Just how much safety can one small, blonde head handle?

Nobody has ever accused me of taking the safe road. In my youth, I was the rotten kid from down the block who always managed to talk your otherwise rational son into doing something a) dangerous, b) stupid, or c) mildly illegal. I wasn’t a bad kid, not really; I was just sort of...careless.

For instance, I once convinced my buddy Dale that we should, on the spur of the moment, hitchhike to Chicago. We were 17. We had no money, no parental permission and no idea what we were going to do once we arrived in the Windy City. And yet, one summer’s night we found ourselves on US 131 with our thumbs out, waiting for a ride from someone we fervently hoped would not be a serial killer.

Another time my friends and I hiked across the Anne Street Bridge; we crossed beneath the bridge, actually, by clinging precariously to the latticework of girders 50 feet above the Grand River, which at that time of year (January) was nearly frozen over. A fall would have proved fatal. But there we were, risking life and limb simply because it seemed to me a good idea at the time.

My lack of self-preservation skills followed me into adulthood. Over the years (and against the advice of experts) I frequented tanning salons, drank too much beer, ate too much salt, avoided doctors, alternately worked out too hard and not hard enough, rode motorcycles in the rain and snow, piloted a small plane in bad weather, and occasionally argued strenuously with guys who could crush my head like a paper cup.

And whenever possible, I talked my friends into doing it all with me. Craziness, like misery, loves company.

This is why I have a problem with my girlfriend Anne. My Sweet Annie has a big personality; full of life, vitality, energy and enthusiasm. But all that is tempered with a healthy dose of common sense, and it is here we part ways.

Anne warms up before exercising. She puts her headlights on at the first sign of dusk. She refuses to eat food that’s past its expiration date, even if nothing’s growing on it! I know, crazy right?

But craziest of all is her fear of direct sunlight. Next to Anne, Count Dracula is a beach bum. Sure, the sun is in fact a huge ball of constantly-erupting, highly radioactive material, but Anne acts as if it were hanging in our back yard. She wears sunscreen; not your garden-variety sun block, but some sort of zinc oxide coating applied with a roller and with a SPF factor of 200. A house has a rating of about 19, I think, by way of comparison.

She tops this off by donning a hat with a brim larger than the one Sally Field sported in The Flying Nun. In dim light this hat is easily mistaken for a low-flying UFO. In case of emergency, a family of four could set up temporary shelter beneath this hat and not feel particularly cramped.

If it is a fashion statement, as Anne sometimes claims, that statement is: I don’t care how crazy I look. She had another, smaller hat last year; still large and goofy-looking, but smaller than this one.

I’m concerned where things will lead if this trend toward ever more expansive hats continues. Anne is not a large woman. I fear she will one day be getting ready for a walk and be crushed beneath her headgear.

All in the name of safety.

Mike Taylor’s new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available at mtrealitycheck.com and in eBook format at Barnes & Noble, Border’s Books and other online book sellers. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

How can feeling bad feel so good?

I’m starting to feel better. Dammit. For the past four weeks, I’ve had the mother of all colds. There were moments I was sure I was “patient zero” for some new shifting antigen super-virus engineered by the military, one that would eventually wipe out 99-percent of all life on the planet. If that’s true, those scientists better head back to the lab, because—like I said—I’m finally starting to kick this sucker.

I just wish that were a good thing.

The problem, see, is it turns out my girlfriend Annie is the best nurse since Florence Nightingale. Despite its ferocious tenacity, my cold never stood a chance against her gentle, healing ministrations.

From my first sniffle, Anne was there, orange juice in one hand, vitamin C in the other.

“You should drink plenty of fluids,” she said. “Get lots of rest.”

Now, being a manly man, and not a particularly bright one, I only drank fluids or rested when she was standing there monitoring my behavior. The moment she was out of the room, I dug out my iPad to watch hour after hour of Twilight Zone and Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Netflix.  I stayed up late. I ate too much dairy. I ignored every message my body was—in an effort to stay alive—sending me. So naturally, I got sicker.

Eventually, I got really sick. The kind of sick that not only suggests bed rest, but demands it. My first choice at times like this is to curl into a fetal ball, pull the covers over my head, and wait patiently to die.

Anne would have none of that. She pushed the fluids, she made repeated trips to and from the kitchen, taking away empty bowls and glasses, returning with steaming bouillon and chicken soup. She trekked to the store for orange juice, cranberry juice, cold medicine, cough drops...anything she could think of that might, in my time of great distress, afford some small relief.

