Junior,

You’re going to be born into a fairly affluent family. You don’t know what that means yet and very likely won’t for many years. Let’s just say you won’t want for anything because mom and dad do all right. We’re not rich (yet) but we do OK.

This past Sunday, your mom and I went to Lowe’s and Wal-Mart to pick up some things (ink jet cartridge and a keypad that opens the garage door). As we sometimes do, we stop in the store called The Dollar Tree, which sells items for a dollar. We stop in there to get toys for the dogs (who you haven’t met yet) that we don’t mind if they destroy, after all they’re just a dollar.

While deciding which knickknacks we were going to get for the dogs to destroy, we noticed some people shopping and overheard them saying Grandma will like this and Susie will like this toy. Here we were looking for stuff that we were going to let the dogs destroy at the same place a less fortunate family was doing their Christmas shopping for their loved ones. Boy, we felt pretty awful. And we felt sorry for them.

We spent probably $30 on the ink cartridge (I don’t even remember how much it costs and that makes me feel even worse) and $32 on the keypad. What can you do in this situation? Nothing really. It’s not like you can walk up to the family and hand them $62 and hope that makes you feel better. Or expect that $62 to turn their lives around if you got over the awkwardness of actually approaching them and giving it to them without making them feel belittled. So, I did nothing. We didn’t buy anything at the Dollar Tree that day.

In your life, you’re going to meet people less fortunate than you. Heck, the statistic is that most families are a month without pay away from being destitute (don’t worry, mom and I can last considerably longer – we have the luxury of planning for this sort of thing – you’re not even born yet and have a college fund that’s three years old). But one long-term illness and it could happen to us (OK, not really, we have insurance). But there is some set of circumstances that could financially ruin us, even though I can’t think of what they are currently. See, your mom and I have planned and we make decent money. A family Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree doesn’t have a college fund, or insurance, or a savings account. They don’t have the stuff that we’ve already bought for you. They don’t have the luxury that your family has.

You need to be considerate of those less fortunate than you and you need to be kind. And you need to be charitable. I guess when mom and I get a few toys to donate to the Angel Tree, we’re making up for the way we felt at the Dollar Tree.

I guess my point is to give when you can.

Had the first ultrasound and I am glad to say that I am the proud father of a, err, pinto bean:

Junior,

Don’t fight naked. If you do, you will look stupid – even if you’re winning. And it’s just embarrassing, more so if you’re losing.

This rule will be pretty easy to follow for the first part of your life. Unfortunately, when you’re about 22 years old and older, the only things you could potentially get in a fight over will likely involve you (or someone else but most likely you) being naked.

If it does come to fisticuffs, explain to your opponent that you’d like to put clothes on. Odds are he doesn’t want to fight someone naked as much as you don’t want to fight while naked. It really is win-win.

You’re awakened at 5:30 in the morning by your wife who seems either scared or aflutter. She shows you an oblong item and a book. Being the way you are, you’re not real perceptive having been awakened that early. You’re thoughts are:

Did the dog chew up a book?

Should I be prepared to investigate a noise?

What the Hell is going on?

It takes a few minutes and you look at the oblong object. You realize that it’s a home pregnancy test and the book is about being an expectant father (definitely a misleading name). The home pregnancy test has a rather identifiable bright blue plus sign right there in the middle. You look at your wife and realize that she is aflutter and not scared. The proper way to address this races through your mind. You contemplate what the next words out of your mouth will be. Your ideas include:

My boys can swim!

Gooooooaaaal!

Cool! Oral sex is no longer completely ruled out!

My pistol isn’t loaded with blanks!

Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick!

So, you peed on this and now I’m holding it?

Instead, you do the right thing and hug your wife. She remains aflutter informing you that we need a name, have to call the ObGyn, prepare a nursery, decide who should we tell first, should we wait, and it goes on and on.

Words can’t describe how you feel.

I have created a new category for this blog called Notes to Junior. Me and the Mrs. are trying to bring a little Uncle into the world (he’d be your cousin, in case you wanted to know). And I am establishing this category so that I can document advice that I want to give him. Advice such as:

Slots are for suckers.

When you move, unpack and assemble your bed first. Otherwise, by the time you’re tired and realize you want to sleep, you’ll be pissed because you have to put your bed together.

The stripper is not going to go home with you.

When you’re out and drinking is the order of the night, stick to one drink. In fact, establish your standard drink so when anyone asks What’ll you have? you have something to say other than Uhh, lemme think about it.

It is sort of funny that I refer to our future child as him and he and the Mrs. refers to him as her and she. Advice posted here will be as it occurs to me and will remind me later what to talk about.

