Happy holidays!

May you all be with your loved ones this Christmas season, and may the new year bring you everything you desire.

We're delighted to be back in New Mexico this year, and to have both of our sons (who still live on the West Coast) here for the holidays.

I've taken the week off from work after finishing the first draft of a new Bubba Mabry novella. Rewrites to come after Christmas, as well as planning, reading, etc., for the class I'll be teaching at the University of New Mexico, which starts Jan. 18.

This week's strange career news: Got contacted by a young filmmaker in India who's interested in making one or more of my books into movies in Hindi. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants?

My bestseller for December comes as no surprise: SANITY CLAUSE, a funny Bubba Mabry mystery set at a mall at Christmas. The e-book is only 99 cents from Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, etc. It's not too late to give yourself a little gift!

New shorts for Christmas

If you're a fan of short stories (or if you have such folks on your Christmas list), I've got some great recommendations for you.

Daniel Woodrell's "The Outlaw Album" continues the great work he's done in such novels as "Winter's Bone" and "Tomato Red." These are hard-boiled stories about hard-bitten people in the Ozarks and they're not for the faint of heart, but, dang, they're good.

The same goes for Frank Bill's debut, "Crimes in Southern Indiana," which is making a lot of "best of" lists for its unflinching look at small-town druggies and desperadoes. Donald Ray Pollock covers similar territory in "Knockemstiff," stories set in the "hollers" of rural Ohio. Pollock also has a new novel, "The Devil All the Time," which is dark and twisty and wonderful.

An older collection, but one of the best I've ever read, is "Welding With Children" by Tim Gautreaux. Bittersweet stories set in the South, often with little touches of laugh-out-loud humor.

Starting next month, I'm teaching "Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir" in the University of New Mexico's Honors Program. We'll read a terrific anthology called "Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories," edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian, as well as Eddie Muller's splendid "Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir."

I just received in the mail a new collection called "The Best American Noir of the Century," edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. That collection will be the main text for a "New Noir" class next fall, along with selections from the Woodrell, Bill and Pollock collections mentioned above.

One reason I've focused on short stories lately is I'm trying to get better at writing them. E-books offer a market for short stories and novellas unlike any we've enjoyed before.

My current best-seller on Kindle is "Sanity Clause," a 25,000-word Christmas novella, which I can sell for only 99 cents.

I'm almost done with the first draft of my current project, a Bubba Mabry adventure called "Party Doll," and it's turning out to be a 40,000-word novella rather than an 80,000-word novel. And that, I've come to realize, is okay. No reason to pad a story to meet some editor's idea of what a private eye story should be. Instead, I'll self-publish it as a cheap e-book.

After all, lots of crime writers are doing brilliant work with fewer words than that.

Ho-ho-ho for the holidays

Holiday shopping is upon us again, and there's no better remedy than my Christmas novella, "Sanity Clause."

Bumbling private eye Bubba Mabry is hired to keep an eye on the Santas at an Albuquerque mall. This is harder than it sounds because Santa Claus has always given Bubba the creeps. Plus, he must suffer through mobs of greedy shoppers, shrieking children and Christmas Muzak.

When one of the mall Santas is killed, Bubba must solve the murder to salvage his shaky reputation.

"Sanity Clause" is one of Bubba's funniest adventures. I originally wrote it for an anthology of Christmas mysteries called "The Last Noel," but it's now available as an e-book for only 99 cents. How's that for an electronic stocking stuffer?

'Lost' Bubba story resurfaces

I always speak of my comic Bubba Mabry mysteries as being a seven-book series, but there's an eighth Bubba story that most people have never seen.

"Sanity Clause" is a 23,000-word novella I wrote several years ago for a Christmas mystery anthology. In the story, Bubba is keeping an eye on the Santas at a local mall when one of them turns up dead. Rather than be known forever as the man who let Santa Claus get killed on his watch, Bubba sets out to solve the murder.

The story has all the usual elements of the series -- including appearances by newspaper reporter Felicia Quattlebaum and Homicide Lt. Steve Romero -- plus one of the funniest fight scenes I've ever written.

The anthology is long out of print, but thanks to the miracle of e-books, I've brought this novella back to life. It's now available via Kindle, Smashwords and other retail outlets. Only 99 cents.

I know it's a long time until Christmas, but wouldn't "Sanity Clause" make a nice electronic stocking stuffer?

DIY Holiday Letter(s) for you

For New Year's Eve, I wanted to link to one of my favorite Home Front columns, one about writing folksy holiday letters full of family news.

Looking through the archives, I found not one, but TWO columns, written years apart, that offer a variation on fill-in-the-blank letters. Both are pretty silly, but they still make me laugh. You can read them here and here.

Enjoy! And happy new year!

The empire grows

Parnell Hall may be King of the Kindle, but I'm well on my way to becoming Emperor of E-books with the release of five volumes of my goofy "Rules for Successful Living." Granted, each volume is only 100 "Rules" long (about seven pages' worth), but in the crazy new world of e-publishing, that's enough to qualify as a 99-cent "book."

