Obsessed with Conformity

Ode to Gregor

A couple weeks back, a cockroach made its way past the invisible chemical barrier around the outside of our house, and into the hallway. When our youngest daughter Cozette (7) flipped on the light switch to identify the discoloration on the rug, all hell broke loose. 

I don’t like roaches, despite growing up around them. They called them water bugs, or palmetto bugs down in Florida. Whatever - they were big, ominous and could fly. The ones up here in North Carolina don’t fly, as far as I know. But I’m pretty sure this little fella wishes he could after the first blood curdling scream from our mighty-lunged daughter. 

Next up was Agatha (9), running in from the living room with her hands over her ears. When she spotted the brown beast, she flung her back up against the wall next to her sister. Each girl balancing on one foot. 

When Tina emerged, I guess she startled the roach because he twitched and turned in her direction, which elicited a high pitched “WOO!” from my wife. I arrived just in time to see her take a swift jump backward - eyes like saucers. When I finally got a good look at him, it nearly stopped my heart. He was the size of my one of my slippers. Ok, not really, but he was an impressive specimen. Too bad he had to die. 

I left the gaggle of shrieking girls and returned with a roll of paper towels. I’d dealt with these things before. You don’t squish them with a shoe or else run the risk of having collateral damage in the form of little roach parts stuck in your carpet forever (to say nothing of the yellow goo.) I decided to pop him with the paper towels hard enough to put him into shock so that I could scoop him up with a wad of select-a-size Bounty and send him on a Tidy Bowl ride. I raised the absorbent roll of towels and was ready to let loose a mighty blow when Cozette, who’d climbed down from the wall, shouted, “Stop! Daddy don’t kill him!” 

Our children attend Montessori school. 

I looked up at her with the fiery eyes of a killer to see her innocent face filled with sorrow. And hope. Great. Now I was left with the task of figuring out a way to THEN HE MOVED - EEEK - we all jump backwards to our respective spots far enough away from the beast so that he couldn’t spit poison on us, or something. Then he stopped. I had to do something. Quick. Every move he made caused glasses to shatter in the cupboard. 

“Ok, everyone get back. I have an idea," I said.  Then placed my socked-foot on the backside of the roach and tried to lob him up in the air toward the kitchen where I could push him along on the tile and out the back door. It worked. Non-flying roach lands in kitchen and I quickly follow up with another swoop. It took three swoops total to get him to the edge of the backdoor without accidentally squishing him. Someone opens the door - I don’t remember who. Everything was a blur at that point. I go to swoop him one last time and he takes off across the threshold and into the utility room. Everyone screams. At this point, I realize that I hadn’t planned this catch and release very well. I flipped on the utility room light and we all see him standing there, right in the middle. Looking at us. Mocking us. He knew that we knew what he was about to do. And then he did it. He scurried across the floor and underneath the washing machine where we figure he probably continues to live happily ever after. 

The end. 

***

JIm Mitchem/@jmitchem

Posted via email from Jim's posterous

On Bullying

I am not gay, black, yellow or red. I’m also not a woman. Nor am I a Jew, Muslim or Hindu. I’m part of America’s most dangerous and powerful tribe - the heterosexual, white, Christian male. I was never bullied as a child. This, despite being raised in my early years as one of the few white kids in a black neighborhood. It’s also no coincidence that I didn’t grow up with prejudice there. No, bigotry was always reserved for the monthly weekend trips to my father’s farm - a place where ignorance was in abundance and there was enough to go around. 

I mention this because I wanted you to know that I’m approaching the bullying issue from a slightly different point of view. Which is to say that I saw it all around me as a child and have been the victim of it a few times as an adult (especially via unethical business practices). So I took a moment to do a little research on bullying and according to Wikipedia, bullying is “a repeated act over time that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power with the more powerful individual or group abusing those who are less powerful.” 

But we all knew that. And it’s been going on since the beginning of time. Even war, at its extreme core, is an act of bullying. I’ll bet that if you scour enough cave paintings, you'll find depictions of bullying there, too. As the definition states, it’s an act based in a power grab.

JRR Tolkien once wrote, “And nine... nine rings were gifted to the race of Men...who above all else, desire power.” JRR Tolkien was no dummy. Power corrupts. Our forefathers knew this when they created our government based on a system of checks and balances. We might not all get along here, but if we did - absolute power would consume us and compel us to dominate anyone who didn’t agree. And then kings would come. And dictators. All in search of power. And all wielding sharp acts of bullying to attain power. 

Still I wonder, what if our desire to obtain power is more than just ‘having’ power? What if it’s directly attributable to acute awareness of our place along socio-economic vertical planes? In other words, we don’t want power just to ‘have’ power - we want power to make us feel better about ourselves. 

Think about put downs. You know them, ‘Your mama’ is this or that. A whole generation of Americans grew up watching sitcoms like ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Good Times’ which taught us that the art of putting someone down was cause for celebrity. What were we thinking? Putting people down is funny? Well, maybe sometimes it is - amongst friends. But when it's not, it’s an act of bullying. Plain and simple. And when you think about the action of ‘putting someone down’ the equal and opposite reaction is ‘lifting someone up.’ In this case, the person lifted up is the person more skilled in the art of the ‘put down.’

