a post-apocalyptic world.

• Finally, The Sunday Times of London held a survey where they asked women which of eleven physical attributes they found most attractive in a man and asked men how they though the women would respond. The top four answers selected by women comprising an overwhelming 78% of the total are buttocks (39%) slimness (15%) flat stomach (13%) and eyes (11%). The bottom two results, comprising only 3% overall, were the penis (2%) muscular chest & shoulders (1%) and muscular arms (0%).  

Men, being the perceptive creatures we are, predicted the results exactly the opposite. With unwavering certainty, they predicted the following: muscular chest & shoulders (21%) muscular arms (18%) and penis (15%). Eyes and buttocks were tied for 7^th place at 4%.

Sidestepping a discussion on what exactly constitutes an attractive penis (Grooming? Symmetry? A conspicuous absence from the dinner table?) I wonder if some guy read that statistic during his grueling four hour gym/genital salon daily routine and said to himself, “You mean I could’ve gotten more dates with a pair of colored contacts, a few lunges, and a low calorie diet!?” While there is certainly room for error (and personal preference) in all these statistics, there is a lesson to be learned:

If you are a single guy in Idaho trying to catch the eye of the local beauty queen before she uses her scholarship money to pursue her doctorate at NYU, I suggest you stick to the numbers, wear the chinos and have her leave her pistol at home.

Dumber Days

Recently, Stanford University professor Gerald Crabtree presented evidence that humanity is actually getting dumber. His study, published in the journal “Trends in Genetics,” argues that mutations in the human brain are eroding our collective intellectual and emotional capabilities. He believes that this deterioration has been brought about by none other than the societal advances that make our lives easier. The idea is that we have become so efficient at providing for our basic needs (food, water, shelter) that we no longer exercise our cognitive muscles and they are slowly atrophying.

In fact, Crabtree theorizes that our intellectual peak occurred when we were still non-verbal and our most pressing need was survival. He estimates that at the current rate, we could suffer two or more harmful mutations within the next 3,000 years. He does caution that technological advances could mitigate this intellectual decline and we might even be able to isolate and treat the mutations by then.

I do find it interesting that he identifies our non-verbal phase as our most intellectually potent. I mean, how exactly would our thoughts and logical processes increase in dexterity when we conveyed information through a series of grunts and gestures? Surely, we couldn’t have been collectively smarter before we could speak. Then again, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo makes a convincing counter-argument.

While the idea of our inevitable slide toward stupidity is worrisome, I am more concerned with the loss of our emotional capabilities. It was not clear whether this meant we would experience and display less emotion as time went or we simply would be less able to control the emotions we currently have. Either way, both options would be a great voice-over for a post-apocalyptic movie trailer:

In a world where Earth is populated by heartless morons, our last hope rests with the one man who dares to weep while attempting long division. The question is not whether or not he will triumph, but rather, how will he express his disappointment if he doesn’t……

In a world dominated by emotionally-unstable imbeciles, one man will stand for reason and tranquility in a sea of unnecessary tears and rudderless anger. What will become of our hero? Will his Pragmatic Posse be any match for the evil Bi-Polar Brigade? Will order and balance be restored to the universe or will we continue to be enslaved by our irrelevant euphoria and inapplicable sadness?

There is a delicious irony in the fact that the very creature comforts the study identifies as our cerebral doom are essential to the study’s very existence. After all, if our primary objective each day was simply survival, I highly doubt the study of genetics (or the journals that publish its progress) would have ever come into being. In effect, we are devoting our dwindling intellect to the study of our dwindling intellect.

I do wish he had provided more details on how severe this pair of “mutations” will be. Are we talking about delaying a few scientific breakthroughs or am I going to wake up one morning and decide Bret Michaels was underrated? I suppose it is not such a bad deal. Even If I had the choice, I am not sure I would trade agriculture, literature, and science for a few IQ points. What good does high-order math do you when your day consists of not wearing pants so that it is easier to poop in your cave-house?