Many of you have told me that you are envious of the fact that I get to travel all of the time. My job does allow me to visit exotic locations like Louisville, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Minneapolis where I get to soak up the rich history and diverse culture. My travels have truly allowed me to become the quintessential Renaissance Man. However, my son Jordan (in a vain attempt to mimic my sophistication and worldliness) has recently moved to a city in the Netherlands called Maastricht. 

Ostensibly, this is a four month trip in which my son is shepherding a group of undergrads during a semester abroad while he lectures and does research for his dissertation. The truth, however, is that it is all a ruse that is allowing him to run all over Europe and drink beer.

He has posted pictures from Salzburg, Munich, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and Vienna, and I just got a post card from him while he was in Copenhagen, (for all of my readers from Oklahoma, Copenhagen is an actual city in Denmark and not just a brand of snuff) and in every group of pictures there are numerous photos of him drinking beer.

I’m so frickin’ jealous I can hardly stand it.

All kidding aside, my son and his lovely wife are enjoying the opportunity of a lifetime and I couldn’t be happier for him or prouder of him.

I give you Jordan LaBouff: Friend, Teacher, Scholar, Intellectual, Writer, Video Gaming Expert, Rock Star, and International Beer Connoisseur.

You could try to be cooler than my son, but you would fail miserably.

EDIT: As further evidence of his beer-fueled rampage of Europe,  I offer the following photo he posted this morning from Oktoberfest in Munich:

What do you wear to work? Are you a buttoned-up, buttoned-down traditionalist, or are you one of those folks that feels comfortable showing up to a client meeting wearing pink sweat pants and a stained Metallica T-Shirt from 1985? Do your clothes make a statement about who you are? Do they say “this person is stiffer than Al Gore and really needs to get laid” or do they say “I just failed my drug test?”

I didn’t think twice about my work wardrobe until about six months ago. I wore pretty much the same thing to work everyday; a buttoned down oxford dress shirt with the company logo on the pocket (I owned about thirty of them) dress slacks, and a tie. If I had a meeting with a client I wore a suit, no questions asked. Our company president was about 65 (going on 90) and in the 15 years I worked for him I never saw him in anything other than a suit.

Then I switched firms six months ago. The president of my new firm is 40 (going on 17) and in the six months I’ve known him I’ve rarely seen him in anything other than cargo shorts and his version of a PETA T-shirt (People Eating Tasty Animals).

My new company works really hard at marketing itself as being cutting edge, hip,trendy and relaxed. When I first started, I went to Pasadena to do a trade show and I was to meet one of the guys from our LA office at the show. I showed up in a charcoal gray suit, starched white shirt, and a silk baby blue tie (a look beaten to death by politicians now for decades). When my coworker walked into the building he started laughing and said “what the hell are you wearing?!?!?” “What I always wear to trade shows” I mumbled sheepishly. He pointed around the convention hall and said “do you see any other human being here in a suit???” I had to admit I didn’t and so he sent me back to my hotel to change.

I’ve discovered since that time that the accepted dress for meeting with clients at my new firm is a pair of faded distressed jeans. However, they can’t be faded and distressed from having worn them a lot. They must come that way from the Versace store and they must cost more than a typical mortgage payment. The jeans are to be coupled with a designer shirt that has been cut so that it is intended to be tucked in, but AT NO TIME are you EVER to tuck a shirt in.

Yes, everyone who is the public eye in my company dresses this way, and to the best of my knowledge, none of them are gay. So I’m really confused.

We were all together a few months ago at a trade show in Las Vegas. While we were out one night they drug me into a trendy looking store and refused to let me leave until I bought at least one new shirt. They started picking out stuff and throwing at me. I kept looking around for cameras because I was certain I was on a mutant version of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” (Let me reiterate that all of these guys are married. However, I think I’m going to start calling their wives to see if these are simply marriages of convenience.)  I walked out with a black shirt that had silk cuffs with six buttons, a collar that would make the flying nun proud, and enough intricate detail work to keep a sweat shop worker in China busy for a week. I’m not going to say how much this shirt cost but I did have to take out a disbursement from my 401K when my credit card bill arrived.

I’m trying to be more hip. I’ve stopped tucking in my shirts, I’ve grown a goatee, and I’m wearing my hair a bit shaggier. However, I’m about to turn 51 and at some point trying to look “hip” becomes looking “silly and desperate.”

I just got back from a meeting in Mobile, AL with a very prominent African-American church. I knew my company’s “look” wouldn’t fly at that meeting so I wore a suit and it’s a good thing I did because everyone at the meeting was dressed to the nines in tailored suits.

I have to admit, I felt like I was back at home. What do you wear to work?

I am firmly behind the idea of health care reform, but I’m actually the perfect demographic to be opposed to it.

I’m a middle aged white male with an upper-middle class income who (up until about six months ago) had almost all of their insurance costs covered by their employer.  I’m in a high tax bracket and I know I’m supposed to be livid at the idea that somebody on welfare or somebody that has a different color skin than I have might get health care that I’m helping foot the bill for, because frankly, I’m out there working for mine and By-God they can do the same.

I’m embarrassed to admit that up until six months ago I didn’t even know how much my health insurance cost. My employer covered all but a fraction of it and I what I paid showed up as a tiny blip on my pay stub that I didn’t even pay attention too.

Then I moved jobs.

My new employer doesn’t provide health coverage until you’ve been on the job six months, so I took out a bridge policy that only covered catastrophic illness until insurance at my new firm kicked in. I thought it was a little pricy but I chalked it up to being a temporary policy. Since I’m brand new, my employer only pays for half of my coverage and none of my wife’s. I have no children left at home so I don’t need a full family policy.

