Blame it on the Brain.

It was during the summer of 1984 that I'd last lost my wallet.  I left it in a Tacoma Mall men’s room. 

I know how that sounds. Why would I place my wallet at risk in a public restroom if money weren’t changing hands? Suffice it to say my early twenties were a time of low self-esteem and financial prosperity.

No, actually, I was with that girlfriend at the time. Remember her—the one who insisted I buy a blow dryer and tie a sweater around my neck? While I don’t remember the exact circumstances, it’s possible that she handed me her portable dryer; the one she kept in her purse. She very well may have insisted that I visit the boys’ room to re-apply some product and incinerate my hair to a crispy sheen like hers, and only then could we re-emerge hand-in-hand from between Orange Julius and Squire Shop and freaking own that Tacoma Mall.

So yeah, that was the last time I parted ways with my wallet, back when Reagan was president and her husband incessantly confused Mikhail Gorbachev with his dead Uncle Rusty. 

It was a nice thirty-one-year streak of walletfulness, even longer than Jerry Seinfeld’s impressive no-vomit stint that lasted from June 29, 1980 until February 3, 1994. And that’s why I’ve decided that, even though I am ultimately responsible for maintaining a relationship between my credit cards and my clammy torso, this mishap is hardly my fault.

A lot of other folks could be responsible for this, and I think you may agree once you've read this.

1) Sure, I was a fool for placing it in the front pocket of my new zip hoodie, but my wife was responsible for purchasing a defective product. After 26 years as a preferred Value Village shopper, I would have thought she'd know inadequate pocket depth when she saw it. Apparently not, so I could pin this on her.

2) Even at the risk of losing his livelihood, the cab driver may have found it just too tempting not to pinch my goatskin accessory and all its spoils, including a ten-cent per gallon Safeway fuel discount. With his new identity and a swipe of the red card, he could surprise his family with a free movie rental and two Selsun Blues for the price of one. If Safeway had whale patrons like Vegas does, I’d be a freaking Orca, so this guy scored.

3) I could blame Obama. After all, the guy’s been picking all of our pockets for the last six years, am I right or am I right?

4) My brother took it. This is the most statistically probable answer. Although he seems trustworthy, after all those years in prison, the guy’s got some clever hiding places up his…sleeve. He’s an opportunist, and that wallet had some nicely rounded corners.

At this point, all I know is that the thing just vaporized. After getting up in the morning and not seeing the humbow-sized black Fossil in its usual spot, I obsessively scoured the house for well over an hour. Thank God it wasn’t in the silverware drawer or washing machine when I checked, as that would’ve escalated my issue into the health care realm (please see Ronald Reagan above). 

Losing a wallet is the epitome of a First World problem, though, right? Everything is replaceable, so this too will prove to be but a teensy skin tag on life's dandruff-smothered scalp. And just to inspire you, doggone it if I didn’t turn misfortune on its ear by getting free, two-day shipping on a new fanny pack. 

A light one, for summer.

The Real Iron Lady.

After dubbing him in an interview as "the worst president in all of American history," it was the first time she'd been called upon in three years. The ninety-year-old grand dame of Washington journalism had already been ostracized and marginalized, no longer representing a major news bureau and relegated to the back row of the cramped press room. Nodding in her direction, George W. Bush timidly waved his meaty hand, allowing Helen Thomas her first query of the Rhinestone Cowboy since 2003.

Had she learned her lesson? Had she finally been knocked to the canvas enough to understand who she was dealing with? The president had confiscated her voice, and by God she wouldn't be getting it back for long unless this question had something to do with his dog or Laura's newest passion of starting a First Lady Petticoat and Corset Museum next to the Lincoln Bedroom.

She needed to throw him a softball...or else.

"I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, [about] your decision to invade Iraq ... It has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis and every justification for the attack proved false. Why did you really want to go to war?"

Oh, man. Ouch. So much for heeding the old Bush family meat sword of intimidation.

Beginning in 1961, Helen Thomas sat front row center, staring down the slickest, most powerful men on the planet. From JFK to GWB and all nine in between, her five-decade career blazed a path for any female reporter whose boat isn't floated on a sea of sassy first lady hairdos or where LBJ and Ladybird plan on summering this June. Nope, in a world measured by gonad mass, Ms. Thomas cultivated herself one substantial pair.

