Non-Sequitur

The Golf Virus
Something happens to a certain percentage of men my age. Ordinary beer drinking, football watching dudes get infected with a very specific virus that makes them behave very peculiar. Regular guys go out and buy ridiculous shorts and stupid hats and spend inordinate amounts of time playing golf.

When the virus takes hold these men, they start planning on ways to get time on the golf course. I have known guys who wake up before 5AM on work days to get in 18 holes before work. I have seen dudes bring putters into their offices. I have been in meetings that have seemingly gone on forever and had someone declare a bathroom break. While everyone will usually stand up and stretch a bit, infected men will do golf swings with phantom clubs. I am pretty sure they are not even aware that they are doing it.

Scottsdale, Arizona is home to some of the best golf courses in the world. My high school was integrated - taking kids born with silver spoons in their mouths from Scottsdale and punks like me from the wrong side of Scottsdale Road in North Phoenix. I used to skateboard near the Scottsdale Princess. Golf should have been something I aspired to play, but I’ll be honest and say I don’t get it.

It’s not from a lack of exposure or even a lack of effort on my part. I have guys infected with the virus try to teach me the game. An ex-roommate who stood 5’8 and 135 pounds dripping wet had a beautiful drive and could knock a ball 300 yards without even trying. Under his expert tutelage, with all my size, I have managed my best drive of ⅓ that distance.

Maybe I’m secretly jealous and wish the virus could take hold in me. The guys who carry the virus seem to really love it. Their friends love it. It helps them do business with other infected guys. My life might improve if I could somehow make myself give a shit about the game of golf.

And now for something completely different...

The Mongrel Horde
Athletes and entrepreneurs often talk about “growing up hungry.” If this were a recipe for success, I should be a lot more successful because I can remember a phase of my life when the only real feeling I felt was hunger. In one year, I grew nearly six inches. Over the next two years, I filled out putting on eighty pounds. That kind of growth spurt required a lot of food.

I want to be clear, I had really good parents who did their best to take care of me. Part of the problem was an order of magnitude error my mom used to make when purchasing food. We would go to the Price Club (before it was bought by Costco) together and she would pick up a twelve pack of Bagel Dogs.

My mom had no understanding of what it was like to be a teenage boy in the midst of a crazy, fluky growth spurt. In her mind, she would think, “Twelve bagel dogs... If Evan eats one bagel dog per day and then skips a couple of days in there because he gets tired of them, that ought to last two weeks.”

In my mind, I would think, “If I eat four of these bad boys a day, this ought to last three days.”

This order of magnitude misunderstanding combined with the Mongrel Horde was what left me hungry. On a regular basis, we had this conversation.

“Mom, there is nothing to eat in this house!”

“How could there be nothing to eat? We just went to the Price Club.”

“Look around! There’s no food in the closet or in the fridge.”

I would get in a crazy agitated state and beg my mom to take me to the Price Club. Since both my parents worked, when my begging came to a fevered pitch, she would cave and take me on the weekend. We would walk around the aisles and I would sample everything offered filling the cart with the food containing the worst nutritional content possible. Bagel Dogs. Tacitos. Egg Rolls. Insane amounts of money would be spent, but on the ride home I would be happy.

It was only when the groceries were being put away that my contentment turned to fear. Not far from my house, I had a friend who could seemingly sense a disturbance in the Force. I’m not naming names, but his name did rhyme with Sick Loogie. I knew my precious Price Club food was in danger from Sick.

Like clockwork, the next day, the phone would ring after school. Sick would declare that he was rallying the troops to go skate at Sereno Park. Time after time, I tried in vain to prevent the Mongrel Horde from taking my stuff. First I’d try to keep them away from my house.

“Cool, dude. I’ll meet you there.”

“Nah, man, you live two blocks away. We’ll all meet at your house and then go over together.”

When that failed, and I’m ashamed to admit this, I tried to redirect the Horde.

“Why don’t we go to Doug’s instead. We haven’t skated at Doug’s house in a long time.”

Come to think of it, I don’t know why we ever left Doug’s house. For starters, he had a freaking well made half-pipe in the back yard. He also lived really close to the Price Club and his mom never seemed to mind stocking up on food for her son and all of his idiot friends.

I was shocked the first time I ever went into Doug’s freezer. I put two tacitos daintily onto a Dixie plate and pulled them out of the microwave. Doug’s saint of a mother took one look at my tiny serving and smiled. “Honey, you can have more if you like.” She really didn’t mind! From that moment on, it was game on at Doug’s house. I was there a lot and normal, non-saintly people would have thrown me out for eating them out of house and home. But Doug’s mom didn’t mind!