I started "Rules for Successful Living" on Facebook as a gag. Seemingly obvious advice ("Don't fall on your mouth") offered in an earnest self-help tone. People responded to them, so I kept writing them. Pretty soon, it became a habit to post one or two (increasingly twisted) Rules a day. Do that for a year or two, and you end up with a whole bunch of ridiculous rules for living.

Five of my novels and my humor book Trophy Husband already are available as e-books, and they're selling pretty well, so I decided to offer the best of my "Rules for Successful Living" on Kindle, too. Click here to see all my Kindle books.

Amazon makes it easy to send Kindle books as gifts to anyone with an e-mail address. At 99 cents, "100 Rules for Successful Living" would make a nice electronic stocking stuffer.

Hey, that's less than a penny per Rule! Where else can you get so much bad advice so cheap?

Do-it-yourself holiday letter

Everyone loves to send cheery annual letters chock-full of family news, but who has time to write one?

Most of us don't have a minute to READ the letters we get (especially the really long ones in a tiny, festive typeface), much less an hour to compose our own. We're too danged busy, talking on the cell phone and driving, to write a letter.

It's not too late. Here's a form letter you can use to update friends and relatives on your family life. Fill in the appropriate names or words where it says (blank), and you can be clogging mailboxes in no time!

Dear (Blank),

Can you believe another year has gone by already? Wow. Seems like only yesterday that we were (blanking) in the (blank) together and now it's (insert correct year here).

It's been an eventful year for the (Blank) family. We had our ups and downs, like all families do, but we've come away stronger and better and closer than ever before. Most of us had a year full of joy and achievement, but there are always a few bad apples who drag down the curve, and, yes, I'm talking about you, (Blank).

But let's not go there! Ha-ha.

We're just happy to have survived another year, without the kind of natural disasters that struck this year in (Blank). We can all be thankful that we live in an area that's not prone to (blank).

The big success story of the year was (Blank), who started his own import/export business, selling (blank) to the (Blanks). Cars are lined up outside his house, night and day, full of customers. We are so proud.

Another high point was when (Blank) finally (blanked) college. What a (blank)!
Let us also brag about (Blank), who is now a fully licensed (blank)!

And of course there's young (Blank), who came in second in the (blanks). Hooray! Better luck next year!

The tragedy? Probably the lowest point was when we lost our beloved (blank or Blank). You don't bounce back from a (blankety-blank) like that. But we're slowly recovering, and we hate to complain.

After all, we've got our health. Well, most of us do. Aunt (Blank) had her (blank) removed, and that was a trial. You know how she can be, bless her heart. Cousin (Blank) hasn't been the same since the shark attack. He can walk OK, but he's kinda flinchy. Granddad had that scare with (blank), but he seems better now, if a little scattered. We found him the other day, wading in a ditch and talking to (Blank), who's been dead for years.

A few (Blanks) had trouble with the law this year, but it's all getting sorted out. Cousin (Blank) paid his debt to society, and is currently getting his mail at (Blank's) house, where he's sleeping on the couch. Uncle (Blank) got accused of (blank), as you probably read in the newspapers, but he assures us it was a big (blank) and his lawyer is on it. And your cousin never, ever had anything to do with (blanks). Trust me on that.

Uncle (Blank) finally stopped drinking and smoking and chasing women. The funeral is scheduled for next week.

On a brighter note, we welcomed little (Blank) into the family this year. The cutest little (blank) you've ever seen. The newborns give us reason to (blank).

Hope you and yours are healthy and happy and rolling in (blank)!

Until next year,

(Your name here)

Merry Christmas!

That's all. Merry Christmas to everyone.

What? Why are you staring like that? What are you waiting for?

Oh. And Happy New Year!

Have a knuckle-cracking Christmas

"Winter break" provides family units with such a prolonged period of intense togetherness, it's a wonder we don't all kill one another.

The kids are home from school for what seems like 17 weeks. Adults who normally would be busy with work get some free days for relaxing and reveling and gaining weight together. Because it's cold outside, the whole family's under the same roof much of the time.

Everything feels a bit off. Routines are disrupted. Social calendars are full. Thoughts are scattered. The kids are antsy. People keep tripping over the dog. The TV is too loud. What's that smell?

Different energy levels bouncing around in the same space create friction. Some of us are slobs; some want to decorate the Kleenex boxes. Some see a vacation and want to go, go, go, while others see it as time for lying perfectly still. We're like cars on a busy street, all going different speeds. Bound to be a few fender benders.

All the togetherness reminds us that even the nicest people have annoying little habits that could wear on anyone, given enough exposure. Repeated sniffing, say. Clearing one's throat 2,309 times per day. If you're stuck in a house all day with a knuckle-cracker or a gum-snapper or a Twitter user, your thoughts might turn to ho-ho-homicide.

