We need a little less begatting around the holidays

I need to be rich. Not just a little rich, but a lot; six or seven million in monetary liquidity, at least.

I didn’t used to feel this way. There was a time, and not that long ago, that money was all but meaningless to me. As long as I had food on the table, a roof over my head and reasonably fast internet, I was happy as a well-fed, housed, wi-fi-connected clam.

But no more. Now I need the big bucks and I need ‘em now. Preferably in the next two days.

It’s because of my grandkids. I have too many of them and Christmas is this Saturday. My grandkids – Edison, Rosie, Ari, Kaelyn, Juniper, Junior, Daniel, Abraham, Blake, Valerie and Camdyn – have all happened in the past 16 years. And there’s at least one more we know about on his way.

My children, along with Mrs.Taylor’s (formerly Lori Frankforter’s), are responsible for more “begats” than the books of Genesis and 1 Chronicles combined. Seeing as I am the sole Catholic in this extended family, there’s absolutely no reason for all this widespread begatting. No logical reason, anyway.

Technically speaking, there could be another three grandkids – or even four if my oldest son could find a nice girl and settle down – by next Christmas. That’s 15 grandkids, man! A lot of presents to buy, in anybody’s book!

I mean, there are Arab sheiks with a dozen wives who have fewer grandkids than I do! And unlike me, the sheiks can afford them!

My daughter, Aubreii, assures me that Juniper, who was born just a couple months ago, is the last for her. But she’s said that before. At this point, I’m not sure she can be trusted. Mrs. T’s (fLF’s) daughter, Megan, is currently working on Number Three and is young enough to maintain her present reproductive pace for another decade or two.

As to the boys, Jordan, James and Jason (they should open the Three J’s Ranch or something), who knows how many more kids they could begat in the next 20 years?

Look, I love kids and I especially love my grandkids, every one of them. Even Rosie, who’s now 14 and spends almost all her time sulking and drawing anime figures in a sketch pad.

But I’ve done the math. If my children and Mrs. T’s (fLF’s) keep begatting at their current rate, and if my grandkids begin grand-begatting at the usual age, in 20 years I could easily have 6.2 million grandchildren and great-grandchildren. (I should point out my last math class was ninth grade algebra, and Mr. Paepke only passed me with a D because he felt sorry for me and it was becoming obvious I belonged in a special class.)

At the moment, I have only 11 grandkids with number 12 on the way to round it out to an even dozen. From a present-buying point of view, that about did me in this year. How am I going to handle buying for 6.2 million? I mean, even if I start shopping in June, like I always promise myself I’m going to do, that’s just too many presents.

So. I need to be rich. Not just rich enough to afford all those presents, but (preferably) rich enough to hire someone to do all that shopping for me.

Maybe I could hire one of my grandkids.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

fLF is driving away with my masculinity

I may as well get myself a pink bicycle with glitter handlebar streamers and a Barbie decal on the front fork. I mean, why not? Any latent masculinity I still possess in these, my waning years, is being rapidly scraped away by Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter).

She’s not doing it to be mean or because she wants to emasculate me. At least, I don’t think that’s why she’s doing it. But it’s happening and I feel powerless to stop it.

See, she doesn’t get that a man (I used to consider myself one) defines himself in large part by what he drives. During my 30s, I drove, whenever possible, little red sports cars. I always felt cool, hip and – dare I say it – sexy. I was, in actuality, none of these things, but the car helped me fool myself into thinking I was.

By the time I hit 40 I had moved out into the sticks. I bought a pickup truck to reflect this geographical change. My big, ol’ Ford made me feel like a real man, someone who could maybe rope a cow or brand a chicken or whatever the hell it is cowboys do when they’re not filming cigarette commercials.

Again, I couldn’t actually do any cowboy stuff, but the truck made me feel that, in a pinch, I could at least give it a try.

Then I turned 50 and the midlife crises hit pretty hard, even though my wife at the time was around 20 years my junior. This should have been enough to ease me over the midlife “hump,” but apparently, I needed more. I bought another red sports car. Then a grey sports car. Then a black sports car. Then another red one.

Eventually, I figured out I was gonna be old no matter what (or how many) sports cars I drove. I gave up and bought a van because by this time I was married to a woman closer to my own age and figured I no longer needed to pretend to be cool.

The van felt tragically nerdy, but, being a geezer, I didn’t really care all that much.

If the van made a statement at all, that statement was, “Eh. Could be worse.”

When the van finally died, I got another red “sporty” car, but nothing that could by the furthest reaches of the imagination be mistaken for a “chick magnet.” Just sort of a pathetic old guy’s attempt at maintaining some thin veneer of cool. It was thin indeed, though by this time I was not.

