Dear College Football Coach,

I realize that recruiting for major Division 1-A players is a difficult process and that coaches are scouting athletes of younger and younger age groups. In order to take some pressure off of your 2023 recruiting class, I would like to direct your attention to my imp.

I know that he is not yet 3 years old and might not have the height of the prototypical Division 1-A quarterback but based on how he was zipping his plastic football across our living room last night, I believe he has the requisite arm strength.

While you might argue that you have received enough verbal commitments for this class and cannot offer another scholarship at the quarterback position, this is not a problem. My imp is versatile and can play many positions. Along with having the arm strength to compete as a quarterback, my imp also has the mentality and toughness to be a big name Linebacker. During our session of toss and catch, my imp showed that he was not afraid to take on larger players in order to go after the ball, delivering several forearm blows to my trachea in the process.

Another strength my imp possess is an unnatural reserves of energy. His ability to wake early and spend the entire day running up the stairs and down the stairs and around the house, without the need for a nap or a bedtime before 12 a.m. are clear indicators that he will be able endure the rigorous and competive schedule of Division 1-A football with the energy to compete well into the fourth quarter of your games.

Thank you for your possible future interest and we will look forward to our campus visit in 15 years.

Sincerely,

Father of the Heisman 2026

Dear Wife.Imp,

I am posting this note in case you try to call home later this afternoon and find that we are not there. However we are not going shopping, otherwise I would have called and ask for any items you might want.

No, I just found out that we have too many items sitting on the shower shelves in our bathroom. This fact was brought, rather painfully, to my attention when I was replacing the soap (and subsquently cleared the shelves of every other item). After I was able to clear the soap from my eyes and blood from my toes, I replaced the 8 shampoo and body wash bottles, 1 can of shaving cream, 1 razor, 1 painter's brush, and 4 kids toys back in some semblence of order (actually to be honest the total number of bottles of cleaning products and kids toys left in our shower has been drastically diminished).

The good news here is twofold: a) I do not believe I am in immediate danger of losing any digits, b) the new limp has evened out my walking gait.

Sincerely yours,
.....

Minor Rants

Sister.Imp is off on her honeymoon. Jamaica. One Week! When wife.imp and I walked down the aisle we did not have a honeymoon! Hell, we did not have any time off from work. Both of us went back to work the following Monday!

Color me Jealous!! Envious!! The Green-Eyed-Monster has arrived in the Playground!

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ESPN:
Where does this network get off by putting the NUMBER 1 team in the nation on its UHF cable channel?
How many people are going to go out and plop down $50+ bucks to pay for this channel? I mean I would sooner watch Late Night Cable Access channels!

Yet I am less upset by the heavy-handed tactics utilized by this network than I am at the University to which I funnel much of my (ahem--and wife.imp's) hard-earned money every year. How is it possible that the university officials sat back and said, 'Put our team on a channel it would take an inveterate explorer and the 'luck 'o the Irish' to find? In the middle of the season? And, in so doing, totally hack off the largest alumni association in the country?
Where do we sign?'

How is it possible that anyone thought this would be ok? Let's face it. ESPN-U is for those schools who still only get the Big 3 networks and still operate TV programs on the UHF band!!
I am still researching how to curse these people with very painful boils and/or plantars warts!!

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Why is it that the Imps will quietly jump in the tub and bed for wife.imp but when it is my turn to direct them at the Sandman, they turn into running targets...LOUD, PROTESTING, RUNNING TARGETS!

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Lost Items
We tore our house apart during the last two weeks. Our personal phone book and w.imp's passport were listed MIA. The phone book has been unseen since last Spring. The passport was a more recent casualty.
When I say that we tore the house apart, I did everything but take the decorative borders off of the drywall and wife.imp was at the point of scratching the walls with her fingernails. We emptied shelves, dresser drawers, kitchen cabinets, boxes, the imps bedrooms.

NADA !

So tonight wife.imp just happens to turn an envelope (manila) upside down and 'LO and BEHOLD' guess what the Blue People have left behind?

I am not going to ask why is everything is always found in the last place one looks. But I am going to ask why is it the last place one looks is also one of those places one looked into at least 2-3 times prior?

Do we have random strands of time vortices zipping through our neighborhoods?


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Who comes through the neighborhoods at night planting all those mushrooms in my yard?? And how can they grow damn big in only 2-3 days??