Even better, Doug had a younger sister. Common sense dictates that trying to hook up with your friend’s sister is considered very bad form. We all knew this. However, trying to hook up with your friend’s sister’s friends was considered fair game. When not skateboarding, shoving food in our face, or trying to beat the crap out of each other for no apparent reason; we spent hours ranking, arguing, and debating the rankings of Doug’s sister’s friends.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, Doug had cable TV. I knew it would take a lot to deflect the Horde; but a half-pipe, food, girls, and cable TV were my best chance. Of course, Sick would have none of it. By the time I got off the phone, I knew the Horde would be there in half an hour. I used to really think about trying to find hiding places for Bagel Dogs. Eventually, I would go through the five phases of grief and come to acceptance by the time the Horde arrived.

This ragtag group of Mongrels would descend onto my house and head right to the freezer, fixing plates, and lining up for the microwave and I knew there was nothing I could do about it. Lest anyone think that I am portraying myself to be innocent, I will admit that I used to do the same thing to Sick. I would show up at his house uninvited all the time. I would walk right through his front door, not say a word, and head right for the refrigerator.

I developed some really weird habits due to the Horde and to this day actively guard my food. When my wife first met me, she was convinced that I was the youngest of five boys. I eat defensively with my arms near my plate ready and willing to hit anyone who tries to make a grab at my food. It takes real effort to use manners and not shock and disgust dinner guests. I still, on a regular basis, walk into my mother-in-law’s house without saying a word and head right for her refrigerator just to take inventory.

Guns
Like golf, I don’t “get” guns. It’s not from a lack of exposure to them or having not made an attempt to like them. What’s more, I could never understand why, seemingly normal in every other way, would go absolutely berserk over the notion of any kind of gun control being imposed on them.

Guns are kind of a fetish item. If people started agitating the government to start regulating golf clubs or golfers felt that their beloved clubs were going to be taken away from them, then it would be in the words of Alex Jones, “1776 all over again!” (if you have fifteen minutes, regardless of your views on gun control - please watch the “debate” between Alex Jones and Piers Morgan - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XZvMwcluEg).

There is, however, a key difference between gun owners and golfers. Golfers are mostly harmless. They golf in designated areas and their golf clubs do not present a danger to society. Some golfer hold delusions of grandeur and dream of the day they can join the PGA. Golfers are not seen as the creepy or dangerous guy at work. Most people either admire their dedication to the sport or find the golf virus to be a mild eccentricity at worst.

Gun owners on the other hand... Gun owners see a world full of “bad guys”. They seek to protect themselves and their precious guns against ANY sensible form of gun control. I am sympathetic to the notion of wanting to protect one’s belongings. I don’t really have any possession that I can imagine anyone wanting to take from me, but there is still a part of my overall psyche that is a fifteen year old boy that is desperate to protect my Bagel Dogs from Sick Loogie and the Mongrol Horde.

As a frequent listener of the Adam Carolla podcast, he compares the NRA and gun rights to smokers. I am old enough to remember a time when there used to be smoking sections in restaurants and even on airplanes. At some point, laws were passed and then smokers could only smoke in bars and smokers didn’t protest. They got up and walked into the bars and smoked there. Eventually, smoking got banned from bars. The smokers left the bars silently and went outside without protest. Not content, society then forced smokers to smoke 30 feet away from a door. Today, smokers can only be found smoking outside at a distance. In bad weather, they face the elements armed only with an umbrella and a cigarette wishing they could still be inside and smoke freely like they used to.

Instead of compromising and looking at the facts, the NRA and their ilk imagine a world where their precious fetish items are taken away from them. Facts don’t matter. Common sense doesn’t matter. They love guns and view it as their right. Just like I didn’t want my Bagel Dogs taken away from me, they don’t want their guns taken away from them.

However, I am comfortable living in a society where we are told that driving is a privilege and not a right. I understand that I must submit to a breathalyzer test if asked by law enforcement. I must register my vehicle, report its sale, and renew my license to drive. For those that are not members of a well organized militia - you do not have the right to gun ownership. Society has a right to impose rules upon you and your use of weapons. Specifically, the right to a Concealed Carry Weapon (CCW) should be extremely rare. Common sense seems to dictate that those who want a CCW should be required to submit themselves to mental health testing, background checks, and registration. Being trusted to carry a deadly weapon should be regarded as an extreme privilege and sign of trust from society, not a right.

I have said multiple times that I view the NRA’s vision of getting even more guns in the hands of civilians in the country with the highest percentage of gun ownership in the world is a bad idea. I personally believe that it will lead to a state of constant paranoia and desire to use guns instead of peaceful resolution of minor conflicts. I am starting to understand the fear from those who own guns about having something taken away, but I disagree about this being a sacred right. The gun lobby fears the fate of the smoker, but I feel that arming civilians is far, far more dangerous than second hand smoke. I further believe that most gun owners would be better off not owning guns, guys - maybe you could give golf a try?