She laid cool washcloths across my fevered brow. She oohed. She awwed. In short, she babied me in ways I’ve not been babied since the days when I still wore diapers and became nervous if my “binky” was out of sight for more than a few seconds. (And no, this has not been recently.)

At first, I railed against Anne’s efforts, assuring her I would eventually get well, or that nature would take its course, I’d die, and Darwinists would be have one more talking point. But Anne kept at it anyway.

And in a surpassingly short time, I got used to the babying, grew to like it, even. I lay in bed, hour after hour, reading, watching TV, dorking around on Facebook, as all the while a beautiful blonde woman waited on me hand and foot. I’m guessing my male readers will have no problem understanding how this could become addictive in a hurry.

Now I’m feeling better. At first, I tried to hide this fact from Anne. I didn’t want the party to end. But she figured it out. Some elusive, insincere quality in my manufactured moans and groans gave me away, I guess. The orange juice dried up, the leftover chicken soup was packed away in the fridge. I was encouraged to bathe, dress myself, return to the land of the living.

It’s good to feel better, I suppose. But I have to admit, I’m kind of looking forward to flu season.

Mike Taylor’s new paperback, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available at mtrealitycheck.com and in eReader format at Border’s, Barnes & Noble, and other online book sellers. Email the author at mtaylore325@gmail.com.

Will ‘Big Mother’ ever just leave well enough alone?

I can’t stand it. I’m sorry, I just can’t. The government won’t stop trying to fill in for my mom.

First legislators wanted us to know, beyond all question, that smoking is not healthy. There were, apparently, smokers somewhere who still believed they were doing their bodies a favor by lighting up 30 or 40 times a day. OK. Then they wanted us to wear seat belts. Most of us did anyway, because most folks aren’t idiots and have no desire to spend their last few seconds on Earth sailing over the hood of a Buick while thinking, “What the s...?”

But Big Mother couldn’t trust us to do the smart thing. So she passed a seat belt law, then a stricter law. I have little doubt that, ten years from now, driving without a seat belt, smoking indoors, drinking more than two beers in a single week, or saying unkind things about the sort of people who create these laws will be punishable by public stoning.  (Sadly, you’ll need a permit and special headgear to be among those throwing the rocks.)

My girlfriend Anne says I tend to talk in extremes, but honestly, if Thomas “That government is best that governs least” Jefferson could see the current state of this Republic, he would hop the next boat back to England carrying a sincere letter of apology to the King.

OK, I’m ranting here. I know, I know. Sorry.

It’s just that this morning I read an article saying the FDA is pushing for legislation that would force restaurants to list the calorie count of each entree on their menus next to the price.  Why? Because we’re too stupid to know a Quadruple Bypass Two-Pounder Burger at McDoofles has more calories than, say, a thin slice of watercress.

According to the head FDA mucky-muck, Americans eat more healthy foods if they have the caloric information right there in front of them. All I can say in response to this piece of unadulterated insight is, well, d-uh!

High school kids tend to spend less time on lover’s lanes if their pastor is in the backseat of the car, too, but that doesn’t mean the kids want him there! Hell, no! They want him back at the church where he belongs, passing out collection envelopes and planning the following Sunday’s sermon.

In like manner, if I plan to eat three pounds of greasy ground beef stuffed between two slices of white, pasty bread slathered with mayonnaise, I under no circumstances want the FDA leaning over the Formica table whispering in my ear that I’m committing suicide by cheeseburger. I know that and I’m doing it anyway!

I also sometimes drive too fast, I never get enough sleep, I sit really close to the TV, I listen to loud music without the aid of earplugs, I only wear my bicycle helmet when riding in heavy traffic, I rarely get a flu shot, I tend to argue with guys bigger than me in bars, I put salt on everything, I sometimes tackle household electrical problems on my own, I smoke five, even six cigarettes in a year’s time, I run with scissors, and­—though I should have had three by this age—I’ve only experienced one colonoscopy.

I am the FDA’s worst nightmare. What are they gonna do about it?!

Oh, yeah, pass another law.

I’m guessing that at this point, some legislator in Washington has donned his headgear and begun to gather stones.

Mike Taylor’s new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available at mtrealitycheck.com. Email the author at mtaylor325@gmail.com.