Take something as harmless as a Christmas carol. The song gets stuck in a person's mind, like a jumbo thorn, so he goes around singing it all the time. Except he doesn't really know the words, so it sounds like this: "Joy to the WORLD, la-da, la-DAH." Over and over. For two weeks. Until -- snap! -- someone makes a headline.

Minor vices, such as leaving the cap off the toothpaste or the newspaper in disarray, can be ignored for days, but eventually someone will speak up, and the new year is welcomed with fireworks.

(The Murphy's Law winter break guarantee: Whether you prefer the toilet seat up or down, it will always be the wrong way. Mention this to the others at your peril.)

As the winter days of togetherness wear on, we start to see loved ones' quirks as being intentionally annoying. We start perceiving motives.

"She knows she's doing that," he mutters. "She could stop any time. But no, she keeps doing it, because she knows it drives me crazy. She's just getting even because I--"

From the next room: "What's that, dear?"

"Nothing!"

But it's not nothing. It's the beginning. Pretty soon, the couple is locked in an escalating passive-aggressive loop: If she's going to crack her gum, he thinks, then I can pop my knuckles and sniffle as much as I want. She counters with an impressive symphony of tuneless whistling, trying to drown out his honking nose. Which, naturally, forces him to play Neil Young on the stereo, because she HATES that reedy voice. So she runs the vacuum cleaner. He gets a wrench and removes the toilet seat altogether and--

Whoa, whoa. Take a deep breath there, partner. It's always like this at winter break. It'll be fine once we get out of the house, and we're all exposed to smaller doses of our mutual foibles.

The adults go back to work, where our nervous habits can annoy our colleagues instead of our relatives. The kids go back to school and annoy their teachers. The dog gets some rest.

Soon, we're back in our well-worn ruts. Ready for another year.

Together.

Boys will be chefs

Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a young boy playing with his new train set, his baseball glove and his toy kitchen.

That’s right. Kitchen. As in junior-sized appliances, where the lad can pretend to cook and do dishes.

According to an article from The Associated Press, boys increasingly are playing “chef” with toy kitchens, even though the thought of it can make uptight fathers dash out into the yard and roll in the flowerbeds.

Many modern dads are OK with their sons playing with toy kitchens, the article said, partly because the dads themselves spend more time in the real kitchen. Boys see their fathers whipping up dinner, or they see male chefs on the many food shows on TV, and they want to emulate those activities. Toy companies are catering (ha!) to that interest by making gender-neutral kitchens for kids, the article said.

“Men are reshaping and rethinking their roles,” said Dr. Michael Kaplan, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center. “They are doing much more (cooking and housework) than they ever have.”

Kaplan said boys shouldn’t be discouraged from playing with toys usually associated with girls because it can lead to self-esteem problems.

That’s where he lost me. I’m a living, breathing example of a man who played with a toy kitchen, over his father’s objections, and, as anyone who knows me will tell you, “self-esteem” is the least of my problems. Just the opposite, in fact.

My toy kitchen was a little turquoise-colored number -- a stove, a sink and a refrigerator with food items and condiments painted on the inside -- where I whiled away many hours making mud pies that I insisted all the grown-ups actually eat.

I was 4 years old at the time, which would’ve made it around 1961. Not an era when men spent much time in the kitchen.

I vaguely recall my dad expressing concern over his firstborn son spending so much time baking mud pies and what that might do to my developing male psyche. At least I think that’s what he was saying as he rolled in the flowerbeds.

Clearly, everything turned out fine, as I grew up to be a housewife. Kidding! I grew up to be a work-at-home dad, who doesn’t mind spending time in the kitchen. Still not much of a chef, but at least I don’t serve up mud pies anymore.

Today’s toymakers can appease all the worried dads and still make a buck off the toy kitchen market. It’s simply a matter of tailoring the appliances to men.

For instance, toy kitchens for boys shouldn’t come in colors like pink or turquoise that might “feminize” them. They should be made of stainless steel. Like a DeLorean.

Manufacturers could make macho dads happy by designing a toy fridge that holds nothing but beer. For the garage.

Microwave ovens didn’t exist when I was a child, but now we can’t get along without them. Every boy’s kitchen should come with a microwave, preferably one that can actually make live cats explode. (Kidding some more! Take it easy, cat-lovers. Sheesh.)

Even the most manly man thinks it’s OK to cook outdoors. Most will, in fact, hip-check their wives away from the barbecue grill so they can char their own steaks.

If toymakers want to make a really authentic barbecue grill, they should rig it up with a 10-foot-tall blaze that will singe off hair and eyebrows. Then Junior can look just like Dad.

To extinguish the flames, they can roll in the flowerbeds together.

Enjoy holidays -- one halftime at a time

During this season of giving and reflection and renewal, a man's thoughts naturally turn to football.