"I don't believe there are any rude questions," she once said. "If you want to be loved, go into something else."

Let's step back for a second and take a gander at the concrete interstate this woman paved. A pioneer in gaining equal footing with men in covering hard news, Ms. Thomas became the first female officer at the National Press Club and the first woman to serve as White House Bureau Chief for a major wire service in 1974. In 1972, at the President's request, she accompanied Richard Nixon as the sole female reporter on his historic trip to the People's Republic of China.

Credentials aside, the woman was a pistol. And yeah, while among his peers, Bush was the mental equivalent of that really small, brownish grape that falls to the bottom of the plastic bag, the dude was still the president. And heavens to Betsy Ross, the guy usually stood about four feet away from her behind that podium with that eagle and all the arrows and shit. 

I used to fantasize about what I'd say to Bush if given the opportunity, but I'm sure I would have just stammered, drooled and drizzled a fine rivulet of urine down the leg of my new Costco gaberdine slacks.

She was a staunch foe of executive secrecy and intrigue. It's easy for me to pop off here while stretched out on my cyber foam mattress, but if I had to gaze into Bill Clinton's puffy red eyeballs and point out that he could have avoided a lot of embarrassment and handled things internally with a little invention called Spray-n-Wash, I may have balked.

If I had to stare down a young and foxy Jack Kennedy and ask him why he so easily grounded Cuba's missiles, yet couldn't keep his own minute man in its silo, I quite possibly would have dry-heaved and fainted.

And while I may have been highly tempted, I don't think I could have managed to advise Ronald Reagan what a complete wanker he looks like in this get-up. 

It's like he'd just discovered his uncle's old merchant marine foot locker up in the attic.

Okay, maybe I'm making a few of these up, but I have no doubt Helen Thomas could have executed each and every one of them with a smile on her face. To her colleagues, she was the unofficial but undisputed head of the press corps, her status legitimized by her signature line at the end of every White House news conference: “Thank you, Mr. President.”

No, thank you, Helen Thomas.

Ronald Reagan: Evil doing while napping.

Ronald Reagan would've turned one hundred years old today.

It's strange to celebrate an event like this.

It's one thing to observe the day John Lennon would have been seventy, or to commemorate the anniversary of an historic event, like the first Big Mac.

We celebrate Lincoln's birthday, but we don't assign a number to it. We don't lament, "Damn, he'd be 202 years old today; if only he'd ducked."

I made the mistake of pointing out my grandma's hundredth birthday to my wife, even though she had died in an assisted care facility at age eighty-eight. Always the sensitive spouse, my wife replied, "Yeah, it's too bad she couldn't hold on in the nursing home those last twelve years."

Hey, mean wife, I realize my statement was ridiculous, but stop referring to life and death in logical terms.

So here we are, singing the praises of a guy whose antics really held up over time. Some believe that Ronald Reagan personally ended the cold war, demanding that Mikhail Gorbachev "tear down that wall." What many don't realize is that the Soviet Union was already on the verge of economic collapse, and Reagan was actually referring to a wall in the Gorbachevs' guest quarters.

Apparently, Nancy believed there was a camera in it, and she didn't want to be taped "just saying yes" to that virile hunk of president.

The man claimed to have been unaware of the shady dealings during his tenure, such as the arms for hostages scandal, the dirty deeds in Central America and a presidential travel schedule based upon astrological data. So what's worse? A guy who signed off on criminal activity or one who was profoundly oblivious?

Pick your poison, I suppose.

Ronald Reagan busted up unions, he deregulated the financial industry and he threw our nation into a crevasse of debt so deep that we're still feeling its effects twenty years after he left office.

He ramped up the "war on drugs," pouring billions into killing the supplier, rather than treating the user. It hasn't worked.

He slashed mental health funding, which can be witnessed in any urban setting in the rantings of people who desperately need institutionalization, but are depended upon to regulate their own meds while living on the streets.

It's ironic that the President was simultaneously encountering his own bout with mental illness.

He was an actor. The man had great hair, a winning smile and a folksy demeanor. Sometimes I think that we Americans merely desire a President who can re-assure us that we are God's chosen people, grin, hop on a horse and go and clear some brush.

So, before we deify this guy, before we re-write history and place his face on the three-dollar bill, let's look just a bit more closely at Ronald Reagan's legacy. He looked great standing in front of Old Glory, didn't he?

But what was on the inside?