So now here’s this kid. It doesn’t matter what kind of kid - gay, black, nerdy - the kid is picked on every day after school for weeks by a group of four boys with one chubby, freckle-faced antagonist leader. It doesn’t matter what happens to the kid being picked on. The important thing is that there’s a kid who desires power and enlists other kids, who are less powerful but who want to be associated with power as a way to force the perception of their own power onto others. Why? To lift themselves up. To embellish their own sense of worth. To ascend the socio-economic vertical plane. 

But why does bullying have to happen so young? Just because it’s always been a human trait doesn't mean we have to accept it as part of our culture. We are human. We are blessed with the ability to correct our wrongs. Learn from our mistakes. Do better. Which means that children bullying other children is the direct result of bad parenting. 

This is not to say that parents of bullies don’t love their children, but rather that perhaps the cycle of ignorance continues to repeat generation after generation until dramatic intervention occurs. With all the news recently about gay bullying, you’d think that this would be enough dramatic intervention. While it’s too soon to know, something tells me that with families everywhere coping to make ends meet every month, caring whether their kids are bullying other kids is not high on the parental priority list.

So with his family in economic turmoil, the freckled-face chubby boy feels bad. And what’s the easiest way to feel better? Yank a few people down from the socio-economic vertical plane above him, that’s how. Victims will always be the minority. The weak. The vulnerable. And in the case of gays, or of blacks in the south before the Civil Rights movement, when the majority are absolutely ignorant and yet in formidable solidarity, very bad things can happen. 

Now the question becomes, what can we do to end bullying. Integrate sensitivity training in schools? Develop and deploy a comprehensive ad campaign? Make parents do jail time? Hell, make children do jail time? I have no idea. What I do know, however, is that the solution needs to be proactive and not reactive. If we punish children for things they’ve done, we’re not helping them avoid doing them in the first place. 

The sad truth is that we may never eradicate bullying as long as humans run this joint. After all, men desire power. Our only saving grace may be to remember that, as humans, we do have the capacity to change. And maybe that change starts with a shift away from the idea of fighting fire with fire, and going with a dramatic intervention of love instead. Don’t laugh. It worked for for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Ghandi. And Jesus. 

Know a bully? Give them a hug. It's a start. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@jmitchem

Posted from Jim's posterous

Pack Mentality

This afternoon we fought rush hour traffic north out of Charlotte for two hours (how do people do that?) to pick up the newest addition to our pack - a black-tri Australian Shepherd from a farm near Statesville. Because he’s from a farm, he’s from solid working stock. Because he’s an Australian Shepherd, he’ll fit right in with our pack. 

We like dogs. Not cats. Not rodents. Dogs. And since our first rescue 13 years ago (an Aussie), it's become obvious that I'm something like a dog whisperer. To me, it’s almost as natural as rearing children. With less back talk, even. 

Our 13-year-old dog is the kind of animal that anyone who only vaguely likes animals would gladly share their life with. After a couple of years with him, we fell in love with the breed and so to keep him company, we purchased one from a breeder after we moved to Charlotte. She's a healthy, studly animal that acts half her age and is an alpha bitch in every sense of the term. These two dogs have basically helped raise our daughters and are true shepherds of our family. 

Not to be forgotten, last summer we rescued Sammy Davis - the one-eyed wonder pug, or chihuahua, or alien depending your angle when you look at him. He’s pretty small so he hardly counts in terms of dog mass. Our best guess is that he was about 3-years-old when we snatched him out of death row. He's part of the pack, but his personality is more like a cat than a dog. Which is to say, he can take you or leave you - unlike the Aussies, who become physically depressed when we're not around. Plus, where Aussies pretty much read your mind, Sammy's mind kind of wanders. In fact, it used to wander under the fence, before he was snipped. 

And so today we brought this new Aussie into our lives. He’s from a breeder too. That wasn't an easy decision for us, but we wanted our daughters to have the opportunity to help raise an Aussie pup. 

Another reason we decided on the puppy is because they don’t let you keep ponies in the city (only the best for my kids by God.) Goats, sure, but we’ve got a really nice yard. Additionally, with nearly a half an acre (fenced) in an urban area, we’ve got ample room to keep these animals happy and healthy.  

But mostly, we got this pup because of our first dog. As the alpha male, he’s had a tremendous influence on the other two. On Monday, I thought I was going to have to put him down. Last year at this time the vet gave him three months - so he’s due. I keep waiting for a sign. This puppy is like his swan song in a way. Even without being very mobile, it’s clear that he’s the alpha. It’s said that the influence of an older dog on a puppy is tenfold that of a human. I couldn't hand-pick a better influence, so we're taking advantage of it while we can. 

For anyone who might think it’s gross living with so many animals, maybe it is. But our dogs have never had flea one, and I’m pretty sure our space is probably cleaner and better organized than most people you know. I even have the rolls royce of scoopers. Call it a writer thing. I do. 

So here we are back in puppyhood again. It will be as fun as it is challenging. But thanks to genetics, we feel like we know what we're getting into.

