Yeah, I know Halloween's over, but I gotta say this

I know one thing my older boys did not do this Halloween: roll anyone’s yard.
Come to find out that there’s been a whole lotta nighttime pranking in my neighborhood lately. Most of it has NOT been as good-natured as the two times my own kids rolled someone, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.
Ever since I joked about our buying TP for my kids and a couple of their friends so they could roll another kid’s yard during a recent sleepover, I’ve gotten e-mails and Facebook messages detailing all manner of midnight vandalism.
Of course, everyone now assumes my kids did it all.
So I’ll just set their records straight. They rolled two friends. The friends know who they are. They did not touch anyone’s house or doorbell. They did not spread anything on the windows of anyone’s house. They did not touch anyone’s vehicle or patio furniture.
The only product my kids threw on anyone else’s property was toilet tissue, Publix brand two-ply. No eggs, no paint, no pickle relish. (I know, sick, right?)
They didn’t even fork anybody.
Needless to say, our family won’t be chuckling about our faux delinquents around the dinner table anymore, since my flip remarks probably made most of the people who live in my neighborhood assume my kids are straight outta juvie.
And why wouldn't they? After all, some idiot wrote about it in the (online) newspaper!
Many parents, however, have whispered to me tales of their own kids' failed attempts at neighborhood naughtiness and lessons learned the hard way.
For example, nothing ruins a fun night of TP-ing faster than dropping your cell phone in the bushes.
I also learned (second-hand) that if you plan a night of juvenile jocularity, your getaway vehicle should not have a loud, distinctive muffler that your neighbors hear regularly as you drive out of the subdivision on school mornings.
In fact, the closest thing my older kids came to committing a crime on Halloween is the fact that they are six feet tall and they still went trick-or-treating. Some towns have age limits on that.
They did make an attempt to go out in “costume,” but at age 14 Halloween’s not about dressing up anymore. It’s about getting candy. A LOT of candy.
I think next year we’ll encourage them to hang around here, maybe pull the old “live scarecrow on the porch” trick and leave the midnight TP runs to some other unsuspecting parents.
It just goes to show that one kid’s hilarious joke is another mom’s home maintenance nightmare.

All that for one casserole

This is why I don't make chicken spaghetti very often.

Nashville home to BIG spenders

Woo-eee, do Nashvillians like to spend money!

According to Bundle.com, a site that lets you compare your own spending habits with those around the nation, Nashville ranks seventh on the list of the 25 top-spending cities. Austin, Texas, ranked No. 1. Nashville ranked higher than Miami, San Francisco or L.A.

The list ranks mostly discretionary spending and does not include mortgage, insurance or health insurance. What surprised me is that most of it is spent on eating out.

In Nashville, residents spend a little more than $500 per month dining out. But in my home county, Williamson, residents spend an unbelievable $700 per month eating out.

I can't even imagine. The things we could do with $700 a month...

This might be why Tennessee ranks second in the U.S. in personal bankruptcies.

All this just makes me want to hurry up and write my post, A Case For Cooking.

Bad ads during the Big Game

If you watched the Super Bowl commercials last night, you may have come away thinking that being an American man is a fate worse than death.

That's the overwhelming impression given by companies like Bud Light, Flo TV (Eh?!!!) and (cough!) Dodge in their ads that portrayed men as spineless idiots required to sign over their testicles when they sign their marriage licenses.

What's even worse is that at first I kept shushing my family when I would see a commercial come on since it is, after all, the Super Bowl and we know the commercials are a big deal. I guess I was too trusting that companies who paid a reported $2 million would do something worthwhile with that time slot they bought. Lesson learned.

At first I didn't catch the misogyny in the Betty White ad for Snickers, although I should have known woman-bashing would be the night's theme when eating a Snickers turned Betty White back into her normal, manly self. I was just laughing too hard at Betty White saying, "That's not what your girlfriend said last night."

Then I noticed that I felt compelled to yell at the TV after nearly every commercial (every commercial that wasn't hawking a CBS show, that is.)

"Wow, being a man really stinks," I'd shout sarcastically from my post in the kitchen, where I'd been making Super Bowl snacks for the four men in my house.

I grew more indignant with nearly every ad, until Tim said, "You know, they're catering to their market right now."

I disagree, though. A normal football game is a man's world, I'm sure. But the Super Bowl is a cross-cultural social event now. I know at least 10 female friends who were going to Super Bowl parties last night. And I'll bet that way more women were watching than during a normal game. We notice this stuff, you know.

My other problem, as it is during every network-televised football game, is that my boys were watching. The 13-year-olds really pay attention, and usually the only thing I have to shield them from during football games is the ads for horrible CBS crime shows like Criminal Minds, which might as well be named How will we torture and kill a young woman this week?

I'd just like my kids to get a chance to enter their first guy-girl relationship without having been indoctrinated by all this crap.

More than that, during the "Big Game," I had to be the lone voice in our house to speak up against the He-Man Woman Haters Club that paid for the ads.

