With the holidays coming up I have noticed that all of these other families have “family traditions.” My family doesn’t have any, but I want us to. What kind of family traditions would you suggest I start?

Sincerely, Holiday N00b

Dear Norbert,

Your query shows a lack of invention on par with Bizzaro Edison. I have to change thousands of years of social convention AND take out the trash? Serious bogosity. You, sir, have awoken a sleeping giant with your mention of the upcoming holidays, so prepare for some loud shouting and perhaps the eating of small, disobedient children.The phrase that comes to mind when I think of the impending holiday season is not “glad tidings” or “goodwill to all.” Rather, it is “grievous offense.” I am offended by the soulless corporate machine that is ramming the holidays down our collective maw like some grey-flannel Molly Pitcher. I am offended that most of you don’t get that reference. C’mon people! Battle of Monmouth?!? The continuous genuflections before the god of commerce wears my knee-bones to dust this time of year, these ministrations returned to me in the form of socks or the occasional animatronic singing bass. What is Santa Claus but thinly-veiled home invasion made possible by the tacit condoning of sweat-shop oppression for the 2ft. and under crowd? You may keep your Schultzian pageant of passive-aggressive children, sir. Just make sure it doesn’t bump Ace of Cakes from my idiot-box.

If you want to start a new holiday tradition, how about writing a carol that is relevant to your own tepid personal experience? Most carols are just plain unreasonable or, like Tito Jackson, they just are not germaine. Global warming has ankled the sleigh industry. You can’t talk on a cell phone while driving in D-town. You think you’re going hove into view astride a horse-drawn barge festooned with bells without the sweet kiss of a DFPD truncheon? Write about what you know from your own mundane parade.  Example:

(sung to the tune of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen)

“I just came in for laxatives and half-price candy canes,

Oh blast! My former girlfriend looking at me in dismay!

They’re not for me, I swear!  But then she just walked away

Now its shame, discomfort and five-ninety-five

Next time I go to Walgreens with a mask.” 

Consider this my holiday present to you.  Save the gift receipt.

So, you want me to do your research for you, like the overworked and underpaid non-union elves that power the search engines of Al Gore’s internet? Like the Monopoly set I bought at a yard sale, no chance. The sanctity, purity and Rockwellian goodness of Halloween has been spoiled like a quart of German-style potato salad left out in the sun all day (side note: apologies to all who attended my 4th of July picnic. My bad.). All blame-laying should be lain (layed, lied, whatever) squarely on the doorstep, or if more convenient, the servant’s entrance, of those perennial despoilers of all that is true and un-despoiled. Yes, I’m looking at you, 18-50 year old demographic! Adults have hijacked this holiday like the bus in Speed, minus the emotional depth and sensitivity of Keanu Reeves. The sad jalopy of our nation’s economy is powered solely by Halloween Express outlets at this point, as the only growth sector is apparently hippie costumes for accountants (which sold much better this quarter than the accountant costumes for hippies). Do we really need legions of balding Frankensteins on our sidewalks and manicured lawns, ignorant of the Promethian subtext? Don’t even get me started on the cultural insensitivity of Elvis impersonation. The “white male of mid-south extraction and Cadillac-purchasing predilection” bashing must stop!
Frankly, it saddens me to see you wasting your youth on geriatric-centric holidays like Halloween. Why not pursue some rudimentary vexillology on Flag Day, Poindexter? Or better yet, how about training that gerbil-like attention span on the resurrection of Casimir Pulaski day? Can you sleep while his bones lay (lie, whatever) on the bottom of the ocean, mocked at by octopus and aquaman alike? Even worse, can you remain awake knowing that maypole usage is down 500% in this millennium? You need to get to work, post-haste, as Death is knocking at your door. And he likes Pixie Sticks.

I graduate really soon, but I still haven’t done anything that notable here at Deerfield
High School. Do you have any ideas to leave a legacy that don’t require a lot of effort or care? (I’m not interested in planting
a tree or anything like that.)

