Kid, nobody wants to see your butt over pancakes

I was vacationing up north a few weeks back. For me, no vacation is complete without breakfast in at least one mom-n-pop diner. The rules are these: it can’t be a chain, they must offer chicken fried steak, and their biscuits and gravy must come with the correct biscuit/gravy ratio (50/50).

My vacations are not designed to promote good health or abs of steel.

Guys my age don’t stress too much over things like flat bellies, clean-shaven cheeks or the latest fashions, not when we’re on vacation anyway. This is evinced in the typical “up north” summertime vogue — baggy Hawaiian shirts and baggier shorts.

But apparently some of the under-20 locals do try to keep in step with what the cool kids are wearing. Or so the sign in the diner’s window would have me believe.

“If you can’t pull your pants up, don’t come in here!” the sign warns. “Nobody wants to eat pancakes while looking at your butt.”

Now, I’m familiar with the whole hip-hop-baggy pants-hanging-down-below-your-butt-underwear-hanging-out look. I can’t believe it’s still considered cool by some, since it looks utterly moronic and these days is seen mostly on white kids trying to emulate their cooler black counterparts.

Nothing’s dorkier than a 15-year-old honky from a lilly-white resort town trying to look like he’s getting down with his homies in the ‘hood. But you can’t tell kids that. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do and no amount of restaurant window signage is going to change that.

If anything, griping about their ridiculous fashion choices only reinforces their belief that they are inherently cool. Teen logic says that if old people like me hate something, it must be awesome.

So, my fellow geezers and restaurant owners, we need to change our strategy. If we’re going to spare our eyes the horror of skinny, teen-boy BVDs poking over the descended waistbands of baggy jeans, we need to fight fire with fire.

To fight the enemy, we must become the enemy. Trust me on this one. If every pot-bellied, balding, ear hair-infested codger in America starts wearing his pants low with his wrinkly rear-end hanging out, the teenagers will immediately cease and desist.

So go ahead, gramps! Turn that baseball cap around backwards, put on a pair of Nikes but don’t lace ‘em up, load up on the bling! If we all do this, by this time next month every teen boy in the country will be dressing like Walter and Theodore from “Leave it to Beaver.”

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Fighting terrorism one 20-mile ride at a time

What with the ongoing national anxiety over terrorism and the resultant formation of the Homeland Security Department, there’s been a lot of talk lately about what constitutes “torture.” Is torture only the really nasty stuff, or is forcing someone to sit through season three of “American Idol” in its entirety enough to qualify? (PS: Yes, it is.)

Personally, I don’t know. I’m repulsed by the idea of hurting someone in order to gather “intelligence.” I also don’t like the idea of some loony toon planting a bomb in a Twinkies factory in an effort to strike a blow for whatever deity/dictator/heavy metal guitar star he pledges his allegiance to.

So, like a lot of Americans, I’m confused, perplexed, ambiguous, and a couple other words that appear in the thesaurus under the word “confused.”

But I may have a solution; one that will appeal to both the right and left, the patriots and the humanitarians: My bicycle.

My bike is a beauty, an older Fuji road model, still in excellent shape with a reasonably light, rigid frame and all the bells and whistles. (Actually, it has no whistle, but it does have a bell.)

It also sports a teeny, tiny seat, made of a space-age material that is —according to the manufacturer and the guy at the bike shop who managed to say this with a straight face—“super comfortable” for long, scenic rides through the countryside. It really is, too, for the first mile or so. After that, things go downhill fast, and not the kind of downhill most cyclists look forward to.

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor and I ride between 10 and 15 miles every night after dinner, and usually 20 to 30 on weekends. People who know me no doubt wonder how I manage to stay so—ahem—full-figured, what with all this exercise. Let me just say that beer and Mexican food provide more than enough caloric integrity to maintain my Jovian physique, regardless of any workout regimen I may undertake. Short of running daily marathons, I’m never gonna be skinny.

But back to torture and how it relates to my bicycle seat. And more importantly, how Homeland Security could use this knowledge to their advantage.

The beauty of it, see, is that riding my bike doesn’t look like torture. A phalanx of Newsweek photographers could line up along the road to shoot photos of bicycle-riding suspects being interrogated and no one reading the magazine at home would think twice about the possible inhumanity of it all.

Riding my bicycle looks like fun! And at first, it is. Even your average terrorist would think so.

For that first couple of miles, it’s a real lark; wind in your hair, sun on your back, the endorphin rush that comes from getting off your fat behind and actually doing something physical. Then—speaking of fat behinds—you notice yours is getting a little uncomfortable. That tiny seat, designed for guys who look like Lance Armstrong, is doing things to your Homer Simpson backside that God and nature never intended.

By mile five, you’re wondering why someone can’t build a bicycle seat that feels more like a Barcalounger and less like an iron maiden (the medieval torture device, not the rock band).

By mile ten, you’re just wishing there was a government agent nearby to whom you could confess, so he could get you a pillow to sit on and make the pain stop.

By mile 20, you’re no longer aware of your backside, except as a distant extremity that’s going to feel really, really weird when you finally stop pedaling and dismount. You no longer care about cadres, terrorist cells or political ideologies—you just want to get off the flippin’ bike, already!

And all the while, to people driving past in their comfortable Buicks and Toyotas, you look like you’re having the time of your life. Only you and Homeland Security know the terrible truth.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com.