Patrick Says

Every once in awhile, I have what I call an OCD moment. I don’t have real OCD, but I have this nearly obsessive need for order and balance that sometimes interferes in real life. I’ll give you an example. In the wildly popular Usher hit song ‘Yeah’, at the end, Ludacris is giving shout-outs. He does them in this order: Lil’ Jon, Usher, Ludacris and Lil’ Jon. Wha!?!?! Either say Usher and Ludacris again or lose that last Lil’ Jon! It actually bothers me. Go figure.

Gather round kiddies, it’s storytime. Today’s story takes place in a faraway place called the Eighties. Let’s begin, shall we:

I was probably about 12 years old. Me and my mom lived in south Saint Louis. I was a regular kid. I was in the Boy Scouts and doing okay in school. I had many brothers and sisters, but they were all grown up and gone. One of my brothers, Dave, had been in and out of the Navy and had left a lot of his stuff in our basement. Some years earlier, I had stumbled onto a massive stack of Playboys and some magazines called Oui (more naked ladies). Anyway, having found this stash and having eight gallons of testosterone in my body (puberty was kicking in hard), I was spanking it pretty regular.

One day, for reasons I can’t fathom, I got a brilliant idea. Now in south Saint Louis, there are lot of straight through houses. Literally, they are three rooms where the front room connects to the middle room and that connects to the kitchen. Oh and a bathroom, obviously. So in this house, I slept on the couch. We were poor and for a time didn’t have a real couch, but instead had a twin bed with wedges behind it that made it look like a couch. I got this brilliant idea that I could cut down prep time and increase my spank time by bringing my three favorite Playboys and storing them between the mattress and box springs of my bed. Great idea.

So along comes the Fall Jamboree (Boy Scouts, remember) and I packed up and headed out for two days of Hell ‘roughing it’ in the wild or what passes for the wild in the middle of Missouri. The campout was fairly uneventful. I came home on Sunday evening and walked in the kitchen with my big bag. Sitting there on the kitchen table were three beautiful woman I knew well: the mountie, the wild one and the redhead. Mom was nowhere to be found, but it didn’t matter. I was so busted. I started going through my options: somebody else did it (no, she’s the only other person in the house), it’s puberty’s fault (which was actually true) and then Mom walked in…

And then something really odd happened…nothing. She looked sternly at me, which of course meant I was about to die, and said ‘Put these back where you got them and I don’t ever want to see them again.” I could not run fast enough to get those things back in the basement. I think I may have gotten grounded, but I didn’t care, I was alive. And I still had my stash in the basement…

I’ve had this one burning in my pocket for a long time and the drive to work each day brings it to the forefront. Here goes. Every day, I see at least ten different ribbons on the backs of cars. The most prominent ones are ’support our troops’ and ‘breast cancer awareness.’ Here’s my beef: if you want to support a cause, don’t put a magnet on the back of your car. DO SOMETHING!

• If you want to support the troops, go to www.anysoldier.com and find a soldier. Send him or her a letter or some snacks from home. Tell him or her you appreciate their sacrifice.
• If you want to support breast cancer awareness, go volunteer to help with a mailing at the breast cancer charity of your choice. I work for a not-for-profit and we have several mailings a month we send out.
• Collect money and participate in a walk-a-thon. I don’t care what charity you pick, heck, pick mine…walk.jdrf.org.

Take that stupid magnet off your car. We all know you bought it at Walgreens while you were getting batteries and a candy bar.

Here’s a video that hammers the point home: Ribbon Magnet Club.