World-Class Humble Brags, Shirtless Teens & My Physical Shortcomings

Since my Substack is pretty much new, I first want to remind you that the ENTIRE premise of my Substack is that I’m literally just sharing short stories about my family that I’ve previously published in one of my annual Christmas letters.

You may also recall that I used to be able to send these stories out unedited. Wow. Those were the days! But no longer. My wife and boys (and their respective legal counsel) now retain the right of first refusal. That’s fair. Fortunately, they’re kind of lazy so I still sneak in some content that maybe I shouldn’t.

Here goes…

World Class Humble Brags. I suck at Facebook. Part of the problem is that I only have five friends. The postman. Aunt Sissy. Uncle Billy. The guy who created the Bloomin’ Onion™. Plus, some dude who works the register at Friendly’s. On top of that, my posts are terrible. My wife says I don’t get it. You don’t post stuff the way it happens. You post stuff the way it makes your life look amazing. For instance, our last ski trip with the boys sucked. Lots of rain. Lots of whining. The spin doctor didn’t see it that way. In her eyes, we snuck in a “quick winter getaway” and were “so proud of our boys for making the best of a difficult weather situation.” Is it just me? Or are 90% of the posts on Facebook just humble brags? I’m really not very good at that stuff. At least that’s what all my MENSA friends tell me.

Shirtless Teens. My boys lift weights. As such, they also enjoy taking off their shirts in public. Me, not so much. Sadly, I remember the day in 8th grade when my youngest first decided to take off his shirt in public. Yep. That’s the day I knew my kid wasn’t going to Harvard.

My Physical Shortcomings. My wife likes to point out my mental faults. But she doesn’t stop there. She takes pleasure in cataloguing my physical shortcomings as well. Like sometimes she’ll start talking to me. Then walk away. But not stop talking. Then walk into the bathroom. Still talking. Apparently still to me. Then she turns on the water. And the bathroom fan. Still talking. Afterwards, she comes out. Wants to know what I think about what she said. When I mention that I lost track once she started gargling, she is incensed. Accuses me of needing a hearing aid. Does not seem fair…

MY WIFE’S POV

Obviously, my wife has seen all of these posts.

To be clear (and she’s kind of making me say this), she doesn’t appreciate them all equally.

She loves the humble brags post, mostly because she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with humble bragging in general. Partly because she’s good at it. She’s Southern and says it is always kind of been a “thing” down there anyway.

BTW, she thinks my joke at the end of the story is stupid. I actually agree that it is stupid. Who would think that I’m in Mensa, anyway? She thinks it is stupid mostly because she can’t understand why someone would want to hang around with someone in Mensa.

The joke about our youngest son appeals to her because he does lift weights constantly and because he seems to walk around with his shirt off (and looking in the mirror) way too much. She didn’t really care for the Harvard comment, but I told her it kind of made the bit funny. She said she was going to leave the supposed funniness of this whole thing to me.

Finally, she thinks the story about me being deaf is spot on. This is actually a true story. It is why she thinks I am kind of deaf. To be fair, I do pretend to be hard of hearing a bunch around the house. But what married person doesn’t?

FINAL THOUGHTS

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