Welcome to the pack, Strider. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@jmitchem

 

Posted via email from Jim's posterous

Why September Can Kiss My Ass

I hate September. Yes, I know it’s still technically summer, but I’ve always considered September something like a harbinger of nightmares. When I was a child, it meant that summer was over and school had begun. Today, it’s like the tip of a poisoned arrow.  September creeps in on the heels of August’s humidity cloaked as a relief worker. But it’s a lie. September means more darkness than light, more work than play, more clothes than skin, more football than baseball, more inside than outside - and most of all, more cold than warmth. 

My wife is from New Jersey. I'm from Florida. Her people love autumn and celebrate its arrival when the calendar flips to September. And why not? Autumn means outdoor festivals and pep rallies. It means soft gray smoke swirling from chimneys. It means pumpkins and foliage and mums and mummies and, oh my Jesus most of all it means – GLORIOUS AMERICAN FOOTBALL! 

I have a hard time embracing these token tradeoffs when I know damn well what comes next. Awareness sometimes sucks.  

Don’t you people get it? There’s only one way out of autumn. No matter how nice it seems, it always dumps you right in front of that spooky shed out back where you must sit inside on the dirt with your knees pressed against your chin while blowing into your hands for three months. Watching your breath quickly appear and disappear like memories of basking on the beach under golden light the summer before. 

Then, sometime in April, the earth tilts on its axis enough for sunlight to stream through the broken window onto your eyelids. You’ll stand and stretch and step outside, squinting in a pasture of clover. Your gray, ashy skin shrinking away from the sunshine. 

September. I’m not falling for it. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@jmitchem

Posted via email from 300 Words

Earrings.

I grew up with three sisters. I now have a wife, two daughters and a mother in-law under my roof (technically the MIL is in a flat over the garage, but you know what I mean) – I know a thing or two about girls. Women however? I’m still learning. 

Our daughters are nine and seven. Our youngest, Cozette, is very artistic and fashionable. Not ‘popular,’ fashionable, but rather that she interacts with aesthetics in different ways than the rest of us. Her sense of fashion and design is evident in many forms. Anyway, she’s wanted earrings since she was four. I’ve deflected each request with the argument that she’s too young. 

Yesterday two of her friends (twins) went to Claire’s and got their ears pierced for their eighth birthday. (Thanks for that, Smithwick.) The rest of the day Cozette had me in a full-court press that would make John Thompson proud. She wanted the damn earrings. Her appeals made me feel powerful. I said no again and again, however, citing that it's modifying something that’s already perfect, and eventually resorting to ‘they’ll get infected.’ She wrote me a rationale. I said no. Finally, there were tears. But I held firm. No is no. 

I don’t like the idea that girls need earrings to make them prettier - so they’ll have more confidence in life. It’s all connected, you see? I want to raise very confident women who don’t have to rely on gimmicks to make it in the world. 

“I don’t want them to make me prettier, Daddy. I just like them.”

I know this child. I can’t change who she is. I could try, but she’s stubborn like her mother.  

We’re going to Claire’s tomorrow. It could be worse - but, thankfully, her sister could care less.  

***

Jim Mitchem/@smashadv

Posted via email from 300 Words

Tinkerbell's Light

Sometime during the night, Tinkerbell’s light faded.  It was a toy given to our daughter Cozette while visiting Walt Disney World back when she was four. She was admiring it clipped to a young woman’s backpack. The woman noticed, smiled and then offered it to her. As she handed our daughter the molded piece of translucent plastic, she pressed a tiny button which caused a soft green light to glow through Tink. Cozette’s eyes widened and then she threw her arms around the woman and hugged her for what seemed like forever.

Two Christmases ago, Santa Claus brought our daughters two gift certificates from a major pet store chain. They’d been asking for Guinea Pigs since the beginning of that school year - because ‘all the kids had them.' My wife and I weren’t sure about rodents as pets, especially considering we have dogs, so we hashed it out with St. Nick – and instead of bringing the girls Pigs, he opted for gift certificates instead. So there was still time to get something else – like maybe really nice leashes for the dogs. But that wasn’t to be – and the day after Christmas we welcomed Luna and Pearl into our family. Two days later, Pearl, who was Agatha’s pet, was not eating and so we took her back to the pet store. They said that Pearl was probably going to die. We told our daughter that we’d get another, and through tears she said, “but I already fell in love with her.” Amazingly, the pet store nursed the animal back to health and until last night, it led a happy Guinea Pig life. This morning my wife discovered Pearl dead. 

Today after the burial, I visited a clock shop for two obscure (expensive) batteries. Tinkerbell’s light has returned. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@smashadv

Posted via email from 300 Words

46 lines

When I was born I wanted to be outside the incubator.

When I was 1 I wanted a breast.

When I was 2 I wanted to take naps in my Nana’s arms.

When I was 3 I wanted a red wagon.

When I was 4 I wanted a father.

When I was 5 I wanted to visit the moon.

When I was 6 I wanted to watch more Johnny Quest.

When I was 7 I wanted the Vietnam War to get off of my television.

When I was 8 I wanted to be the fastest kid on my street.

When I was 9 I wanted to pilot a boat on the Jungle Cruise.

When I was 10 I wanted to be an oceanographer.

When I was 11 I wanted the girl to notice that I pitched a perfect game.

When I was 12 I wanted the world to stop spinning so fast.

When I was 13 I wanted us to move back to Florida.

When I was 14 I wanted to find out why people drank alcohol.