'Tis the season for men wearing plastic reindeer antlers and a fine dusting of Doritos crumbs to sprawl on sofas, basking in the TV glow while our plucky families celebrate all around us. It's a season of hope and joy, anticipation and disappointment, the thrill of victory and the agony of sweatsock feet. It's the time of year when grown men ask Santa to please, please grant one wish: a first-and-goal on the two with a minute to go.

While others sing carols and make resolutions and gobble leftovers, we men display as much holiday energy as your average potted poinsettia. Lumps of coal we are, as we watch round-the-clock games, sometimes two or three at once, moving nothing but our eyes and our overdeveloped remote control thumbs.

It's not that we're lazy. We're pouring all our available resources into rooting for our favorite teams, occasionally even jumping up from the La-Z-Boy to shout, "Yes!" and grab another egg nog. Our teams can't do it without us. We're the Twelfth Man, pouring spiritual energy into the television sets of America.

Our families, on the other hand, seem able to soldier on with the decorating and the turkey-basting and the party-throwing without us. Or, with the limited participation that we can offer during halftimes.

The football leagues and the TV networks pander to sports junkies by televising the important games during the holiday season, when the biggest audience is likely to be off work and lying in front of a big-screen TV, naked except for boxers decorated with candy canes and evergreens, eating day-old guacamole directly off its fingers.

This year, men will be distracted from their loved ones by an estimated 137 college bowl games. Plus the NFL playoffs, which take us well into the new year, finally culminating in the Super Bowl, which I believe is sometime in July.

While the rest of the world makes merry and bright, we football fans relish tackles and sacks and crackback blocks. We wallow in the violence and the spirited competition and the mud and the blood and the beer. Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like a crushing blindside tackle in the secondary.

Our preoccupation with football is partly a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the bustle and glow of the holiday season. All that danged JOY. Brrr. It's also a primitive urge. It's winter, so we eat lots of big meals and hibernate in our dark dens, waking only when the crowd noise alerts us to a big play, just in time to watch the slow-motion replay.

We know our football fixation sometimes stresses our spouses, who are forced to use food aromas and actual beer to lure us off the couch long enough to, say, open our Christmas gifts. Our lethargy sets a bad example for our children. Our children. You remember the children. The ones who run screaming in front of the TV screen once in a while? Them.

Our families should not despair. Eventually, the football season will end. Spring will arrive, and we men will rise up from our sofas and shake the crumbs from our pelts and emerge from our caves. We'll stop obsessing on point-spreads and statistics and fantasy leagues and and bad calls and boneheaded coaching. We'll once again gather our families in the warm embrace of our full attention.

Until March Madness.
　

Screwed by the holidays

Grumpy dads everywhere dread the approach of the holidays. To us, the gift-giving season means one thing: "ready-to-assemble."

We'll spend the waning days of the year hunched over a random collection of parts that don't fit together so well, trying to assemble them into something useful. We'll try to decipher instructions written in a secret code by someone with only a rudimentary grasp of English, while we simultaneously keep one eye on televised bowl games.

Things will go wrong.

Nothing terrible. It won't be the end of the world, for Pete's sake. But it will be frustrating, enough to edge us dads one inch closer to our inevitable heart attacks, and to make us say "bad words" in front of the children.

Even if you avoid "ready-to-assemble" your whole life, you'll still face minor repair jobs that will challenge your sanity. Things break. You've got to fix them. It won't always go smoothly.

Here's why: The recalcitrant screw. The screw that won't turn properly, no matter what. The rusted nut. The missing gizmo. The broken whatsit.

It's not the overall job that's so daunting, it's the minor complication. That's the part that drives us nuts. So much so, that we dread these jobs. So much so, that it ruins the experience for us. We can't revel in the fact that we successfully fixed Aunt Mabel's lamp. Instead, every time we pass that lamp, we think: "I remember that (mutter, sputter) stripped bolt. That was a dark day."

I got to thinking about the recalcitrant screw recently while helping my wife with a home repair project. Rather, while watching my wife accomplish a home repair project. My contribution was to hold the flashlight, some distance away.

In our kitchen, a fluorescent light fixture had buzzed and winked for, oh, two years. It was annoying, but we'd all sort of grown accustomed it because we were too lazy or ignorant or unmotivated or scared to try to fix it. Mostly lazy.

I have a good excuse for ignoring the problem. As the man of the house, I am terrified of electric shock. The reasons behind my phobia -- why I can barely stand to walk on carpet and touch a doorknob -- are deep and complicated, but let's cut to the chase: Me big sissy.

My wife fears nothing. She looked up some instructions in a book and took the fixture apart and repaired a shorted wire and put it all back together again with a new bulb, and it works like a new one. I witnessed the whole thing. For this feat, she will always be my hero.

However, there was a moment when it didn't look so rosy. When she reached the recalcitrant screw. It was the final one, of course, that last little business before declaring "mission accomplished." The screw went in crooked and stuck there. She had to work it out of the hole, then try it again. Crooked. She started over.

It went on like this for a while, and she never once lost her patience or shouted curses. She just quietly noodled that recalcitrant screw until it fit where it belonged.

