The Life Lessonbook is not usually an angry site. I do not write controversial things about politics or social issues or child discipline.

Today, this is an angry site.

That’s because last week, I met a genius.

It all started about a month ago when my iPhone began randomly heating up to a million degrees and burning through half the battery in 20 minutes. I was a little alarmed the first time my phone turned into a small fireball inside my pocket, but because I am kind of a lazy person, I didn’t do anything about it.

After it happened a few times, I tried resetting it, restoring it and deleting a few apps with no success. Last week, after it happened again, I plugged it into my MacBook Pro at work to recharge it, then a very bad thing happened. Continue reading →

I worked all four years of college as a telemarketer. This isn’t a fact I’m particularly proud of, and I’m still a little nervous that I’ll someday have to answer to a LOT of people who ended up with the New York Times despite not actually wanting it.

Most people who work telemarketing hate it (if you can imagine). The average lifespan of a telemarketer is probably about a month and very few people ever make money at it.

I was one of the few. There were weeks that my hourly wage with commission was two or three times what I’m making now, SIX YEARS after college. I was good because I discovered the two-part secret of telemarketing (and convincing anybody to do anything):

1. Get the person to think that it’s his idea to order a newspaper from New York even though he lives in Mobile, Alabama.
2. GET OFF THE PHONE FAST. Continue reading →

“Planning a wedding is a not as big of a deal as people make it out to be.”
– Dustin Brady, May 2009

Before I got engaged, I was happy to provide this quote over and over when the subject of weddings came up because I was young and dumb. In a few short months, I would learn learn that planning a wedding is a much bigger deal than one would think if one had not been planning said wedding since age 5. If you’re thinking about getting married, here are a few of the things that become very big deals, very quickly. Continue reading →

Nobody likes Bicycle Guy.

Bicycle Guy owns a yoga studio full of tights. His bike weighs less than your shoes. For some reason, he needs cleats to pedal. His seat (which he insists on calling a “saddle”) is half a cheek wide and costs three times more than your office chair. He chooses to ignore perfectly good bike paths so he can clog up traffic in the street.

He is the most obnoxious person in the world.

Last Saturday, I found myself surrounded by Bicycle Guy. That’s because I decided to participate in the Cleveland Clinic’s “VeloSano,” a bike race created to raise money for cancer research.

I did not blend in. Continue reading →

I do not recommend canoeing as a first date if you hope to reach date number two.

My wife and I canoed on our first date, and it was very nearly the last time we did anything at all. I thought it went great. Deserae did not. Here’s how it went:

HOUR 1

Dustin’s version:

It took a couple minutes for us to get on the same page.

Deserae’s version:

Dustin could not stop running into rocks. He just kept zig-zagging back and forth into Every. Single. Rock. Continue reading →

The regular marriage vows cover a lot of ground. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer.  

For my wedding, I was adamant that we stick with the original. None of this “I promise to forever be your Rock of Gibraltar.” You can feel OK sailing away from the Rock of Gibraltar if it starts acting crazy. “Til death do us part” leaves much less wiggle room.

This is all very important, because I walk in my sleep. Continue reading →

As a homeowner, I pay thousands of dollars in taxes to my city throughout the year for things like police, fire, schools and garbage removal. Every couple of years, the city asks for a little more money. “We’re running out of money!” they say. “If you don’t give us more money, we’ll have to fire most of the police officers, then all the criminals will know about the city that has no police officers, and they will rob your house over and over again.

So I give them more money, and they say, “Thanks, we won’t fire the police officers now!” And then they spend it all on fireworks. Continue reading →

Deserae and I are amazing at getting free to almost-free things. If you’d like, we can give you the rarely requested “free” tour of our house, where we point out all of the free things we own – this couch, those TVs, that soundbar, etc. During the tour, we are at our most insufferable.

We are especially good at going on vacations for free. Thanks mostly to credit card sign-up bonuses, we’ve booked trips to Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hawaii (multiple times) and Australia for basically free.

So when we got a poorly written, poorly designed invitation in the mail to a time share presentation that promised a free 3-day/2-night vacation with flights for two just for attending, we could not have been more excited. Continue reading →

 As a kid, I really liked baseball. I also really liked the idea of getting rich quick.

That’s why I own thousands of baseball cards.

For kids who liked baseball in the 90s, baseball cards were basically penny stocks packaged with terrible bubble gum. We told ourselves that we collected cards because we loved the sport, but really, we were all dreaming of trading in that Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card for $50 and retiring.

Because without the promise of fast cash, baseball cards are pretty lame. Can you imagine trying to get a kid excited about baseball cards today? Continue reading →

Thanks to Toni and Tim Hanrahan for our first guest post! If you’ve got a hilarious parenting story to tell, email dustin@thelifelessonbook.com.

My cousin Toni, her husband Tim and their kids Wesley (age 1), Drew (3) and Titus (4) recently travelled to Pensacola, Florida to watch Toni’s brother graduate from college. A full day of flights with three kids under five years old isn’t usually a fun experience, but the worst part of the day for Tim and Toni definitely came after they arrived at their destination.

Here are Toni and Tim to set the scene.

Toni: We had been up since 4:30 a.m. and done two flights with three kids.

Tim: By the time we got to Pensacola, we were pretty much done.

Toni: So we land and we’re getting our luggage, and I notice that the case for Tim’s iPod Touch is empty. I go, “Tim, you know where this is, right?” And he just looks at me for a second and then turns to Drew and asks, “Drew, what did you do with my iPod?”

Tim: The three-year-old doesn’t remember. Continue reading →