I apologize in advance for this post being short, but I am currently very busy living a lifelong dream. As one person put it in the introductory video I had to watch Monday morning, I am engaged in “the highest call of duty an American citizen can answer after military service.”

I am on jury duty.

I have never understood why people hate getting jury duty. You get paid time off of work – which everybody seems to enjoy – to be part of an episode of Judge Judy or Law and Order – which are two of the longest-running TV shows of all time for a reason. PLUS they pay you! Twenty dollars a day! Which, after parking and lunch, leaves you approximately $7 to do WHATEVER YOU WANT! It is like getting paid to be part of the greatest reality show ever.

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When you’re in 9^th grade, you’re afraid of a lot of things: voice crackage, pretty girls, body odor at inopportune times, etc. But as a freshman in high school, one thing terrified me above all others.

Wedgies.

I joined my high school’s soccer team because I liked the idea of sports. My talent ensured that I would never see the field, but my age allowed me to participate in one very special tradition.

The initiation ceremonies always occurred while returning from away games. Somewhere around Medina, Ohio, one lucky freshman would hear his name chanted from the back of the bus. If the freshman did not immediately get up and report to the seniors, he would be in Big Trouble and should probably never enter a locker room again for the rest of his life.

Once he reached the back of the bus, the freshman would get mobbed by upper classmen who would start yanking his underwear. In the front of the bus, the rest of the freshman would silently face forward, listening to the cheering, the screaming and finally the rrrrrrrrRRRRRRRIP of a waistband being torn free from a pair of tighty whiteys.

The newly welcomed member of the team would stumble back to his seat holding his waistband like the world’s saddest trophy, while his classmates would start praying that the coaches would recover from their unexplained temporary deafness, notice the Welcome Wedgies and stop the tradition before their turn came.

Nobody stopped the wedgies. Continue reading →

Deserae and I have different feelings about Chipotle that are summed up by the following quotes:

“Chipotle is a pretty good fast casual restaurant that does not make me feel horrible when I eat it.” – Dustin Brady. March 11, 2015

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if I quit my job and started working at Chipotle?” – Deserae Brady. Multiple occasions

Deserae’s dream is to eat a steak taco bowl every meal for the rest of her life. She gets irrationally angry any time someone suggests that Moe’s Southwest Grill is better than Chipotle. One time I took her to Chipotle on Valentine’s Day, and she said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever done.

Of course, I had no idea what I was starting when I first suggested that we pick up Chipotle one Sunday afternoon a few years ago. We made it through the overwhelming assembly line (“I’ll have the brown salsa.” “You mean the green salsa?” “I mean that…” “DON’T REACH OVER THE GLASS!”) and sat down.

“It’s pretty good,” I said after a few bites.

“It’s really good!”

“Yeah, I like the way they…”

Deserae’s eyes got wide. “This is really, REALLY good!”

I don’t know if this is true because I’ve never seen it occur, but I imagine her reaction was not unlike someone who’s just tried cocaine for the first time. Continue reading →

One of the best parts of becoming an adult is the moment you realize that you are now capable of getting that thing you always wanted as a kid. Dirt bike? In-ground pool? Tree house with a giant TV? It’s all good! YOU HAVE A CREDIT CARD NOW!

One of the worst parts of becoming an adult, however, is the following moment. That’s when you realize that as an adult, it’s no longer acceptable to spend money on dumb junk. You can usually push through this realization while you’re still single, but if you’re married? Good luck.

Since we’ve been married, Deserae has shot down almost all of my childhood dreams. I usually test the waters by bringing them up like they’re a big joke. So we’ll be sitting on the couch, and I’ll say something like, “Hey I had a funny idea! Can you imagine if we bought a trampoline and put it next to our sun porch? We could open our bedroom window and jump off of the sun porch roof onto the trampoline every morning! Wouldn’t that be hilarious?!”

Then she glares at me as if to say, “I know you’re saying this as a joke, but this is not the first time you’ve brought up the trampoline. I want to assure you that I will have to be dead before you spend a single cent on a freaking trampoline.” Then I nod and a small part of me dies.

Although this routine has repeated itself many times over the years, I was once able to sneak one past the guards. This is the story of the life and death of a childhood dream deep fryer. Continue reading →

Most of life’s lessons sneak up on you when you’re least expecting them. Monday’s lesson was not one of those.

In a venture that I’m sure I’ll write more about in the future, Deserae and I have recently started selling things online. It has been going well. This Monday, it started going REAL well. By 6 p.m., we had tripled our previous high day for sales. At 7 p.m., we found a new treasure trove of items to sell. By 8 p.m., I had used the word “goldmine” at least three times. At 9 p.m., I sent a text with nine money bag emojis.