Not the way I would've handled it at all, and she wasn't trying to watch football at the same time, but whatever. I'm happy the buzzing is gone.

I've learned one thing from this experience. Come Christmas, my wife's in charge of assembling everything.

I've got to look after my heart.
　
　

Stretching your holiday dollar

Dire economic times make it harder than ever to buy appropriate gifts for friends and relatives, but you can still make Christmas merry for one and all. It just takes a little creativity.

Here are some tips for scrounging up gifts:

“Re-gift” items from previous holidays. You never used that waffle-maker Aunt Marge sent you. Might as well send it to someone who could make use of it (or who has more kitchen cabinet space than you do). But make sure you don’t send it to the Aunt Marge by mistake. She’ll remember. Trust me.

Thrift stores offer potential gifts at a fraction of retail prices. So what if the items have a few dings and scratches? Nothing a can of spray paint won’t fix.

You can’t use spray paint on clothes without a lengthy explanation. If you make gifts of used clothing, you must call them “vintage.”

Really old items can be offered as gifts as long as you specify that they are “collectible.” The items will appear more valuable if they bear a famous celebrity’s autograph, which you can accomplish with an inexpensive Sharpie.

Why not turn to Mother Nature? Live plants make wonderful gifts until they die, and floral arrangements are always welcome. You can make beautiful autumnal centerpieces from the colorful leaves currently littering your yard. Even inert items such as acorns, pine cones and rocks can be offered as unique gifts. Remember to spray-paint them first.

Another do-it-yourself gift is food. People love getting food at the holidays, particularly tons of sweets and baked goods. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a diabetic coma.

If you’re careful handling books, you can offer them as gifts without mentioning that they’ve been used. If the recipient notices turned-down corners, etc., respond that the book has been “pre-read.” Library books are out, however. There’s no explaining away the “Shasta Public Libraries” stamp.

Batteries always make good gifts for the kiddies. Someone (probably a grandparent) will give them noisy toys that need batteries. If the batteries you supply are old and don’t work, you can say, “Gee that toy must be broken.” The parents no doubt will appreciate the peace and quiet.

Or, you can simply give the children cardboard boxes, available for free from supermarkets and liquor stores. We’ve all seen that imaginative kids have more fun with the boxes than with the actual toys. Why not skip a step? If you want to get fancy, you can spray-paint the boxes to cover up the liquor advertisements.

Sometimes, it’s a short hop from creativity to duplicity. With so many retailers going out of business, it’s possible to re-use gift cards that you cashed out long ago. Send the worthless gift card to a relative, then express surprise to learn that the company on the card no longer exists.

Another trick is to mail a broken item to a distant relative. When the recipient reveals that the gift showed up in a hundred pieces, you can blame the beleaguered workers of the U.S. Postal Service. They’re used to it.

“Gag” gifts are always a scream, and they’re easy to come by. Even convenience stores sell last-minute gag gifts. Oh, how fun it will be when Aunt Marge opens her gift and finds dirty magazines and condoms! The whole family will laugh themselves silly!

When all else fails, cheap booze makes a good gift. It’ll help us forget the economy for a while. And the hangovers will prompt our New Year’s resolutions. That’s a gift that keeps on giving!

Happy -- achoo! -- holidays

Dear friends:

I’d like to thank all of you who recently shared your germs and viruses with me. Nothing says "special friendship" like a dripping nose.

Thanksgiving weekend marks the traditional start of the annual holiday blitz of shopping and parties and cockles-warming. 'Tis the season when we work-at-home types actually leave the house and interact with other humans, and we can count on contracting miserable illnesses while we're out there.

(The word "holidays" comes from the Greek holidakos, which translates to "cold and flu season." People have known since ancient times that holiday gatherings were the best places to pick up rampaging colds.)

Home-office workers are extra-susceptible to these viral onslaughts. We’re not out there in the workaday world, regularly exposed to the latest bugs, so our immunity is suppressed. Viruses take one look at our pasty indoor faces and virgin nasal passages, and you can almost hear their evil little laughs: Heh-heh-heh.

Then, whammo, they attack.

We victims are like small children who haven’t yet been exposed to the world’s germs and viruses. This is why smart parents urge their offspring to roll in the dirt and make mud pies and lick the dog. Children need to collect all the resulting immunities. We adults lose our accumulated immunities if we never go out in the world and get a booster shot of germs.

(When I was growing up in the South, we called such people “shut-ins.” They were too elderly and/or infirm to leave their homes, and they always rated a special place in prayers. I remember, as a child, being very curious about the shut-ins. I couldn’t understand why people didn’t just go to the shut-ins' homes and let them out. Why were they locked up anyway? I was an odd child.)

Most of the year, we shut-ins get our viruses directly from our own children. Every weekday, the kids go to school, where viruses hang out in the hallways like juvenile delinquents, picking their teeth and waiting for a ride. Our children embrace these miscreants and bring them home, where they run amok among the household adults.

