I have a problem. It’s books. I acquire them armloads at a time. Many go unread for years. They are insulating the house, I think. To this and other rationalizations, my wife, Amy, rolls her eyes, but she’s got a bad case of bibliopathy herself. She just hides it with e-books and library checkouts. We […]
Tag Archives: wife
Extreme Exfoliation
Will likes to play the adventure/horror game Dead by Daylight. He was talking about an attack technique and described surreptitiously getting behind someone and spinning his chainsaw. I thought he said the technique was called back rubbing. It was actually called “back revving,” as in revving one’s chainsaw to scare the bejesus out of a […]
Redneck Tanning Solutions
While Amy and I were driving to Costco to get flowers, I said I wanted to live half the year in the US and half in the UK. She asked why. I said so I could tan both of my arms evenly while I drive. My chest is so white that if I take my […]
Editor’s Note–TFF Issue 26
My fourteen-year-old son, Will, and I have been watching the SAW movies. What started out as a goal to build his horror movie collection has become regular father-son time on Saturday nights in our home. Arterial blood spray, innovative uses of power tools, finding new ways to make my muscles involuntarily contract—it seems there’s no […]
Channeling Pesci
My youngest daughter, Ella, wrote a series of stories called The Witch’s Spell. In it, the characters often go back and forth saying, “Okay?” “Okay,” over and over to the point of madness. This reminded me of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2. My daughter is channeling Joe, I thought. The old classics were coming […]
Review–Don’t Shake Your Miracle
Ben Rosenfeld brought many talents with him when he emigrated from Russia to the United States as a boy. One of those was a talent for academics. Ben was once accepted into a PhD program, but he had the good sense to give up the unstable career of academia for the solid financial underpinning of […]
As for Me and My Horse
My father-in-law, Tim, created a piece of string art years ago that hangs on a wall in my wife’s old room. In addition to the geometric shapes created from stretched strings secured by crafting nails, the piece presents a secondary use for said crafting nails: a Biblical saying (Joshua 24:15), formed from bunching the crafting […]
It Would Break Me
In the weeks leading up to our three-week vacation, I asked Will if he was sure he didn’t want to do double school, reminding him that if he did, he would get six weeks off once we returned. He said he was sure. “It would break me,” he said. Teenage melodrama, meet your match. Will […]
Karmic Target
Why do retail workers immediately go on the defensive when something goes wrong during a transaction? If my card is declined or an item rings up wrong, it’s as if they feel I’m one second away from pulling out a gun and shooting them in the head. Many times, I feel like I am one […]
Sentimental Fridge
We wrote an offer on a house and asked for the refrigerator as personal property. Seller’s agent comes back, says we can’t have the fridge. The seller’s grandmother gave it to him as a housewarming gift, so it has sentimental value. Sentimental value? For a fridge? Naturally, this called for texting and ripping with my […]