Confessions of a Word Nerd

Moist ointment. Leaking papule. Snot glob. 

Whether used in combination or individually, many of us feel an unhinged contempt for certain words. I’ll tell you though, these little nasties sure are attention grabbers, aren’t they? And now that I’ve got your attention, let’s talk about just that... words.

I understand it sounds a little moronic, but the best part of writing is the words. I love them. Finding just the right one can be, as my teenager might say, "low-key” joyous. Hooking the perfect word and gingerly hoisting it from the thesaural rabbit hole proves nothing short of a literary Heimlich Maneuver sans public mortification and a 90-day ban from Outback Steakhouse.

And with all the lunacy around us, especially the shit storm stirred up lately by a certain apricot-jowled fear pimp, what say we take a deep breath and have a little fun with civilization’s building blocks—both the appealing and the appalling. Originally planned as a top ten for each category, I became too nauseated to venture past five for the list of least desirable words.

So let's weigh in with a few meaty abhorrences then bring it on home with the ten best etymons in all of worddom.

The top five worst words, as compiled by the underworked staff at Reflections of a Shallow Pond:

5) Pus—sounds nasty and is, but let's be honest, who who doesn't feel a slight tremor of satisfaction when the pus spatters lightly on the mirror, blessedly fracked from that oily crease just south of your left nostril?

4) Chafe—actually I kind of like the word ("Keith chafed at the thought of letting Shirley borrow his unicycle"), but I sure hate the feeling, especially after deciding to take a sticky summer walk in my new Levi's shrink-to-fits. Moist ointment time for sure.

3) Stench—just a downright nasty word, both in sound and connotation. The only redeeming quality is that it rhymes with its affable cousins, quench and Dame Judy Dench.

2) Bloat—many probably wouldn't consider bloat to be onomatopoeia (a word whose pronunciation imitates a natural sound, like "splash"), but think about it—what's the first sound that emanates from your body following a hearty beer bong of PBR? "Bloaaatttt! Ahhhhh!"

1) Tumor—an awful, awful word. It's number one on this dubious list simply because I can't think of a sentence where it's used toward anything positive, except maybe "We got all of the tumor."

Okay, enough of the nasty stuff. Here are the top ten best words, as compiled by me, since my staff has already bailed for happy hour at the Ruth's Chris:

10) Crunch—also onomatopoeia, crunch is one of my favorite active verbs— Ruffles, Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos team up with salt and chemicals to make one tasty noise. And when examined as a noun, Nestlé's Crunch, Cap'n Crunch and Crunch 'n' Munch bear responsibility for 4.7% of my lifetime high fructose corn syrup intake.

9) Cream—Not just a superband of the 1960s, cream is wonderful as a sidekick to so many treats (cookies and cream, peaches and cream) or standing alone, as illustrated in this 1973 TV commercial featuring our beautiful Farrah Fawcett and Broadway Joe Namath:

Seems like there's a little something going on there. Not sure what it is.

8) Beer—a great sounding word, it's easy to say regardless of how much you've had. Equally easy to drink.

7) Dutch—I have no idea why, but I've always loved the sound of this word. Delving too deeply can expose some darkness, as it was Ronald Reagan's nickname and precipitated one of the most talked about lines in the annals of cinema:



6) Sweet—okay, I'm starting to realize that all the good words have something to do with food. Oh well, so be it! Sweet must be included since it's been a go-to of mine for dang near forty years. Along with cool, it's kicked to the curb the other generational faddish words, such as groovy, decent, far out and awe sooky sooky.

5) Block—I've always been a fan of blocks, especially of the Lego variety. Plus, it's a word that conveys sturdiness, solidity. How great is H-n-R Block as the name of a tax preparer? Oh, also I wanted to run by you an ad idea I've got for those guys. How about something like, "Yo, all y'all at Arthur Andersen used throw shade at our suburban strip mall workin' asses, but who's laughin' now bitches! Nah, y'all know I'm just playin'. H-n-R Block: Yamo be there."

4) Cash—99 percent of the reason is this guy:

The other one percent pertains to the feel and smell of American cash money. Filthy yet pleasing.

3) Huskies—long before I became first a fan, then a student and alum of the purple and gold, my six- to ten-year-old self wore boys' Husky size jeans and pants. My mom often went out of her way to find "stylish" pairs for me, which makes me remember how awesome she was. Great word.

2) Peace—just saying the word has a calming effect.

1) Pie—Where do I begin? What would the world be without these buttery, flaky, tangy, cheesy, sweet hunks of heaven? Whether it's blackberry, chicken pot, pizza, or even Hostess Cherry, I'm not ashamed to say that pie has made my life a whole lot better. And since I know a person who makes the best pies on Earth, this word must finish the list at number one.