When I was 15 I wanted to skip past high school.

When I was 16 I wanted to understand The Metamorphosis.

When I was 17 I wanted to be a man.

When I was 18 I wanted to never go home again.

When I was 19 I wanted a Fiero.

When I was 20 I wanted another hit of acid thank you very much.

When I was 21 I wanted to have sex with every hot chick I met.

When I was 22 I wanted the fuck out of the Air Force.

When I was 23 I wanted to walk the earth like Caine in Kung Fu.

When I was 24 I wanted to be invisible.

When I was 25 I wanted to kill myself.

When I was 26 I wanted to wake up from a perpetual nightmare.

When I was 27 I wanted a tattoo that would never let me forget.

When I was 28 I wanted all of the happy people in AA to die.

When I was 29 I wanted to know more about God.

When I was 30 I wanted the girl I couldn’t have.

When I was 31 I wanted to never see snow again.

When I was 32 I wanted to finish college.

When I was 33 I wanted to live happily ever after.

When I was 34 I wanted into the ad agency world.

When I was 35 I wanted children.

When I was 36 I wanted out of the ad agency world.

When I was 37 I wanted to kill Islamic extremists.

When I was 38 I wanted my business to be successful NOW.

When I was 39 I wanted to take a crowbar to the guy who repossessed our minivan.

When I was 40 I wanted more strength than I was capable of.

When I was 41 I wanted to earn enough to give my wife the freedom to do anything.

When I was 42 I wanted to embed in our daughters a deep respect for their imagination.

When I was 43 I wanted to stop trying to control every little fucking thing.

When I was 44 I wanted to effectively exploit my talent.

When I was 45 I wanted to understand why I’ve been so blessed.

***

Jim Mitchem/@smashadv

Posted via email from 300 Words

Fake Empires

Just a note to say hello and a shot from the edge of the continent. I love the humility that accompanies a powerful storm. If you look closely, in the center of this image, on the sand, is a castle. A fake empire. It made me take a moment today to take a look around and notice real and brilliant things in my life that I normally overlook or take for granted. Like laughter. Nourishing rain. And humility. 

Peace.
***
Jim Mitchem/@smashadv

Posted via email from Jim's posterous

Coach Mount.

When I was 11, I was small for my age. But that didn’t stop me from playing sports. I compensated for my shortfall by being quick and fast. When I played on the 11-12 year old Pop Warner football team, I had just turned 11. I was the smallest player on the team by far. The previous year I was a star center and defensive end playing against kids my size and age. But on this team, I rode the pine. This didn’t stop me from making every practice and working just as hard as the other kids, however. 

Our head coach was named Coach Mount. He was about 9 feet tall with bushy read hair and matching beard. He looked like a lumberjack. He never played me in games. Then during the halftime of the second to last game of the season that we were losing badly, I saw my stepfather talking to Coach Mount before Coach Mount came over to give us the royal ass whooping we deserved (hey, it was Florida - they take their football pretty seriously). I was just taking a seat on my helmet in a semi-circle when I saw Coach Mount throw up his arms and walk away from my stepfather. 

After the you’d-better-play-better-or-else speech, we donned our helmets and Coach Mount gathered us in for a ‘Team!’ chant then released us to the field. Except for me. He pulled me aside by my facemask and without even looking at me told me that I was going to start at right defensive end to start the second half. Then he walked away. 

A swarm of butterflies took flight in my stomach. 

After the opposing team advanced the second-half kickoff, I ran onto the field with the ten other boys on defense -  all of whom were a good helmet taller than me.  In the huddle, the captain asked where I was playing, “right end,” I said. A couple of kids slapped me on the shoulder pads for encouragement. We broke the huddle and I went to my position. I looked over at the sidelines. Coach Mount was standing there with his arms crossed, revealing the terrifying black anchor tattoo on his massive forearm. He was smiling. Smug-like. Two assistant coaches flanked him, and the kid I was temporarily replacing stood in front. They were all looking at me. Behind them in the stands I saw my stepfather sitting on the bleachers like it was any other play. Only this was my first real play of the year. As the opposing team broke their huddle, I watched a massive country boy take his position at left tackle. Suddenly, I forgot how to play defensive end. 

The ball was snapped. The quarterback dropped back to pass. The tackle stepped back to form a pocket. I couldn’t see past him. Then I saw the halfback fade into the flat - they were going right at me. Then a ball flying toward him. I pushed off of the tackle, stepped between the quarterback and halfback and intercepted the pass. I managed to get about 10 yards downfield when what felt like an army of pachyderms fell on top of me. Our sideline erupted, probably for the interception - but I thought it was for me. I looked at Coach Mount as I ran off the field. He didn’t make eye contact and never mentioned the play.

My stepfather didn’t say anything about what happened at halftime of that game, and was instead surprisingly subdued in congratulating me on the interception. But I’m sure he went into his office the following Monday and crowed like a rooster at my accomplishment. Or maybe he talked about how he conquered Coach Mount. 

Size was never an issue for me. Not before that play. Not after it. I’m normal-sized now. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@smashadv

Posted via email from 300 Words

Church.

That’s right, this is a post about church. I sometimes like to go right for the controversial stuff. 