Here’s the unfair part: The kids barely get sick, but we parents will be laid low. My teen-age son brings home some dread disease, and he’ll have the sniffles for a day or two, maybe sleep an extra hour, and he’s fine. The same virus hits my puny immune system, and I’m groaning in a bed for a week.

This time of year, though, we hermits acquire our viruses first-hand. We go to holiday parties and family gatherings, and we shake hands and kiss cheeks and dole out big hugs. During these moments of unguarded human contact, the viruses leap over onto us and sprint right up our noses.

If you’re like me, you’ll recover from your Thanksgiving cold just in time to pick up a fresh batch of viruses at Christmas. Colds and flu truly are the "gifts that keep on giving."

So thanks again, friends, for sharing with me. I hope to recover in time to see you at the New Year’s party.

You might want to skip that midnight kiss.

Frightening children for fun and profit

Halloween may be my favorite holiday, but not for the reasons you might guess.

Yes, there’s candy, and I’m all for that. Yes, there’s a sense of community from all the kiddies and their chaperones prowling the chilly night together. And, yes, it’s a lazy man’s holiday, requiring little preparation, perspiration or shopping.

But here’s the reason I enjoy Halloween: I love scaring the bejeebers out of little kids.

Sick, I know, but I can’t help myself. I get caught up in the spirit of the holiday, wolfing down candy and greeting trick-or-treaters, and next thing you know, small children are running AWAY from my house rather than toward it.

I’m not a nut for Halloween like some grown-ups, those who decorate their yards in fake cobwebs and plastic skeletons and flickering jack o’ lanterns. (See “lazy man’s holiday” above.) I don’t host a “haunted house” where children gross each other out, handling “eyeball” grapes or cold spaghetti “guts.” I never wear a costume myself because a) they don’t make them in my size, and b) I’m scary enough in street clothes.

My Halloween enthusiasms are more spur-of-the-moment, fueled by the traditional sugar buzz and a Pavlovian response to the doorbell. Costumed children show up at my door, and I’m compelled to put a little “boo” in their holiday.

Years ago, when our sons were small, we lived on a street that was so popular with trick-or-treaters that some neighbors were forced to take out home equity loans to fund the annual candy giveaway. I was in charge of answering the door and handing out treats. As the night wore on, I found myself itching to do a little tricking myself. Thus was born the Evil Laugh.

Kids would ring the doorbell. I’d open the door slowly, standing behind it so they couldn’t see who was there. Then I’d unleash the Evil Laugh, which goes like this: “BWAH-hah-hah-ha-ha-ha-HAH.”

Most trick-or-treaters weren’t fazed, but some were startled by the Evil Laugh. Occasionally, terrified kids would sprint all the way to the sidewalk where their frowning parents waited. Those poor children got extra candy, if they could work up the nerve to return to the porch.

A few years ago, my wife brought home a Halloween decoration: A giant, fuzzy, orange-and-black spider. You’re supposed to hang the spider on your door or make it a centerpiece, but I hooked it to the back of my shirt.

I’d answer the doorbell, hand out the candy and then, before the kids could head for the street, I’d turn and ask, “Is there a bug on me?” The shrieks still echo in my ears.

The best one ever was when my kids where in grade school. They had several friends over for Halloween, and my older son led them into his darkened room for a “séance.”

I went outside and slipped around to his window. Just as the kids were fairly certain they were on the verge of conjuring up the dead, I used my fingernails to scratch on the window screen.

That’s all it took. No “boo,” no decorations, no costume. Just scritch-scritch on the screen. Screaming kids nearly killed each other, stampeding for the exits. (Most of them don’t twitch anymore, and their parents have since forgiven me.)

I think word has gotten out about my antics. The number of trick-or-treaters has declined in recent years. Maybe parents are warning each other away from that weird guy’s house.

Good. More leftover candy for me. BWAH-hah-hah-ha-ha-ha-HAH

Ho-ho-ho, Merry August

Back-to-school shopping always seems like a summertime taste of Christmas.

Such a haul. New clothes, new sneakers, new backpack, new lunchbox. Bright yellow pencils and crisp white paper.

For the kids, it's as if Santa came to visit in his vacation clothes. For the parents, though, it can be a nail-biting, heartburn-inducing exercise in breaking the bank.

Small kids demand that all clothes and school supplies come decorated with trademarked characters from Marvel or Mattel or Disney or Nintendo. No matter which character your child loves best, all the goods bearing that likeness sold out last February.

If parents try to inflict anything else -- plain T-shirts, for example, or a notebook decorated with Barney instead of Pikachu -- the children will roll on the floor and howl and kick their little feet.
It's easy to spot those kids' parents. They're the nomads wandering from store to store, weeping and clutching handfuls of their own hair.

If you're lucky enough to stumble upon a hoard of the correct goods, the sticker shock will make your eyes jump out of your head and roll around the floor. Ten bucks for a binder? Thirty bucks for little bitty jeans? Sixty dollars for sneakers?