Sincerely,

Don’t forget me in Deerfield

~~~

Gentle Reader,

So…You want to leave a legacy behind? I’m assuming that you are referring to the recently passed legislation providing opportunities for individuals to leave their substantial and hard-earned American behinds to their grateful descendants (aka The Kardashian Act)? No?

Normally, in this case I’d boilerplate some trenchant witticism about immortality uttered by some ultimately dead guy but that constitutes level 7 irony and frankly you’re still on your yellow belt. But let’s get that “dog tries to comprehend kabuki theatre” expression off of your face, stat. One of the bonuses of NASA’s abandonment of the shuttle program is that I scored the mobile launch platform for cheap.

Terrible mileage, but lots of legroom and space for thoughtful bumper stickers. One sticker suggests that “It is better to live in infamy than burn in effigy.” True, but nothing makes for holiday memories like gathering ‘round with brimming cups of cider in hand, merry carols and a torched likeness of Guy Fawkes. That’s a Burning Man we all can enjoy. Another sticker states that “It is better to have loved and lost, than not to have loved at all.” Swell, but no amount of love is gonna matter if I can’t find my #$@& keys!

What about this sticker? The one that clearly states that I have been to Wall Drug? If you’ve got this same sticker on your car, then you’ve likely been to the greatest legacy of all time: Mt. Rushmore. Hard to argue with a gigantic granite Teddy Roosevelt (he’s really passive-aggressive). That said, what the park service and Nick Cage don’t want you to know, is that the really important presidents are carved on the backside of Mt. Rushmore. They’re all there: Millard Fillmore, Taft and…well, Taft pretty much takes up the whole thing. Jimmy Carter has his likeness engraved on the molten core of the Earth!

But back to your legacy… how about that tree idea? A full-sized redwood would look boss in the courtyard.

Usurper! Mendicant! Shape­shifter! You can have my job after you have extricated yourself off of the three-pronged trident of logical deceit that you have carelessly con­structed.

Item the first: you seem to be la­boring under that this job is freely given like so many titular archbish­oprics. Like the eyeless mole peo­ple coursing beneath our streets, this is a life that you are born into. While I may have unwittingly drawn a parallel to the secret ex­istence of the teachers’ labyrinth below R-hall, do not take the con­cept of destiny with a grain of salt. Frankly, salt is killing me through elevated blood pressure.

Item the second: do you really think that you are up to the task? This job requires heavy lifting, the ability to communicate with animals and the fortitude to wear rash-inducing pancake makeup for hours upon end. Make no mis­take, my future doppleganger, this is no cream puff job. The filling is made not from sugar and lard but from the tortured pleas of the masses. You can really get fat on the masses.

Item the last: if you are to assume my position (i.e. asleep in front of the fireplace in a burlap snuggie), who will take your position? Too often when I hear the words “col­lege students” they are not immedi­ately followed by the words “pro­test in the streets.” You collegiate types have gone as soft and bland as fat-free Oreos.

In my day, we didn’t complain about the soul-crushing limits on salad bar visits by cyber-weeping on Twitter. We solved that prob­lem with a hysterical rant delivered through a flaming megaphone.

Until you 14th graders can lay down the hackysacks and show why you are members of the phy­lum Chordata, I’m taking this gig to the grave with me. In other words, you can have it sometime in the year 2146.

Dear Mr. Motzko,
I’ll spare you the details, but I’ve been having a really bad recurring nightmare involving the M&M guys and a shake weight. What do I do?
Sincerely,
Scared and Sleepless in Deerfield

Gentle Reader,
That loud pounding sound in my ears is A) the rapture B) an aneurysm or C) the large shirtless man slowly beating the drum that calls the drones back to work at The Flipside. Try as we might, there is no rest for the wicked and the machinery of this rag is oiled with blood of the proletariat. Normally, I’d disallow your query as it was not posed in the required “Noun-verb-direct object-obscene gerund” format but I’ve got a lot of bad karma to dispel. It was a busy summer.

It is said, by those who say, that the great German chemist Kekule dreamt of the mythical serpent Ouroboros devouring its own tail. Upon awaking he was enlightened as to the structure of benzene. He was also enlightened as to the need to fix the gas leak in his bedroom. Dreams, according to Gregg Allman, are things I’ll never see, this despite having installed a fifty foot dreamcatcher on the top of my bunker. So far, all I’m collecting are dead birds