I drove that up until a year ago or so. That’s when Mrs. T (fLF) decided she no longer wanted to drive the white VW Bug she’d purchased just a few months earlier. She wanted me to take it so she could buy something bigger. She has a little shop where she sells art and stuff and she needed something she could use to haul stuff in.

Now, I don’t want to be any more sexist than absolutely necessary here, but a Bug – particularly a white one – is a pretty girly car. But I love Mrs. T (fLF) and want her to be happy. I took the Bug and she bought some SUV-ish monstrosity.

This bloated road-yacht she drove for about two months. Then she decided it was too big. So she traded it in and bought another Bug, this time a convertible. She also bought a little trailer so she could still move stuff to and from her shop.

Last week she mentioned how much she missed her old white Bug, the one I’ve been driving for the past year or so.

“I’ll trade with you, I guess,” I said. “If you want.” I figured one girly car is pretty much like any other.

I was wrong. I hadn’t previously noticed, but Mrs. T (fLF) has for the past year or so been “customizing” her convertible Bug. When we traded, I took possession of a car with a built-in flower vase, floral pattern seat covers, a big flower decal over the gas tank cover, and a window sticker of Tweetie-Pie of Looney Tunes fame delivering the warning, “I’m no angel!” on the rear window.

This car could not be girlier if it were wearing a hula skirt, frosted pink lipstick and had a gas tank filled with estrogen.

Given a few days of warm weather (not likely for another few months) I could probably turn this Fem-mobile into a slightly less girly version of itself. But for now, it’s too cold to do anything about it.

I just hope I have enough manliness left to last me until spring.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

I’m hoping to keep secret my weapon of mass destruction

Every time there’s a knock at the front door, I cower. One of these times, and soon, it’s going to be Homeland Security. I just know it.

I’ve tried to keep my recent activities on the down low. But no matter how careful I am, no matter how secretive, I live in constant fear I will be found out. One of the neighbors will notice. He or she will make a phone call, and that will be that. I’ll disappear.

The worst of it is, it’s not my fault. It’s Mrs. Taylor’s (formerly Lori Frankforter’s) fault. She’s the one who bought me the weapon of mass destruction.

It was a birthday gift.

Oh, sure, some people call it an accordion. But in my hands, believe me, it’s a WMD on a par with anything ever dreamt of by Saddam.

As WMDs go, it’s a beaut. It’s big, red, made in Italy, and it has about 30,000 buttons, keys and switches, of which I have so far mastered two.

As you probably know, the accordion is the third most feared musical instrument ever invented. Bagpipes and banjo are first and second and I already own a banjo. I rarely play the banjo, since the tone messes with the navigational equipment of nearby airplanes and I have already been chastised repeatedly by the Federal Aviation Administration.

But when it comes to the accordion, I just can’t help myself. There’s something about that big, red box, with all those buttons and keys. It’s fairly bursting with potential, even if I am not. It cries out to be played!

I first fell in love with the accordion 40 years ago. It was my first Pulaski Days, in Grand Rapids, not long after my 21^st birthday.

For those not in the know, Pulaski Days is a week-long celebration of all things Polish, celebrated city-wide in G.R. All the Catholic halls are thrown open to the public (even Protestants) and offer traditional Polish food, Polish music and lots and lots of beer.

This last item no doubt helped ease my passage into the world of accordion music. Over the years, I have discovered that accordion music is greatly enhanced by a six-pack of Rolling Rock.

At any rate, 40 years ago, I accompanied my then-wife to Diamond Street Hall. There I heard my first polka band, Bob Brock and the B-Tones, to my way of thinking, the best polka band. Ever. Of all time. The beer may have helped shape that opinion, but not necessarily; they really were (and still are, I believe) a fun band.

I mean, there’s something about a sweaty, middle-aged man leading a large, slightly inebriated crowd in a dance in which a giant, rubber chicken is featured prominently. It’s just … fun. Maybe not fun for the sort of folks who sipped champagne on the deck of the Titanic, but fun for those of us getting by down here in steerage, thank you very much.

I was hooked. It’s been 40 years and in all that time I have missed Pulaski Days exactly zero times.

And each year, I watch those accordion players – who are everywhere on Pulaski Days – hammering out those old, familiar tunes. “The Beer Barrel Polka.” “The Pennsylvania Polka.” “The Tick Tock Polka.”

Every so often, one of them will try to play a pop song, usually “Proud Mary.” But the audience pelts this guy with empty Bud cans and that puts an end to that nonsense.

Those accordion players always look like they’re having a great time. I’ve envied them for years, and now, thanks to Mrs. T’s (fLF’s) gift, I have a chance to join their ranks.

All I have to do it find a quiet, soundproofed room I can practice in for next year or so. Sure, it may land me in Guantanamo if I’m found out. But if I can learn the “She’s Too Fat Polka” it’ll be worth it.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616)  730-1414