So I was eight years old and I was with my family, my parents and my brother and we were at a fair. And I wanted to play some games. There was this one prize I thought was really cool and it was at one of those games where you throw the darts, you pop the balloons and then see how many balloons you can pop. The guy running it was, yeah, I want to say he was Lithuanian based on his accent, it was very thick. And he came by and you know, I told him I want to play he's like, “okay, no problem. We can do that.“ So, I hand him some money and he hands me the darts. Well afterwards, I got done throwing my darts. Then he kept handing them to me and he goes “try again. Try again. Try again.” And he wasn't asking me for money at all. I was very confused because most of the games you would pay before you play. And so he just kept handed me the darts. I’m like okay well if you're not gonna charge me that's okay. So I began throwing more of the darts each time and then I decided I was done. I tried to walk away and he grabs my shoulder and goes “no, no you have to pay now.” I thought okay. I thought I was gonna owe him a few extra dollars and turns out it was up to $110 that he was looking for. I started to freak out and I can't remember where my parents were at the time. I think they were sitting at a table watching and my brother was off somewhere else. And so I looked at my parents I told them come over I have a problem and so they came by and the guy asked like “oh this your son” like yeah. “Well, he owes me $110.” And then that is when my parents snapped and they went “why?” and he was like “oh well he kept playing.” My mom -- that was to the point where she had red in her eyes, not so much angry at me but angry at the fact that the carny took advantage of me and thought he's an 8 year old kid, he doesn't understand this and you just hustled him for a ton of money. But…

So I've experienced being a stay-at-home-Dad-ish for two years now. And I really appreciate it. I like what it has given me. I like that I can bond with my son a lot more. But like all things, it comes with negatives as well. The first thing is so people have always warned me about playing with my son on a playground now. Other people will not appreciate a single man in a playground. Fortunately, I've not experienced any of that, except for once and that wasn't much. Perhaps people glare at me that I don't notice, but I don't think people really judge me on a playground playing with my son. I do think if I weren't near him, however, people would wonder what is this man in his thirties doing in a playground reading a book on a bench. So I've always consciously made a choice to play near him, but I haven't really experienced that much in parks. I have experienced, however, particularly when my son was -- the first two years of his life, lots of -- people who are trying to mean well, who are trying to compliment, but gender issues generally weren't the same in their generation, cuz these people are typically older -- have commented typical lines of "Oh, I guess it's Daddy Daycare day today" or "Oh, it's -- you're on daycare duty today." I get that a lot. Or "Oh, it's so nice to see a dad taking care of his son." That's a much less offensive thing, that’s certainly nice to hear. But it's still a surprise for especially the older generation. I get a lot of comments when I explain to people what I'm doing. "Oh Mr. Mom." And I’m not really one to be focused on gender. I don't really care so much, but it does get old after a while and it's interesting to see the perspectives.

This week I am grateful for family. I'm grateful for the vaccine. I feel like I've been grateful for both of those things before, but this week it was particularly special because the vaccine allowed me to finally see my family again. I was able to see my dad for twenty five minutes in a Kmart parking lot on Christmas Eve in Marshall, Michigan, but before that I hadn't seen him or anyone else really, since the summer of 2020. And even that was only for a day. So, for the first time in a calendar year, I was able to go to my family's home. And we, my girlfriend and I, stayed there for three maybe four days, since my girlfriend and I both have both shots from the vaccine and my dad has both shots and my stepmom has both shots. We're able to just feel a sense of normalcy again and it's not all the way there, there's still plenty of things we can't do and the masks are omnipresent anytime we’re in public, but I had such a wave of nostalgia this week by just living normal life.

But the one thing that I always remember when I think about that day is that, when I got in line to check out there were two people in front of me who had just giant carts overflowing with stuff. They were full. I mean it would have taken a long time to unload the cart and it was just they were overflowing. And they both kind of -- they saw me get in line, they looked at each other and there was some sort of unspoken thing. I don't think they knew each other. I don't think they came in together, but then they looked at me and said "you don't have a cart, do you want to just go in front of us and you can check out? You don't have to wait for us to you know with all of our stuff." And that was sort of in times of chaos, in times of panic people tend to be just focused on themselves and their families and just wanting to do enough to get by or not get by but to survive and protect the ones they love. So, selflessness and kind of just that kind of thing doesn't really cross your mind sometimes and it's not a bad thing, it's a self-preservation thing. And I always think about that and it's a perfect example of humanity and human decency because they didn't have to do that. I was perfectly content with standing in line and waiting for them. You know, that's what happens. You just get in line and you have to wait for the people in front of you. And they didn't have to let me, you know, cut the line and go in front of them, but they did. And I always tried to remember that. I was always trying to be grateful for what I had and grateful that I had my partner with me and then eventually our dog. And I think that those times are extremely important to always remember and cherish and to always try to remember that you're not the only one going through something, whether it's the same something or not, we all collectively experienced and are currently experiencing this pandemic, but we didn't know it was going to be a pandemic on March 13th. We knew something was happening, but we didn't know what, but there were…

Peeps? Yay or nay. I love Peeps. They've, in the past few years, tried to come out with new Peep flavors. There is a hot tamales Peep or something recently, and that's obviously disgusting. But --though I'm fine with these Peep flavors. I like marshmallow candy. One of my favorite marshmallow candies was a Christmas candy. It's like a Santa Claus that you bite in, and it's chocolate covered marshmallow, bite in it there is marshmallow. Something else my mom found these things at the dollar store. These are stuffed puffs, marshmallows with chocolate already in them, solid hunk of chocolate inside the marshmallow. I know -- it's an already done s'more.

Peeps? Heck, no. I took a really funny video though yesterday of my nana, my seventy-five-year-old nana who is apparently never heard of peeps, or had peeps. Which was not that surprising, the woman she sticks to what she knows, and never ventures out. My mom gave her a peep, and I got it on video. And she was talking to it, and telling it she loved it, and she was like, “it's too cute to eat.” I personally don't find them very good. I think that first initial bite, the sugary part tastes good, and then you get into the marshmallow and I'm like, I just can't do this. So we're not a peep family.