I have a few pet names for my lovely wife, such as sweetie and honey. I also refer to her, at least weekly, as the light nazi. My wife has this superpower to detect wasted electricity almost instantaneously. For example, if I leave a light on and exit the room, she immediately hones in on the room using her bizarre extrasensory capabilities (seriously, the Department of Homeland Security could probably use her to detect unusual electrical fluctuations). Upon her discovery that I am heating the neighborhood or letting the flies out, Im in for a quick reminder to turn out lights and shut doors.

One problem I have with her ability is the fanatical zeal in which she enforces her duties as the sworn protector of home electrical efficiency. Another example: when I am in our office and have the lights on then decide Id like a refreshing beverage, by the time I return from the kitchen the lights are off in the office. Also, in her zeal, she has turned lights off on me while Im still in the room reading. She seems so obsessed with saving that quarter that she occasionally fails to notice that someone is actually benefiting from the use of the electricity in question.

My wife apparently has been saving up all this electricity usage for the holidays. Every year, me and the wife also get into an argument over Christmas decorations. The argument stems from the fact she wants to put the decorations up right after Labor Day. Whereas, I prefer them to be put up about the second week of December. This past weekend, satisfied that she had saved up enough electricity to warrant decorating for the holidays, yours truly wound up doing a lot of work in preparation for the upcoming holidays. Until this past week, the wife and I were the only ones living in our subdivision. We just got a new neighbor so I suppose the new neighbor was the cause of the tackiness that is holiday decorations. Since, other than us, hell be the only one to see them. Unless of course people start driving down a new subdivision to look at houses in the dark.

On Saturday, the wife and I pulled all the holiday knickknacks out of the attic and started decorating the house. I argued about it less this year than ever. I basically said honey, its not even Thanksgiving yet? and she replied with but Thanksgiving is late this year. I shrugged and said Oh. Learned helplessness has finally set in. I can just agree and do it quicker than I can disagree, argue, and wind up doing it anyway. Ah, the holiday spirit.

We put out our Frosty the Snowman salt and pepper shakers, put up our Christmas tree, put a Nativity scene on the mantle, and put out all the other stuff from the eight boxes that were in our attic labeled Christmas. This took up half our day.

Sunday rolls around, and I find out the wife had bought about nine boxes of icicle lights. Yours truly was then taken to task to take said nine boxes of lights (at 300 lights per box) and trim the house with them. A friend came by to help. Fortunately for me, my friend had done this before. I hadnt.

Your average SayUncle is about six feet, one inch tall and weighs about 170 pounds. Your average SayUncle is also lethargic on the weekends. And your average SayUncles natural habitat is some primitive, oblong, leather bedding (commonly referred to as a couch) where the SayUncle stalks its prey, the elusive Sam Adams and the only slightly less-elusive rum and Coke. Your average SayUncle is also poorly equipped for climbing steep inclines, which is a required skill when hanging 2,700 icicle lights. The reason the average SayUncle is so poorly equipped for climbing is because the largely sedentary SayUncle often catches several Sam Adams or rum and Cokes per day on the weekends, in between naps of course. Mind you, the only known SayUncle in existence hasnt lived in its natural habitat since it wed the SayAuntie, who is hell bent on destroying the SayUncles natural habitat.

The friend shows up. We put the ladder up to the house and he climbs up. Then I climb up. I realize in about five seconds that my boots are poorly equipped for walking on the roof. You need something that allows you to bend your ankles. It was also at this point that I realized Id never really used a ladder to climb on a roof before. And that I didnt really know how to get from the roof to the ladder, and subsequently to the ground, safely. After my friends instruction, I figured the whole ladder thing out, climbed down, and put on some sneakers. Then its back up the ladder to discover my friend had already placed one box of lights. Then, I cut myself on the gutters. I refuse to climb down and am content to finish the job while bleeding on the hangers. We then develop a system in which I place the hangers and my friend inserts the icicle lights into the hangers. About three hours later (when its dark, but were working with lights so . . ) were done.

I call the wife. The friend calls his wife. And we all stand around outside looking out over our icicle lights and the lighted garland on the porch. My wife looks me lovingly in the eyes and smiles, shes happy. I look at her and smile. The whole time thinking that we will waste more electricity on these Christmas lights this year than I will waste by leaving lights on for the rest of my life. Also, I hope our only neighbor appreciates the holiday display because I dont think anyone else is going to be driving by our subdivision to look at our lights. I put my arm around my wife and smile again because I know that I’m bleeding on her holiday sweater.

With the light nazi appeased, the SayUncle was allowed briefly to return to his natural habitat before bedtime.

Happy holidays!