As a boy, I was raised Southern Baptist. We were poor and lived in a mostly black neighborhood. Feel free to identify me in the image from 2nd grade. You’ve got a 50% shot of getting it right. 

When I went to church, it was a big deal. We went to Sunday school and learned about Jesus. We wore suits. Mine was lime green. Yes, it was a leisure suit. I had another suit for Easter that was checkered. I wore it until the bottoms were near my knees.  We also sang – *really* sang. If you’ve never been to a Southern Baptist church, you don’t know what singing is. Also, we didn't have rock bands at church back then. Finally, every Sunday after church we had a fried chicken feast. 

Today, my wife and kids go to a Baptist church where the only black people is the family the church adopted from Africa. And while there’s no rock band at this church, the choir seems to lack true soul. Sometimes, when I go with my wife and kids, I just look down at the songbook and lip sync. Badly.  Also, kids don’t dress up anymore (they wear flip flops).  Only the old people do. So I guess that just being there is good enough these days. 

I don’t go to church anymore because I believe that religion, by its very nature, is more exclusive than inclusive. And God doesn’t discriminate. I had a personal epiphany about 19 years ago which affected me in such a way that I had no choice but to believe in a power greater than myself. I call this power God. And He really doesn’t care what I want. He just wants me to be humble before Him. So I am. Daily. 

It works for me. And Him.

***

Jim Mitchem/@smashadv

Posted via email from 300 Words

Pulling Teeth.

Yesterday, our youngest daughter Cozette (6) had a dance recital. After watching her on stage with the other eight girls in her troupe, one thing became increasingly clear - she’s no dancer. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever. She hasn’t given us any indication that she ‘loves’ it, the way her sister (9) professes to love soccer. 

She’s been going to dance for six or eight months every Friday afternoon for an hour. And yesterday was the crescendo. She didn’t seem nervous about it leading up to it. I tried talking to her about it, to see whether there was some apprehension underneath the cool veneer, but couldn’t find any. She really wasn’t nervous at all. But on stage, she looked confused. Then, all the girls did. They’re six. After the recital, she came out of the dressing room crying. She’d messed up the choreography, and felt awful. My heart was on the floor. Here was my youngest daughter, whose front tooth I’d just pulled earlier - openly weeping in front of everyone. Holding her head low in shame. I lifted her up, looked her in the eyes and said she didn’t mess up. 

“Yes I did, Daddy.” 

“Honey, even if you did - that happens. No one noticed. I thought you danced beautifully.” She continued to cry. Here was my baby girl, dressed in a pink jumpsuit with silver sequins and matching floppy hat for their performance of ‘Kiss the Girl’ as part of the ‘Under the Sea’ recital theme.

We drove to Trader Joe’s where she picked out a beautiful bouquet of flowers - because Daddy forgot to get them before the show. Dumbass. 

On the way home, her mood changed. Later, at the pool, she asked me to pull her other front tooth that was just dangling there. So I did. 

***

Jim is a father, husband, writer and entrepreneur. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv.

Viva la vie

A peek into my daily life. What can I say...we're not campers. 

***

Jim Mitchem is the father to daughters (Agatha - the one laughing, Cozette - the one swirling her hair around), a husband to a queen and the writer to people who live in his head. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv.

Hard Lessons.

The following post was written for The Good Men Project, June 2010

As the father of two daughters, and their only male influence in life, there are times when I feel like I’ve got to just come right out and give it to them straight. That those who are bloodthirstier, eat better. That this can’t be all fun and games. That life is hard.

Recently, our oldest daughter, Agatha (9), competed in soccer tryouts. She’s been playing soccer since she was four, and last season made the A team in the competitive league where she started on defense.  She’s got a ton of natural hand-eye coordination and is as quick as she is fast - but lacks killer instinct. That’s not to say she doesn’t love soccer. She does. And she’s quite good. But she’s known to apologize during a match if she bumps someone too hard or kicks an opponent in their (guarded) shins.  And she’ll laugh out loud on the field during a contest if the situation calls for it. Sure, it’s sportsmanlike and fun, but it’s not hardcore soccer. And now that she’s nine, I think it’s time to focus more on how to beat opponents down instead of just having fun. After all, winning is the goal. Otherwise we’re just throwing our time and money away. Not going to be a soccer star? Fine. Let’s move on to another scholarship sport.

I planned my work schedule around attending both days of the 90-minute tryouts. When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was that there were double the number of girls trying out this year than last. The next thing I noticed was how really big the girls seemed. In fact, when we checked in I had to make sure that we were at the tryouts for the Under-10 league. Agatha’s proportionately built, and muscular, but shorter than most kids her age. I dutifully remind her of how until I was 17, I was always the smallest kid. Then things changed. A lot. You see, I tell her these things because I know that deep down she must harbor some pain about being short. She says she doesn’t, but I know better. Anyway, most of the kids at this year’s soccer tryouts looked like Amazons next to my kid.

I told her to be quick.

She then she took the field with all the others and didn’t seem nervous at all. And why should she? She just wants to play. She’s very comfortable with her skill level, even though she’ll tell you she’d like to learn to get better. But most of all, she loves the camaraderie. I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth about this being a prestigious level of competitive soccer and that which team a child plays on is how the parents measure themselves.