To accurately interpret your dream, I’d advise you seek out the help of the good people at Freud, Jung, Adler & Perls. I would not seek their advice about other legal matters, as evidenced by my failed discrimination lawsuit against my former employer, those white-toothed dandies in 98 Degrees. Apparently, you can be too old, fat, bald, slow, uncoordinated and offensive for the cover of Tiger Beat. After much beard sroking, even they would find your dream indecipherable as the handwriting of a kindergartener on a double espresso bender. That said, they advise that should you be plagued not by locusts, not by torrents of blood, but plagued by other quizzical dreamscapes, you should consider the following:

Dreams of Being Naked: Fear of rising clothing costs due to inflation. Curse you Mossimo Gianulli! Curse you, George D. Munsingwear! Back to buying my boss threads at Walgreens.

Dreams of Flying: A secret desire to be wedged in stowaway class on the tarmac at Atlanta-Hartsfield for twelve hours, subsisting only on a high calorie paste made from cocktail peanuts, lint and tears.

Dreams of Teeth Falling Out: Scurvy anxiety. Apparently, you are a pirate.

OMG SO BORED! After spring break, anywhere sounds better than school. I think I have Senioritis. This debilitating condition is wreaking havoc on my life. And the worst part of all– I’m just a sophomore. Do you know of any cures or treatments?
Sincerely,
Done-with-school in Deerfield

Listen up, carbon-based chair-covers. Stop dipping into my precious oxygen reserve with your litany of woe and get hip to the scene that is real post-haste. Focus your rage about the injustice of the world on something important, like why we can’t get an Orange Julius franchise in the teacher’s lounge. Teen angst is the province of teens and one visited without reason (much like the province of Alberta). Teenage worries should be about lunch table Balkanization and whether or not Poseidon is indeed your father.

In my day, Senioritis was a terminal disease that could only be cured via a brutal, civil-war quality amputation. It has since been renamed “graduation”. This was followed by senior ditch day, otherwise known as the first day of our career as ditch diggers. The world needs them too, you know.

That said, I would be violating my hippopotamus oath if I were to deny you cut-rate medical advice. Senioritis translates literally to “inflamed senior”, which should not to be confused with “senior on fire” (senior ignis) for which all charges have been dropped, provided I never teach chemistry again in Illinois.

This malady is one of the most self-diagnosed diseases of the matriculation-related spectrum and is certainly one of the most annoying for all parties involved. By comparison, Freshmeningitis is a lower grade infection. The initial onset of Senioritis can be quite subtle, if your definition of subtle is a black velvet painting of Elvis killing a lion.

Unfortunately, for you, Senioritis has no cure and will pass with an ease comparable to the male-birth ritual of kidney stones.
It would be best just to accept this knowledge calmly and with dignity. And by screaming your self hoarse into a tear-stained pillow during your free periods.

Desperate in Deerfield

Dear Desperate,
The lack of foresight and planning exhibited in your query rivals that of the fated Donner party. Fortunately, you may only have to eat your words. Perhaps you have yet to be crushed under the karmic wheel. If you plant cotton candy seeds, you’re gonna harvest snakes. Proof positive: it has not snowed in Jamaica every year after they entered the Olympic bobsled competition. By that measure, for every snow day there must b e an equal and opposite day of unquenched fire and burning. I, for one, do not wish to repeat my 8 year-old’s last birthday party. One could pine for a snow day but haven’t we been using homeroom to drill for such inclement events (fire, tornado, flaming tornado, blimp attack)? And if we keep drilling, we’re gonna win Nationals in Daytona this year. Go homeroom!
If you are indeed bent upon spitting into the wind or stepping on Superman’s cape (or worse, spitting into Superman’s cape), consider that perhaps all you want is the novelty of a school cancellation, not the actual time. Who can forget DHS’s greatest school cancellation: Gas Leak Day. The best thing about that day was how it fell into our laps like a box of kittens dropped from the heavens (note: do not drop kittens from heights above 0.5 meters). What you actually did on Gas Leak Day (sleeping, socializing, furious caber toss) mattered less than its random entrance stage left. That is why Gas Leak Day Part Deux must never happen. Besides, I use the current gas leak in my room to explain the low test scores. Patience, gentle reader. Eventually you will awaken to the dulcet tones of the Honeywell system, informing you of our latest unexpected day off in honor of some dead guy like Casimir Pulaski or John Arbor. When that happens, you’ll be like a hog in mud; filthy and ready to be processed into bacon.

Homecoming is around the corner and I still don’t have any creative ideas for asking someone to the dance. I’m thinking about Google-ing some ideas but I know that would be the lamest thing ever. Please help me out before I’m forced to ask her in a text message.

Sincerely,

Dateless in Deerfield