Holy slide rule, Batman. Before you know it, you've racked up a credit card debt that won't be paid off until the little beggars are off to college.

And for what? Clothes the children will ruin or outgrow by winter break. School supplies that will be lost or destroyed. (Has any kid, anywhere, ever made it through the school year with an intact protractor?) A backpack that produces an odd, musty smell you can't eradicate. And, of course, after a month or two, the kids will decide Pokemon is passe (or so all the parents pray).

By the time Christmas does roll around, it's time to replace everything. And it's hard to fit a new NASCAR lunchbox in a stocking.

I'd like to say it gets easier as kids get older, but that would be lying. Fashions change, but the demands are much the same. Instead of screaming for a pink Barbie lunchbox, your daughter will insist on a pink Paris Hilton crop top. Your son will object to any pants that aren't large enough to house a family of six.

And the sneakers just keep getting pricier.

Some parents of teens simply hand over a credit card and lie down in a dimly lit room until it's over. Others participate in the shopping, but must budget for stress remedies such as bourbon.

There is hope. Eventually, the kids' growth slows, so they might wear a garment more than, say, twice. The household fills up with so many backpacks and lunchboxes and binders, a child might actually re-use one, assuming it doesn't smell too funky.

Our two teen-age sons show little interest in back-to-school shopping. The older one, who's in the seventh year of his ratty rock-and-roller phase, refuses to wear clothes unless they have more holes than a screen door. The younger one never throws anything out, so his closet is overflowing. They both own relatively new, stink-free backpacks.

So I left the boys at home when I did the back-to-school shopping. I returned with a sackful of composition books and pens and said, "Here you go. You're all set."

I know it's not over. Teachers will demand specialized goods. Backpacks will be lost. Tattered clothing will turn to dust.

But I'm hoping we can hold out until Christmas.

Your party footprint

All the talk these days centers on carbon footprints -- how much pollution we generate and energy we consume. But party footprints are important, too, and more immediate. You might have trouble calculating your carbon footprint, but your party footprint can easily be tallied by counting the number of food stains on your shirt.

My personal party footprint is huge. I’m a big guy, so I take up a lot of space. I eat and drink more than my share. I spill. I tend to get effusive (especially when I’ve had a few) and talk with my hands. Anyone crowded too close is in real danger of losing an eye.

I suspect that the size of my party footprint inhibits our social life. When people make party plans, they say: “We can’t invite the Brewers. She’s OK, but we simply don’t have room for HIM.”

Men typically have bigger party footprints than women. We’re louder, larger, hairier, hungrier, thirstier. We tend to forget social niceties, especially as the evening wears on (see “thirstier”). Women at holiday parties are like bright birds, twittering demurely and picking at the food. Men, as we’re frequently reminded, are pigs from Mars.

(Yes, I’m speaking in generalities, but that is my native language.)

Let’s look at the different ways the genders approach parties:

Women enjoy parties for the conversation and companionship. Men like that stuff, too, but it’s difficult to keep a scintillating conversation going while eating with both hands.

When hosting a party, women want to make sure that all the guests feel good. Men want to make themselves feel good. Yes, this is similar to sex. (Hah, beat you to it.)

Women enjoy planning a party and getting everything ready. You can count on men to buy ice.

For women, fancy parties offer an opportunity to dress up. For men, parties are a reason to wear pants, at least at first.

Parties give women a chance to be artistic (décor, fancy food). Men are more interested in the mechanical (BBQ grills, proper keg flow).

At dinner parties, women compliment the chef by oohing over the food and asking for recipes. Men compliment the chef by groaning and asking for more.

Women politely offer to help the hosts serve food and drink. Men sometimes clean up their own spills.

Some parties include dancing, which many women enjoy. Men prefer a challenging game of drunken Twister.

Holiday gatherings let women bask in the warm glow of family and friends. Men prefer the warm glow of televised football.

At family events, women think of the children and the fond memories that are being made. Men say to the kids, “Don’t stand in front of the TV.”

Women like to make an entrance. Men prefer to make a memorable exit.

Women always remember to thank the hosts. Men often remember to apologize to the hosts.

Women like to engage in post-party analysis. Men are happy if they can find the car.

These differences don’t necessarily mean that women are superior to men, but it does mean women have smaller party footprints and often make better hosts/guests. Lucky for us guys, the women have to drag us along or face a lot of embarrassing questions.

Ladies, don’t feel you must apologize for your men’s enormous party footprints. Just say, “I’m with Sasquatch.” Everyone will understand.

Sniff test

Is there any sense memory more vivid than smell?

Consider Easter, which we celebrated last Sunday. The mere word “Easter” conjures up remembered aromas of baked ham and yeasty bread and fresh-cut lilies. The pungent sulfur of dyed eggs. The heavenly scent of chocolate.