Events Surrounding My Sister's Wedding

Positives:
1) Unlike at my cousin's first wedding, when we arrived we did not see the groom being restrained by the best man, preventing him from 'opening a can of Whup-Ass' up on the bride's brother (since myself and my 2 brothers are actually the Bride's brothers, you can imagine our relief).
2) The imps behaved.
3) Girl.imp was the flower girl (pictures to be posted when we actually have any. It seems somebody forgot to pack the camera...)
4) Several of our relatives commented on the 20 minute ceremony (reminding us that sister's ceremony was NOT as long as a certain Catholic ceremony that they sat through 12 years ago--I would put this in the negative category, but, since I was a member of the audience this time, the shorter ceremony was appreciated)
5) Several relatives showed up that we did not expect to see.
6) Because we hosted my brothers at our house, our house is now mostly clean

Negatives:
1) We showed up at the church 21/2 hours before the ceremony for pictures our imps missed out on lunch. (we eventually left and were able to feed the imps but lost our premo parking space)
2) During the ceremony Girl.imp insisted on sniffing her armpits while standing in front of the church--MORE.THAN.ONCE!!
3) My older brother lost the card that our great aunts entrusted to his care after the ceremony. OOPS!
4) We discovered both imps love to DANCE.IN.PUBLIC (thus bringing home the nightmare that will become my future!!)
5) Somebody forgot to pack the camera and we do not currently have pictures of this event. We will gave pictures but not as soon as we initially hoped.
6) Everyone in the family knows of my lack of rhythm and inability to keep time...ANY time. Thus it should not have been a surprise to the bride that I planned to leave after the dancing and drinking (did I mention that wife.imp and I do not drink?) got into full swing.

Sister-Bride made a personal appearance at our table forbidding us from leaving early. So the latter 1/2 of the reception sucked. I sat and stared at sister until she disappeared (after all, I wanted her to be aware of our presence) then we left.

7) Somehow our TV switched channels (I was recording the game) and I lost the last 3 minutes of the OSU v MSU football game, with no hope of getting them back--EVER!

"...but mommy! I'm crying!!"

I had boy.imp in bed and mostly quiet when wife.imp rolled home from work. For the next few hours boy.imp ran in and out of his bedroom.
'I want a drink'
'I want Mozart' (he goes to be listening to Mozart -- what a boy!)
'There is a bug on the wall'
'I'm hot'

and on and on...but every request was finalized with 'go back to bed'.

You might have guessed boy.imp was not entirely supportive of his curfew and was trying to wear us down. After all, if he was not downstairs, then who was going to have fun playing with his toys.

In fact he was getting downright frustrated. After all, who were we to rain on his parade when he was working his ass off to get out of bed.

So then the wailing started. It started at the top of the stairs. It went down the hall. It went into his bedroom and GOT.LOUDER.

Then b.imp came running out of the room and issued his proclamation.

A week full of memories and bad internet connectivity has reduced them to the following one...

For what it is worth, we have had intermittant internet connectivity at the Playground this week.

So, what has happened?

wife.imp went to Boston on Tues. (a one day trip). So, girl.imp's kidar goes off at 3:30 a.m. and she wakes up wailing becuase she had a 'bad' dream.

What was this dream, you ask?

girl.imp: (wailing) mommy! MOMMY! I had a bad dream!
wife.imp: shhhh...I'm here. What did you dream.
g.imp: I dreamed you went to Boston and that you stayed there for two days!!! (renewed wailing)

Yes. You read this correctly. Girl.imp woke the household at 'too-effing-early' in the a.m. because she dreamed that wife.imp was going on a two day business trip.

There have been other events over the last week but this is what sticks out in my memory at the moment.

The Phone Call that makes one Proud to be from a Large Family

brriiing--briiing


me: Imp's residence

sister.imp: You know, I do not appreciate getting a phone call, 9 days before my wedding, from my sister who tells me she got a call from my eldest brother, who lives in Illinios, telling her to tell me that he is not going deer-hunting with 'brother-in-law' on the day of my wedding and that he will attend my wedding, because he got a phone call from one of my other brother's telling him that I was told that (eldest brother) was going deer hunting on the day of my wedding!!

me: (laughing...I was actually having trouble breathing too!)
s.imp: I really did not need this extra-stress 9.DAYS.BEFORE.MY.WEDDING. I am already stressed out as it is!
me: (laughing)--so brother.imp called sister.imp and she called you?
stressed out s.imp: ...yes?
me: because she called me to sell me popcorn for her imp and she told me that she was going to call eldest brother to sell him some too.
s.imp: she sold you popcorn? We are not allowed to sell it until Oct. 15.
me: Really? Then she called me and got my pre-order for the popcorn.
s.imp: really? you didn't buy any from my imp
me: he didn't call me. Tell you what. When he is allowed to sell the popcorn have him give me a call.

I called the eldest sib and confirmed that he was not going to miss the wedding (I don't know. Just how do these rumors start). In fact he informed me that he would have asked sister.imp if the wedding ceremony would be over by kickoff (OSU v MSU kickoff at 3:30 p.m.)