Dear Reader/ Supplicant,

While I generally assign a frowny-face to dance-related activities (owing to their tendency to bring on unex­pected bouts of rain and Satan), I know there hasn’t been much to do in D-town since the amusement park became haunted. I hope Scoob and his pals resolve that one post haste.

To answer your query, I have to ask myself, WWBRD (What Would Burt Reynolds Do)? As such, the best bet for deal sealing would be to challenge him or her to a cross-country race along with several hundred C-list Hollywood washouts. If you win, he/she is resigned to arm candy sta­tus for the shindig. Lose, and become a punchline for the new millennium. Either way, hilarity ensues. If madcap is not in your vocabulary, check your dictionary.

Next, consider something more subtle and tasteful, such as carving your intent into a local large outcrop of granite (Mt. Deerfield, for example) or the timeless touch of a hand-painted dirigible, tethered to the roof of your desired dance partner. If all else fails, nothing gets the point across like a barrel of monkeys. Just don’t forget the air holes in the barrel.

Do you have a question for Mr. Motzko? Email them dhsflipside@gmail.com, and you may have your question answered in a future issue of The Flipside.

Dear Mr. Motzko
I was just driving home from the Burger King in Waukegan, and I thought to myself, “I really need a better shortcut to get home, because the way that I am going is definitely substandard.” Some of my friends suggested a GPS, but I consider myself a little more old school than that. Do you know any good shortcuts from Burger King to my house, or if not, what are your all time favorite short cuts?
Sincerely,

Cardiac Phil

Dear In-Need-Of-A-Doctor-Phil:

Before I dispense with the wisdom like some pale, fleshy Pez geegaw, I want to say how glad I am to be back writing for the Flipside. The writers strike has overthrown the Dickensian workhouse conditions to which guest columnists have continually been subjected. Frankly, it was starting to make the diamond mine from Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom look like a tempting career move. However that is, to borrow from the song, water under the bridge over troubled water…

While I generally prefer the boot cut, to accommodate the occasional need to sport a python-skin cowboy boot, my favorite short cuts are as follows (in an order only understood by the highest level Stonecutters):

1) The semi-circle route over Greenland. It really cuts down on my daily commute between DHS and Finland. It is even faster with an I-Pass.
2) Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts”. Where else can you see Tom Waits and Huey Lewis in the same scene? It is like watching matter and anti-matter collide. Which is to say, sweet.
3) The short ribs at the Pig n’ Whistle (6048 Kerr-Rosemont Road, Millington, TN). Comes with a side of fried dill pickles, fried green tomatoes and a loaf of white bread for the sop. If you don’t know what the sop is, I have nothing but pity for your soul.

My Least Favorite short cut had to be the short cuts I received when I fell into a patch of Ocotillo cacti in the Sonoran desert. A hummingbird had flown up my pantleg (which happens when you wear boot cut jeans) sending me into a dance that would be the envy of St. Vitus. Angry creatures, those creatures. Eight drops of blood and all of them angry.

Dear Mr. Motzko,

I have spent months trying to fulfill my bucket list, but all I have been able to check off is “make a bucket list.” I mean, it’s not like Bigfoot will just show up at my door. I need more resources than these old snowshoes and two cases of Lugols’ solution. And why the heck can’t I find a Nintendo Wii? I see the stupid thing on TV all the time, but, according to those smart-alec sales representitives at Best Buy, they’re “never in stock.” I can’t even obtain a containter of all red Jelly Bellies, you know, the only good ones. Am I going about this all wrong? Or have I just set the bar too high?

Sincerely,

Lost in Walmart

The conceptual density of your query breaks the devil’s plow, son. If I were a licensed physician (and not just a licensed minister, notary public and jazz dancer), I would recommend that you sit back and take a chill pill. Seeing as how your insurance plan does not cover this, perhaps you can learn from the challenges I am encountering in fulfilling my own bucket quest.

1) 1 Bucket. In the form of a young English lad, first name Charles. Should be a metaphor for the deadly sin of envy. Needed to gain access to the chocolate factory such that I can avenge the demise of my half-brother, Augustus.
2) 1 Bucket of Popeye’s. Extra spicy. All neck meat.
3) 1 Bucket. Filled with the tears of the faithful. Must be collected every August 16th at the Meditation Gardens (3734 Elvis Presley Boulevard). They say that it holds the secret to eternal life. They also say it serves as a great marinade. Who exactly are “they” anyway?
4) 1 Bucket. Galvanized nickel. Needed to complete the costume in my one-man, off-broadway reinterpretation of “The Iron Giant”. You will be moved.