So when I drove into a pothole at 9:30, I knew I was probably due. Continue reading →

Deserae and I went to Hawaii a few weeks ago because it is zero degrees in Cleveland, which seems to be the optimal time to leave if you want to spark a jealous rage in your co-workers.

The trip was perfect. There were leaping whales and impossibly beautiful days and perfect, empty beaches and I can see that rage in your eye, so I’ll stop now. Instead, I’ll share an important lesson I learned from the worst place in Maui.

For me, the worst place in Maui is a town called Lahaina. Lahaina’s main feature is one long street where someone decided to pack in as many restaurants, souvenir shops and timeshare operators as possible. I call it the “Gatlinburg of the Pacific.”

Since Lahaina is one of the only places on the island open after 6 p.m., it gets crazy at night. (Not crazy like Bourbon street. More like a crazy number of retirees watching glass blowing.) Anyways, for someone like me whose favorite part of vacation is pretending that there are no other humans on the planet while snorkeling in the middle of the ocean, it is a nightmare. Continue reading →

There’s a subtle but real difference between “thrifty” and “cheap.”

Thrifty people check for discount codes before buying something online. Cheap people close checkout lines with their coupon schemes to get 25 free tubes of toothpaste. Thrifty people bring their pack a lunch for work. Cheap people are OK with leftovers from the trash as long as they’re “above the rim.”

When you’re trying to live a thrifty lifestyle, you sometimes wonder if you’ve gone a little too far. It’s usually tough to tell if you’re about to cross the line into cheap territory, but – very rarely – you arrive at a defining moment in your life. A point where you know that if you move forward, there’s no going back.

For me, that moment was February 15, 2011. Dalentine’s Day.
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Pro football coach Herm Edwards once famously got irked at a reporter who asked if his team had quit. He stared at the reporter for a moment before slowly answering, “This is the greatest thing about sports. (long pause) You play…to win…the game. (condescending look) Hello? You play! To win! THE GAME!”

I would not have put it exactly that way. I would have looked at the reporter and said, “This is the greatest thing about sports: You play…to chew…the sunflower seeds.”

Sitting on the baseball bench for four years, I became AMAZING at sticking half a bag of sunflower seeds in my cheek and cracking, spitting and eating them one-by-one. It’s a real skill. The sunflower seeds were my favorite part of games, because my brief on-field appearances were disasters.

In addition to not having any semblance of athletic ability, I also lack what some might call the “Eye of the Tiger.” When I would take the field, the voice in my head would stop saying, “you play to chew the sunflower seeds” and start up with, “you play to not look dumb.”

This always resulted in me doing something incredibly dumb. Continue reading →

Deserae does not care for surprises.

One day when we first got married, I hid around a dark corner and jumped out to scare her because that’s what I’ve always assumed you do when you live with someone.

I timed the jump perfectly.

“Boo!”

WHAM!!

I learned her reflex when surprised is to whop the surpriser directly in the stomach.

And it’s not just bad surprises. When we were dating, I told her I had a surprise for her.

“What is it?!”

“I can’t tell you, it’s a surprise!”

“Tellme tellme tellme!”

“Nope!”

I assumed the conversation would end there. It did not. Twenty minutes later: “Did you buy me something? It better not have been expensive. Just give me a hint! OK don’t. Wait, maybe a little one. I don’t know. Tellllllllll meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

I tell you all that to tell you this: I am currently a very out-of-practice surpriser. Continue reading →

“Excuse me, can I ask you kind of a weird question?”

After seven innings of not saying boo, the lady sitting next to me and Deserae at an Indians game this summer finally decided just to go for it. I knew what the question would be before it left her mouth.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-eight!” Her eyes got big and she looked at husband. “Twenty-eight!!”

“I know I look like I’m 16.”

“You look like you could be 14! And then we saw your wedding ring and I was like, ‘Noooooooo’ and then we saw her wedding ring and – 28! How old are you?”

Deserae squinted at the lady. “Twenty-six.”

“YOU LOOK LIKE BABIES! I told my husband…”

For several minutes, she could not stop herself telling the two strangers she had just met (who happen to be adults) how much they look like babies. You may not have guessed that this is acceptable behavior, but after having this conversation 1,000 times, I’ve come to find out that it’s apparently OK as long as you end it with the phrase our new friend said before she turned back to the game.

“Well, at least you’ll be happy about it someday!”

Earlier this month I turned 29. I am still not happy about it. Continue reading →