When I was growing up in Arkansas, Easter was one of the dress-up holidays. We boys squirmed through church in our creaky leather shoes and mothball suits while all around us the adults looked and smelled their very best. The air was so thick with White Shoulders and Evening in Paris, you could practically chew it. The crinkled old ladies who ran everything at church always smelled of baby powder. The pastor was an Aqua Velva man.

By the time the final “amen” rolled around, we kids couldn’t wait to burst out into the fresh air. We practically rolled in the grass, like dogs spritzed with perfume.

I don’t know if the close, mingling scents of those early Easters are responsible, but I’ve never been much for after-shave (see photo) or cologne of any kind. Soap and “fresh talc” deodorant do the job for me. My preferred shampoo smells like flea dip, but I rinse it out and it doesn’t linger. Why would I get out of the shower, all fresh and clean, then put on a cloying artificial scent?

If a man splashes on Brut in the morning, he’s pretty much stuck with it all day. And so are all the folks who get near him. Such fragrances cover up some possible unpleasantness, sure, but they can be overpowering. If your lunch tastes like Brut, you’re probably overdoing it.

I was traveling lately, and encountered one miasma of aroma after another. Racing along an airport concourse, you’re hit in the nose by fragrance after wafting fragrance. It’s nearly as bad as those department store perfume counters where heavily made-up animatronic robot girls spray passers-by with Poison and Passion and Paris.

What’s that? Excuse me one moment. Sorry.

OK, I’m back. I’ve been informed that those are not animatronic robot girls in the department stores, but actual humans. I regret the error.

The only time I experiment with scent is when I’m on the road. Hotel bathrooms come with the strangest products.

I was in an expensive joint in Portland where the soap was labeled (and I’m not making this up): “Warm Vanilla Sugar Moisture-Rich Cleansing Bar, Infused With Real Vanilla Extract.” The shampoo and conditioner were both “Coconut Lime Verbena.”

By the time I’d showered up, I smelled like an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet. Plump children followed me around all day, drooling.

Maybe they thought I was the Easter bunny.

Top o' the morning mayhem

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Mine started off like this: Dancing leprechauns and animated ads full o' shamrocks repeatedly locked up my America Online so I couldn't get online and clear out the usual spam and check my Facebook.

All my other online functions worked fine, but not AOL, where I've got lots of bookmarks and personal e-mail contacts. After rebooting and task-ending and jumping around the room like "Riverdance," I finally got AOL to work.

AOL and Facebook both have recently forced "upgrades" on their users. Whenever you see the word "upgrade," think "upscrewed."

Boom bird

They say that comedy is tragedy plus time, but some things take longer than others to fall into the category of "funny story."

Maybe enough time has passed that we can finally view with humor the Day the Turkey Exploded.

On Thanksgiving a few years ago, we stayed home, just our nuclear family of four. My wife was in the mood to whip up a traditional Turkey Day feast, which was perfect because our teen-aged sons and I were in the mood to eat one. The timing couldn't have been better.

We had turkey with all the trimmings, and the meal was splendid and everyone behaved, more or less. We groaningly cleaned up the kitchen and repaired to the comfy chairs in our sock feet.

As usual, my wife put the remains of the turkey carcass into the pressure cooker to make stock. At our house, this is as much a tradition as cranberry sauce.

The pressure cooker cheerfully sputtered and hissed in the background while we watched televised football and purred to ourselves and massaged our distended bellies, as if they were pet bowling balls.

A bang sent us all leaping to our feet, followed by enormously loud hissing. Sounded like a boiler blowing up, or an explosion at the steam plant. We spun around in wide wonder, and found that a geyser of steam had erupted from the little vent hole in the lid of the pressure cooker, spreading into a wide "V" before reaching the 12-foot ceiling.

Yikes, stand back! It's gonna blow, mama! Don't touch it!

We ran around in circles, screaming warnings, the dog barking, until somebody ventured close enough to turn off the burner. The geyser died away. We got the pot off the heat. We stopped yelling. All was well, except that half the kitchen was covered in greasy residue and little bits of exploded turkey.

It changed the complexion of our Thanksgiving Day. Once we stopped shaking, it became Cleanup Day. We threw out the damaged pressure cooker. We mopped and scrubbed the kitchen. We moaned and shook our heads and got snippy with one another over the best techniques for dealing with this disaster. We discussed calling FEMA.

I made a special run to the store for a clean sponge mop for the white walls and ceiling. Probably the only guy in town who bought a mop on Thanksgiving Day. The supermarket's sales-tracking computer is still trying to figure that one out.

The mop got some of the greasy steam residue off, but it quickly became clear the whole kitchen would need repainting. The damaging steam left weird white-on-white streaks, and the whole house smelled like turkey drippings.

We lived with the aroma for a while. It was winter, after all. Couldn't open the windows while painting was done. Better to have a house that smelled vaguely of turkey than one that reeked of paint. When warm weather arrived, we had the whole house painted. Now, there's no evidence that this was the site of the Big Bird Blast of 2005.

Maybe we should put up a plaque.