I got my first paycheck after my new health insurance policy kicked in and I was certain there had been a mistake. I called our company accountant and said “you took $360.00 out of my check for health insurance. Do you just deduct for health insurance once a month?” “No” he laughed, “your out-of-pocket is $740.00 per month. $360.00 will be taken out of every paycheck.

I almost shit myself. “That means that health insurance for just my wife and I costs almost a $1,000 per month?!?!?” “Yes,” he replied. “We’re trying to negotiate with other providers to find a cheaper solution but that is what it currently costs.”

How freaking much would it cost if I had five kids at home?!? My insurance is purchased along with many others in order to get a group rate. How much would it cost if I was just trying to provide it on my own?!?

I’m lucky; I don’t like paying $740.00 out of pocket every month, but I can do it without worrying where my next meal is coming from. How does anyone living on minimum wage afford health insurance? Obviously they don’t. Now I understand why hospital emergency rooms are overrun by people simply needing basic health care.

I’m sure many of you reading this are thinking “welcome to reality buddy” and you would be exactly right. I’ve been living in my little insulated white-bread world hearing others in my demographic whine about how their choices might be limited.

I’ve read all the arguments. I understand that the right is afraid of anything that reeks of Socialism. I’ve read history books too. I understand the argument that any government that pays $3,500.00 for a hammer is likely to screw up health care. As a foster parent I dealt with DHS all of the time and I fully understand how the government can f*#k up a social assistance program. But frankly, if you’re in my demographic and you’d rather see those less fortunate than you suffer and possibly die because of a lack of adequate health care just because you don’t want the government involved and you don’t want any of your tax dollars to help pay for it…I’m embarrassed for you.

Editorial Warning: The following post may be offensive to many of my fellow liberal Democrats because it reveals the fact that I just shot several small defenseless woodland creatures with a 12 gauge shotgun, and worse yet, I enjoyed it.

I realize that as a fervent, card carrying member of the Democratic Party that I should adopt PETA’s philosophy and become a vegetarian who trades tofu recipes with all of my friends at the local organic food store, but dammit, have you tasted prime rib??!?!

I think Panda Bears and baby Seals are just as cute as the next guy and I find the idea of any animal suffering needlessly to be morally repugnant. But I also know that many animals taste really good with barbeque sauce, so I’ve never been able to jump on the PETA bandwagon. I might jump on if it were a chuckwagon, but that defeats the whole spirit of what they are trying to accomplish.

I also know that I’m supposed to hate guns and support strict gun control. I understand the arguments intellectually and I’ve tried really hard to become fervent about the issue. I liked the John Cusack, anti-gun movie “Runaway Jury,” but I also liked “Grosse Pointe Blank” where Cusack played a hit man. I’m sure if I, or someone I loved, had been the victim of gun violence I would feel differently, but I can only describe my feelings about gun control as complete ambivalence. Perhaps that’s because I’ve lived my entire life in Oklahoma where it is a state law that everyone own at least one Ford F-150 pickup truck with two shotguns in the gun rack and a bird dog in the back. Or perhaps it’s because I have to admit that I find it a wee-bit disingenuous to want the government to stay out of the abortion issue and the whom should be able to get married to whom issue, but want them to step in when it comes to guns.

So to all of my fellow Democrats who are shaking their heads in disgust at me, I’m truly sorry. But be careful…I might be packing.

I have recently become the Great White Hunter. I don’t actually hunt, or at least I haven’t in over 30 years, but my boss asked me if I’d like to come on an office hunting trip. I really had no desire to go but since I’m a salesman and a soulless whore (see previous post) who would gladly do anything to promote his career I immediately said yes.

My boss is the poster child for the NRA. His personal gun collection totals well over a quarter-million dollars. The man owns his own 50 caliber machine gun for God’s sake. He could easily defend most third world countries all by himself. Today was the opening day of Dove season in Oklahoma and I’ve discovered that my boss closes the corporate office each year on opening day and takes the entire staff hunting.

He told me to wear camouflage. Of course I don’t own any camouflage so I went to Wal-Mart to buy some. Everyone in Oklahoma wears camouflage. In fact, you might well find many pastors preaching in camouflage on any given Sunday, so I shouldn’t have felt so conspicuous in it, but conspicuous I felt. I was certain that anyone looking at me could tell I was so out of place in those clothes that I might as well have been auditioning for a fifth spot with the Village People.

I got up at 4:00 a.m. to drive to meet everyone (apparently birds keep really stupid hours) and was handed a 12 gauge shotgun and shown how to use it.  We hiked way the hell out into the middle of nowhere and sat down and waited for the birds to fly by.

I shot and killed four defenseless little doves. Yes, the birds that bring strips of cloth to Cinderella so she can make her dress for the ball. I know I should feel terrible but actually, I really enjoyed it.

I didn’t enjoy it enough to go buy my own gun and hang it in a gun rack in my car (primarily because people who stop at the end of on-ramps deserve to be shot, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to help myself) but I did enjoy it.

At one point my boss was complaining that I wasn’t taking enough shots. He told me that I could shoot at birds that were farther away because “your barrel is three or four inches longer than anyone elses.” I immediately replied “I can’t count how many women have told me that” because, frankly, any opportunity for a good penis joke should never be passed up.

So I’ve become the Great White Hunter and I’m afraid of what might happen next. If start repeating Larry the Cable Guy jokes, or start referring to myself with two first names (i.e. Billy Mark) I hope that all of my liberal Democratic friends will come and stage an intervention.