So I watched from the sideline, biting my tongue and standing with a few other parents from last year’s A team who were intently focused on whether their child was impressing the tryout scouts. It was funny to hear the parents mumble encouragement and disgust. Oftentimes in the same breath. And I was right there with them - pretending to care less than everyone else, even though deep down the fire was roaring. Afterward, Agatha was drenched, smiling and satisfied with her effort. I was too. Though I did mention that I thought she looked a little afraid of one very big girl who dominated the other girls on the field. “I know! I was!” She said without hesitation. We both laughed and walked off the field together in the lavender dusk. It was like a movie.

**

Our daughters attend Montessori school. No pressure. No homework. No competition. Just kindness, grace and peace. Not coincidentally, none of her friends at school play soccer. No, good soccer players this age don’t go to Montessori school. They attend business prep school where they learn to orchestrate hostile takeovers.

Agatha’s sister Cozette, is six. When the weather’s nice, you can usually find them in our yard entertaining themselves doing things like creating imaginary worlds with chalk and bubbles, playing with the dogs, having water wars with the hose, exploring bugs, etc. Two Christmases ago Santa brought a soccer net. The kind that returns the ball to you when you kick it in just the right spot. It sits next to the shed out back and rarely comes in to play. As middle-class parents who work full time and who must tend to a house and family, we don’t have a lot of time to drill her on soccer skills. Especially considering that neither my wife nor I played the sport.

However, if the skill level of the girls trying out was any indication, we were in the minority in how we manage our children’s play time. It made me resent Maria Montessori a little.

Before we arrived for day two of tryouts, I took Agatha aside and told her to leave everything she had out on the field. Have fun, yes, but also compete on every play. And I left her with this, “You don’t play soccer with your legs. You play it with your heart.” It was one of those moments of parenting brilliance that sometimes pop in there. Stuff of inspirational business posters.

During the tryouts, I avoided other parents and spent my time assessing the talent. There were over 50 girls and probably 10 who I felt were much better than Agatha - more speed, better footwork, relentless - the works. For this session of the tryouts, the scouts seemed to group the girls in teams based on their skill level from their assessment of the previous day’s session. They then had the teams play each other rotating them on five fields in a 4v4 format. The best team was obvious. They were tough, ruthless girls who rolled over, passed through and dribbled around the children in their path. They called to each other like a pack of velociraptors.  It was clear that these kids had a lot of training. From home.

I couldn’t watch her every move, but from what I did see - my daughter beat every girl she confronted, holding her position beautifully. Her footwork was immaculate and her passing crisp. Amazingly, she seemed to slow the game down a bit - something I’ve preached to her for years, but that she didn’t seem to grasp until now. Her team never had to face off against the team of Amazon stormtroopers, and for that I was grateful. She’d left her heart on the field, was sweaty and happy and I couldn’t have been prouder.

Then came the waiting. The deal was that the scouts would compile notes, put together rosters and call the players later in the week to let them know whether they made one of the three teams. Or not. 

Two nights later the call came. It was her new coach. She introduced herself, shared her qualifications and was quite excited to talk to Agatha directly to see if she’d accept her offer to play on the B team.

The B team.

My heart sank. I felt cheated. I tried not to look disappointed as I walked the phone into the bedroom where Agatha was playing with little plastic animals in an imaginary land she’d created on the floor. I handed her the phone and said I didn’t know who it was. My wife came running up to me as I closed the door, “Is it them? Is it the soccer league? Is it Katie (her coach from last year who was going to coach the U-10 A team this year)?” I nodded, nodded and shook my head. A frown came over her face. Her heart sank for Agatha too.

We waited in the hallway, expecting tears. As I readied a speech about how sports should be fun, an email pinged my wife’s phone. It was the mother of one of the players on last year’s A team asking everyone whether they “had been contacted by Coach Katie yet because she only knew of five girls from last year’s A team that were contacted so far about this year’s A team.”

Five kids from last year’s A team beat out my kid? Five? Really? Oh, now I was pissed. I’ll show them, I’ll spend the summer training her to spit fire and then when we play the so-called A Team in the regular season this fall, we’ll have the last laugh. I may even enroll her in soccer camps all summer long.

Yes, there comes a time in life when you’ve got to grow up and face the fact that the world is tough. As a man, I feel it’s my obligation to help reinforce this to my daughters so that they can move more confidently through life.

As we awaited sobs, what we heard next caught us both off guard. There was giggling. And laughing. Followed by a couple of “Cools” a “That’s awesome!” and finishing with “Thank you. I can’t wait!”

Agatha then burst out of her room, slapped the phone into my palm and shouted, “I made it!” And as she raced out the back door to her grandmother’s apartment, she stopped, looked back at us and with a huge smile said, “And I get to make all new friends!”

And at that moment I was once again reminded that the women in my life make me the man that I am.

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Jim Mitchem is a father, husband, writer and entrepreneur. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv.

When Advertising is Evil: BP and the Gulf Coast

If you've paid any attention to television lately, you've likely seen a few commercials for tourism along the Gulf Coast. If not, here's one: 

Here's another one: 

Don't these spots just make you want to get in the car, drive down to Alabama and eat some shrimp? I also saw another one that features, in a prominent role, the Governor of Mississippi and his lovely wife. They're inviting you down to Mississippi, too. Y'all come on down, there's absolutely nothing wrong. 

