A Happy New Year and L’Shana Tova to my fellow members of the tribe this morning…
There are all kinds of reasons parents offer up in excuse notes, explaining why kids are late.
Ninety-nine percent of them are boring and routine. That’s why when we get a letter like this from Nicole Poppic, a California mom to 14-year-old Cara, it goes viral and makes people laugh. Well, I laughed pretty hard.
Seems that on a recent morning young Cara wouldn’t get out of bed, put headphones on while Mom was talking to her in the car, then asked for an excuse note.
Nicole, who like all parents has a limit on how much shit she will take from her kid, responded first with a perfectly reasonable act:
“I reached over and took her phone off her lap, unplugged her headphones, and threw her phone out the car window,” Nicole told Today.com. Then she wrote with this beautiful and cutting missive (above), explaining her daughter was late due to “teenage-ism.”
Some excerpts: Adolescents across our great nation are afflicted (with teenage-ism) and there is no known cure. This morning she suffered from an inability to remove herself from her bed and also felt the need to talk back to her birth-giver.
She seems to be recovering her senses after watching her cell phone fly out the car window.
**Next up, me and millions of others were probably waiting with baited breath to see what “Saturday Night Live” would cook up for Saturday’s season premiere, given all the shenanigans that happened with the Clinton-Trump election race last week. (I mean honestly, there is so much Trump awfulness flying around that I literally can’t keep track. The idea he might not have paid taxes for 18 years seems like a huge deal, but by Wednesday six more things will have taken its place.)
Happily, “SNL didn’t disappoint. Alec Baldwin, a loathsome human being himself but a pretty good actor, did a great Trump impression, and Kate McKinnon of course killed it again as Hillary. This whole opening sketch is brilliant, but my favorite moment is McKinnon’s oh-so-subtle pushing her jaw back in place after one of Trump’s statements…
**Finally today, lots of great sports stuff happened over the weekend (I don’t follow college football much, but that Louisville-Clemson game was wild, and I’m genuinely interested in the baseball playoffs this year because the Mets, Indians, and Cubs are compelling storylines) over the weekend, but before getting into all the NFL stuff like usual, wanted to link the great Vin Scully’s final sign-off after 67 years of Dodgers broadcasts.
— My cousin and fellow Jets-diehard Rob texted me last Sunday to say the Jets season was over already, at 1-2. I scoffed at him, told him he was crazy, nothing’s over after three games.
Yeah, they’ve played four games now. Season’s over. They ain’t making the playoffs. Awful effort at home against Seattle Sunday (if Russell Wilson was that good hurt, what the hell would he have done healthy?), three more Ryan Fitzpatrick picks, and a defensive performance that reeked of the Kotite years. At the Steelers and at the suddenly-struggling Cardinals the next two weeks will probably equal 1-5.
All I can say is: NHL season begins soon!
— Matt Ryan, welcome back to the “Good NFL QB Club!” We’ve missed you buddy. Wow what a performance from the Falcons Sunday. Matty Ice passed for 503 yards (300 to Julio Jones, above) as Atlanta crushed Carolina.
— OK, everyone who had Carolina and Arizona, the two NFC championship game teams last year, both 1-3 after four games, please raise your hands. Didn’t think so. Reason No. 4,532 why I don’t gamble on sports.
— ‘Bout time the Patriots lost without Tom Brady. Congrats to Rex Ryan, you beat a team playing with an injured 3rd-string quarterback. Now Brady will come back and the Pats will go 14-2.
— The L.A. Rams are somehow 3-1. I thought they looked horrible on “Hard Knocks” this summer. Usually it’s the opposite, the fabulous behind-the-scenes show makes a team look great, then they stink in real life. Call it the “Reverse HBO Jinx” this year.
— Finally, Antonio Brown of the Steelers got a 15-yard penalty for, I don’t know, humping the air during a game Sunday night. Meanwhile, I saw at least five shots to the head of players Sunday afternoon that weren’t penalized. Sure, NFL, you’ve got your priorities straight.
Wide World of Stuff 