Last year's ads were more serious or thought-provoking, so I can see the desire to use humor this year. Funny is good. But you know what's better than funny? Smart funny. Dockers using men with no pants? Stupid. Tim Tebow tackling his mom? Harsh. Go Daddy? Please. E-trade baby? Jumped the shark. Bridgestone "Your money or your wife"? Confusing. Coke and The Simpsons? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The worst of all, I thought, was for a Qualcomm product called FloTV, which obviously didn't get all the iPad jokes about feminine products last week. Their waste of ad space was the one with Jim Nantz scolding the "spineless" guy in the mall. "Change out of that skirt, Jason" hit me exactly the wrong way. Ha ha, shopping is stupid and girly and, ... wait. Don't forget, guys, that when we're doing all that girly shopping, we're spending money. That's what you want us to do to boost the economy, right?

The best Super Bowl ads are the ones that don't try too hard but surprise me, in a good way, as they go along. Like the old Michael Jordan-Larry Bird McDonald's showdown (recast less convincingly last night with Lebron and Dwight "Shoulders" Howard). I liked how the Dove for Men soap ad said it's OK to be a grown-up, unlike the Bud Light book club ad, where guys blow off their softball game when they see their girlfriends plan to have a couple of beers during their book club meeting.

My favorite was the Google ad about studying French abroad. I loved it because it stayed true to what Google is. It showed the product exactly the way we want to see it, but also hooked us into a storyline in a creative way without managing to insult anyone.

Getting your name out there is a tenet of the advertising industry. Perhaps agencies should add "first do no harm" to their mission statements now.

And CBS thought Tim Tebow's mom was going to be the night's biggest problem.

If it's on the counter, it's fair game

We have not reached the point in our family where I am responsible for cooking the entire Thanksgiving meal, but I do make some items to take the pressure off my mom.

Yesterday I made green beans from my Memphis Junior League cookbook, macaroni and cheese, and a tarte tatin for dessert. I'd swear that almost every time Mason, my hungry child, would walk through the kitchen, he'd point to something and say, "What is that? Can I eat it?"

Plain macaroni noodles? Sure. Cheese? Yes. Almond sliver? Go ahead. Sugar? Mm-hmm.

Phyllo dough out of the box? WAIT!

Iran is for lovers?

One of the top headlines right now is the story of the three American "hikers" detained in Iran for supposedly crossing the border from Iraq illegally.

Hiking in Iraq? People do this? Seriously?!!

I know I have a very small circle of reference since I am not a world traveler. I mean, I'll do stuff, as you can see from that very old photo of us at Rock City. But the stuff I do has to be near an interstate and some kind of truck stop or Wal-Mart. Call me pedestrian, but my knowledge of the Middle East comes from news sources, and those lead me to believe that the only people going to Iraq are military. I am quite happy to stay in familiar areas and leave the roaming to those so inclined. You won't find me signing up for the Peace Corps, and the last flight I was on left me so impatient to get back home that my fidgeting nearly got me tagged as a security concern.

Still, it seems pretty obvious that the Middle East should not be a recreation destination. I haven't seen any brochures luring people to "Cruise the Gaza Strip" or trumpeting that "What Happens in Yemen Stays in Yemen."

An article on cnn.com is not clear about whether the three hikers worked in Iraq and were out for a "relaxing" weekend or went there specifically as tourists. It says they stayed in a hotel and were warned many times by the hotel owner to stay away from their destination town because of its proximity to the unmarked border with Iran. Iranian officials say the three are spies, but I'll bet they say that to all Americans.

Lots of folks revile the suburbs, where I live, as hell on earth. Of course, they aren't that bad, and maybe I'm just unaware of a growing market for vacation packages in war zones.

Just let me know if you see any bumper stickers that say, "Pakistan: Land of Enchantment."

This week's Brentwood Home Page column.

Remember the Ns, Ss and Es on your elementary school report card? Well, the whole process has gotten a bit more complicated.

Before you pull out into traffic...

Thrice in the past week (yeah, I said "thrice")I have had close calls with other drivers in MY OWN neighborhood.
I've been driving along after dropping off Owen at school or on my way back from Kroger and I've had to pull WAY over to avoid an oncoming car because the other driver was still going through their cockpit checklist.
They were either turning on their phone, looking for sunglasses, or fixing their hair in the mirror. Two of the times, the driver didn't see me until I was on them and I honked.
I've heard a lot about how hazardous distracted drivers are and saw a statistic that 40% of "accidents" are caused by them. Based on my personal experience, it's getting worse.
It's tempting to think of driving as an automatic body function, but it's not. We all could use a return to awareness, especially those of us who've been driving for a few decades. We think we've got it down. I also think a lot of folks don't consider neighborhood streets to be worth the same level of caution as "city" streets. So they think nothing of hopping in the car and pulling out, using the "slow" drive to save time while they check phone messages, fish out their wallets, or check makeup.
Another danger zone for distracted drivers is near the fast-food drive-thru. I was making my way out of the Kroger parking lot this morning when a woman who had just left the Chik-fil-A in the same shopping center nearly T-boned me while searching the bag for her Chik'n Minis. I'm telling you, she never saw me. She almost had her head down in the bag as she drove past, and then she turned around to hand something to a kid in the back seat. Completely clueless.
All I'm saying is take a second to finish your business before you start driving again, people. It won't make you that much later if you pull over after you leave the drive-thru and use two hands, both eyes and your whole brain to get the food distributed, then you can use them for driving.
We need to be less concerned with saving time and more concerned with saving lives.