On the one hand, it's hard to blame them for trying. But at what cost? 

BP (the fourth largest company in the world) has vowed to do whatever it takes to make sure no one along the Gulf Coast is financially impacted by their epic fuck up. This includes producing, procuring and deploying media in at least a few prime time slots (that I noticed) last week. Commercials like the ones above. No, the spots don't have to say BP for us to know they're part of a BP snow job. 

Come on down! Our beaches are clear! Nothing whatsoever is wrong! 

Curiously, I don't remember seeing ads for the Gulf Coast when all the oil rigs were functioning properly. Why is it that my market is suddenly their market? Honestly, do they think people are going to do what they say just because they say to do it during the second break on American Idol? 

Did you see the baby turtles in our ad? Aw...so cute. Come! Quickly! We'd love to see ya!

Can money solve all of our problems? Evidently, BP thinks so. And so do the people who allowed them to run such a ridiculous campaign. You see, we're all just minions. We see, we hear, we act favorably. The numbers say so. But imagine what happens if people flock down there and a nice storm kicks some of that sludge onshore? Betcha people will share that experience with other people. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Gulf coast and my heart is with everyone affected there. But more than the people, my heart is with the ecosystem we've just altered for a decade or more. A system that only barely includes us to begin with.  

"Drill Baby Drill" is the war cry of the ignorant. Yes, the earth can bounce back from anything we throw at it. Anything. Even nukes. The oil people are right. This rock will continue to orbit our neighborhood star whether we're here or not. Rather, it's the organic creatures that live on the crust that need the rock. Not the other way around. 

This oil spill is more than just the money and tourism. It's about taking a step back and making a rational assessment of the situation. But to too many people, the Gulf Coast is just 20 billion dollars in tourism. Being eco-friendly isn't a priority in most capitalistic endeavors. Except in hindsight. In TV ads. 

Shame on the officials along the Gulf coast who bought into BP's 'throw money at it' logic. Had they thought this through beyond just a knee-jerk reaction, they could have done something useful with the generous BP media buy. Something like my friend Michael Calienes mentioned last week: 

 

Had the officials just said, "That's it then - we've got to write off this year. Let us now get to work on how to respond to this disaster so that next tourist season, our message will have meaning." Oh, and they'd already have a nice budget to build on, too. But no, they took the devil's money and pretzel logic and now they look desperate. Sadly, at this point the only ones profiting from the oil spill are media companies. 

Seafood, sunny skies, tanned and beautiful children running barefoot - and you. Oh, and baby turtles. Come on down! 

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Jim Mitchem is Floridian, writer and entrepreneur. He and his wife live in Charlotte with their two daughters and many animals. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv.

Dreams I'll Never See

I had a dream last night where my life flashed before my eyes. Little two-second videos of moments that I'd filed away became stingingly prominent. Tina starting to show with our first child. An afternoon on a beach with horses. Our children laughing from the backyard. Free falling after jumping from a bridge into a river as a teenager.

I woke up crying. 

Posted via web from Jim's posterous

Born to be Screwed - a hypothetical insurance tale based on actual events

I go to the dentist for a cleaning. It’s covered by insurance. I inquire about a veneer that a previous dentist said would cost $1,000 and that my insurance wouldn’t cover. This dentist not only says the insurance *would* cover it, but that I didn’t need a veneer at all rather a filing. They can definitely work the insurance into this. And, “let’s check with your insurance company, ah yes, here it is - your total out-of-pocket will be only $80.” 

I schedule the procedure for the next day. I pay the $80. I’m happy. 

Two weeks later, correspondence arrives from the dentist’s office. It’s a bill for $76. There are 10 lines of charges and credits from different dates that make no sense. Even two successive lines that make no sense at all - one for a charge of $5.20 followed by a credit for the same amount - with no explanation. I know that this is all a plan to confuse. 

I call the dentist. It’s an automated service with only two prompts, one to confirm an appointment and one to make one. I push ‘0’ - ‘Sorry, that’s in invalid option’ - and a kick back to the main message. Because I don’t know my party’s four digit extension, I try random numbers. Nothing works. I hang up and call back. I choose ‘make an appointment’ option figuring I’ll get a person who can connect me to billing. No luck - leave a message. [Please note - this is a BIG practice. Thousands of patients. Just no way to reach anyone via phone - unless you know the extension. There’s no extension number on the invoice.] 

I’ve been through this a hundred times in my life so I know what will happen next - I’ll call the dentist and they’ll say something about this being my responsibility and that I should know what my insurance covers. Even when I’m sitting in a chair with a suction tube in my mouth. And they’re right. I should. But, I’ve never read through the mouseprint in the insurance manifesto. I just want to know it’s there and that it covers stuff. So I’ll call the insurance company and they’ll say that their coverage is very clear had I read it. After all, I should know what a ‘1 surface anterior composite is’ is in context to my coverage. 

The dentist will say they’ll resubmit the paperwork and the insurance company will say they will look into it more. And in a couple weeks, I’ll get another bill from the dentist’s office for the same amount. Maybe there will be a handwritten note explaining that they’ve done everything they can. I’ll never hear back from the insurance company. And I’ll have no other option but to pay the bill or risk my credit rating. 

