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.
Continue reading →

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 →

Guyana is in South America, not Africa.

This is important to know if you ever meet Eon Chapman, one of my favorite roommates from college. The first time I met him, I learned that he had just arrived from Guyana and asked a question about Africa. Eon stared at me and shook his head.

“Whenever you Americans see a black person, you automatically think they are from Africa.”

Eon is one of the most energetic people I’ve ever met. At 5 a.m. on the first Sunday of the semester, my other roommate Josh and I woke up to lights and loud music. Eon had apparently decided to start the day with our without the rest of the room. Josh nearly killed him.

Eon could not keep all that energy in the room, so two weeks after arriving on campus, he made a decision. He was getting a driver’s license. I kept telling him that I was pretty sure he’d have to be in the country longer than a month to get a driver’s license, but he wouldn’t listen. He walked to the DMV, where he was given a packet stuffed with forms and lists and brochures and told to return when he could figure out what to do with it all. Continue reading →

I love my sister Amanda. She’s funny and generous and the hardest-working person I know.

She’s also The Human Plague.

Two years ago, Amanda came home from college with one reddish eye. Five days after she arrived, everyone in our family had raging pink eye. If you, like me, have forgotten how bad pink eye is because you haven’t had it since you were in third grade, let me reassure you that, outside of maybe leprosy, it is the most disgusting disease a human can get. We all spent January glaring at Amanda with glowing red eyes.

This type of thing happens to Amanda a lot. My theory is that she pushes her body so hard that every once in a while it says, “CANCEL EVERYTHING!” and gets super sick and spews germs at everything for a few days.

Anyways, a few weeks ago, The Human Plague came home for Christmas. And like clockwork, I started developing a scratchy throat a few days later. I called my mom and mentioned that I thought I was getting sick.

“Yeah, Amanda said she’s starting to get sick too.”

AHHHHHHH!!! Continue reading →

NOTE: This will be the last post of 2014 since the next two Wednesdays fall on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. See you in 2015!

When you live in Ohio, going to college in Florida is great because you get go to the beach every weekend while everyone at home is freezing their buns off. What’s not so great is the fact that Florida is far away from Ohio, and you’re in college, which means you don’t always have the best car for a 15-hour drive.

Usually everything works out fine. But sometimes

Screeeeaaaaeaeaeeee…

When you’re driving down an empty Kentucky highway at midnight

…eeeeeaaaaEEEEEEAAAA…

Your luck runs out.

….EEEEEECLUNK CLUNKCLUNKCLUNKCLUNKCLUNK.

My luck finally ran out one cold December night my sophomore year of college. A few hours past Nashville, my car decided that enough was enough. It started making the aforementioned screaclunkclukclunk sound, forcing me to get off at the next exit: Mumfordville, Kentucky – proud home of a Sonic, Super 8, Marathon gas station and, as I would later discover, one very crabby mechanic named Buck. Continue reading →

Deserae recently shared five pictures of our home decorated for Christmas on Facebook with the one-sentence caption “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Brady house!! :)”

The pictures currently have 56 likes, which is about 53 more than this post will get. I can see why. The pictures make our home look perfect. I could see them being featured in a magazine with the caption, “Awwwww,” alongside a newlywed couple kissing under mistletoe with their Goldendoodle puppy sitting nearby looking embarrassed.

As someone who was there, I feel obligated to share a little behind-the-scenes on those perfect pictures.

Enjoy!! 🙂 Continue reading →