I won’t pay. My credit report will show it. And I’ll get on the phone with the credit company...

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Jim Mitchem is a father, husband, writer an entrepreneur. You can follow him on Twitter @smashadv

The Brain Tumor Test Follow Up Post

Wow. Thanks for everyone's well-wishes on the brain tumor test. It turns out they were able to tell a great deal from the electrodes stuck to my forehead for 30 minutes. Which is to say, I don't have a tumor on the ear area of the brain. Yippee. However, I'm only 45 and my right ear is down to about 50% audibility versus my left ear. With no traumatic event to attribute this asymmetry, the ENT surgeon may order an MRI to determine once and for all that Iron Maiden and the Scorpions are more responsible for my bum right ear than any tumor. If I never talk about this again here, assume it's the former. 

But a funny thing happened between then and now. I forgot to tell my mom (who lives in Texas) about this test. She found out about it on my Facebook page this weekend while visiting my sister in Louisiana. Mom doesn't have a Facebook, and doesn't really have the internet as she uses dialup and AOL. So here she is checking pictures of our kids on this Facebook thingy, and *gasp* - there I am talking about having to take a test for a brain tumor.  Her shock was clear in her frantic voicemail message. When I assured her that I was going to be fine, I then had to contend with the fact that I told thousands of strangers, but not her. Oh, boy. Happy Mother's Day, Ma. 

Thanks again for your support. If I ever do have a brain tumor, I can't think of nicer people to share it with. ~ Jim

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Jim Mitchem is a father, husband, communications consultant and helps run smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv.

The Brain Tumor Test

My wife finally gets her wish, as I'm having my head examined today. I'm being scanned for a brain tumor as the result of a disproportionate hearing loss in one ear. I'm not too concerned with the test since things are what they are. Hell, I'm just grateful that we have insurance. But what I am concerned about is the "Phenomenon" factor. If you recall, John Travolta's character saw a flash of light, then became something like the smartest guy in the world. They find out that the reason he became so smart was because of a tumor stimulating new areas of his brain - while concurrently killing him. My fear is that somehow I do have a brain tumor, and this is as smart as I'll ever be. No cure for cancer. No great American novel. No Portuguese. Just some good ads. Then they'll remove the tumor, and I'll start tweeting about legos or global warming or something. And I'll have to become a social media expert to earn a living. They won't know the results of the test today, so now every time the doorbell rings I'll fear two somber surgeons standing at the door. In scrubs. 

Seriously, don't worry about me. I just wanted to get this out. Fingers crossed. 

Posted via web from Jim's posterous

Hitting Home - Oil and the Emerald Coast

I am a Floridian. I grew up near St. Augustine, and despite my family moving west to Louisiana and Texas during my teens, I still consider Florida my home state. Before moving to NC on January 1, 2000, my wife and I lived in Florida after I convinced her to leave NJ following 34" of snow in 24 hours during The Blizzard of 96. We were married in Florida and I finished college there (UNF). Our daughters were born here in Charlotte, but between Disney and the beaches, we've sort of adopted Florida as our family's second home. We love the estuaries, the wildlife and the peace and humility that comes from spending time next to the ocean. This year for Spring break we took our daughters to the panhandle of Florida. We stayed at a resort near Destin, but spent our days frolicking in the sand of Grayton Beach. I've been to a few beaches in the world, and while the water in the Bahamas is my favorite, the beach in Grayton is even better than in Maui. 

Which brings me to the oil spill. Sure, no one knows what might come of this disaster, so it's premature to totally freak out. Raw crude spilling openly into an already fragile ecosystem is not a good thing though. And while you can argue that the Gulf of Mexico is resilient as hell, that doesn't change the fact. The idea of oil coming ashore on the beaches here is a real possibility - which would devastate this little stretch of sand tucked in the backwoods of Florida's panhandle. This is my home state. I'm proud that no oil rigs live off of its shores. And I'm hopeful that this current disaster steers clear of them. But mostly, I'm grateful that we had the chance to spend time on the beaches of the Emerald Coast. They really are a national treasure. 

    

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Jim Mitchem is a father, husband, copywriter and native Floridian. He also helps run smashcommunications. You can follow him on Twitter @smashadv

The Screaming of the Squirrels

This afternoon, while sowing seeds in our 10'x10' garden in what has become known as the Great Green Experiment, my neighbor walked over to the fence. We talked about gardening, something else and then the vulture that made an appearance on our street over the weekend. The fact that this massive bird was feasting on a slow rabbit on our street was pretty amazing considering A) this is an urban neighborhood and B) I've never seen a turkey vulture this far north. It was worthy banter. And so we continued on raptors. 

Her: "Do you hear the owls at night?" 

Me: "Yep. They're everywhere." 

Her: "Do you hear them attack the squirrels?" 

Me: "What?" 

Her: "No, really? They make a screaming sound. I hear them all night. You must sleep well." 

Me: "Thank God." 

Of course now I'm paranoid that once I begin to drift off tonight I'll hear some squirrel scream in the pecan tree above our room. Followed by a 'plop' on our roof and the rustling of feathers and talons as the owl fights the vulture for ownership. So I'm basically fucked for sleep tonight. 

Posted via web from Jim's posterous