Please reply with your favorite and least favorite words. I know there are a few of my fellow etymology nerds out there, so show yourselves! And eat more pie!

You Think You've Got Problems?

Manfred was starving; he hadn't eaten since 1:30 and the bag next to him smelled like a feast for the gods. His tires let out a muffled squeal as he pulled the Forrester out of the drive-through and onto 35th. It wasn't until he'd sailed through his fifth consecutive green light, after he'd shucked off the foil wrapper and buried his face in his deluxe pork burrito that he realized... 

What hapless Taco Time laggard had given him the wrong freaking sauce? What were they, deaf? He had specifically ordered the chunky southwestern chipotle, not the tangy chipotle southwestern. Cretins.

He stabbed a straw into his diet cherry Coke Zero and pulled a hearty slurp. Too much goddamn carbonation again! Manfred's blood churned with that unique brand of fury he reserved for the grossly inept.

"First World Problem." It's a maxim that until just recently hadn't cemented itself into our vernacular. Yet unlike its graceless cousins "hangry" and "yaaas," who also surfaced at this year's Oxford Dictionary induction ceremony, we're talking about a term that cuts to the chase.

No other phrase both captures and frames an issue quite like First World Problem does. You may prefer a different expression, perhaps "Uptown Downer" or "White Whine," but whatever your preferred pseudonym, it's any obstacle or complication that can only arise while living in a developed and prosperous society.

How do you fare when it comes to keeping yourself in check? Is there some type of perspective meter embedded in your superego that facilitates the identification of champagne problems, thus stifling any douchebaggery before it escapes your mouth?

I had thought I was covered, that is until I devoted about thirty seconds to considering the stuff that irritates me on a regular basis. Following that, let's just say I'm not crowing the cluck of the conscientious cock I'd once considered myself. Here's what's taken place just in the past week:

1)  Near my cubicle at work is a door that leads to the stairwell. If someone wants to use the stairs to enter from another floor, they must swipe their keycard to re-gain entry. Simple enough, yes? Well, after the card beeps the light green, people aren't waiting to hear the door unlatch which leads to technical failure. Imagine someone trying to jerk open a locked door, over and over again, with lots of beeping in between. Causes a bit of chafe to my sweetbreads, it does.

About a year ago, my co-worker posted a sign next to the door explaining the issue and how to solve it. This hasn't helped, as ten to twenty times a day I'm serenaded with a seven-second door throttling by some of my favorite folks. It's like when someone cuts you off in traffic, you recognize who it is and you feel bad about so recently desiring to torture them with hot mustard and pea gravel. I must rise above it.

2) Last holiday season (the back-to-back Valentine's Day/Presidents Day weekend), our home Internet decided to take some well-deserved time off. Apparently, some sort of mysterious yet wide-spread Century Link glitch rendered the green modem globe red for over 72 hours. As a family whose 15-year-old daughter uses 75% of our cellular data, our modem coma posed the very real threat of book reading, board-game-playing or even prolonged verbal conversation. As fate would have it, we'd serendipitously booked two days and a night at a VRBO with all the wi-fi we could eat. Too close for comfort, that one.

3) Lastly, this happened:

When I woke up the other morning, it looked like Pizza Hut had decided to sponsor my left eyelid and stuffed it with delicious cheese. It wasn't goopy and itchy like pink eye so I decided to take my chances and go to work.

Granted, a swollen eye can occur in any culture or socio-economic class, so that wasn't the problem. My dilemma arose when trying to decide how to best deal with this fleshy eye Nerf. I could call my doctor, who's only a couple of blocks away and can always fit me in for some acute eye shit. Alternatively, I could search for a sweet eye patch at Rite Aid. Or lastly, I could Popeye may way through the workday and present it to my acupuncturist that evening. Definitely a dilemma for the ages.

The swelling receded by midday, rendering my well-considered decision moot. The eye patch must live another day.

First World Problems aren't going anywhere, but we can choose how to process them. Maybe next time that guy squeezes into a crowded elevator to go down a single floor, I won't fantasize about flicking him in the back of the head while saying "Really?" to the uproarious approval of my 'vator mates.

Yes, I must transcend—flat tires, dead phone batteries, a rain-soaked UPS box on the porch—none of it matters one eyelash, and I think 53 years has been long enough to figure this out. Still, a single First World Problem remains that I can't shake, one that may linger until its resounding eradication the first Tuesday this coming November.

Trust me, it'll be huge.

My Luminous Millennial.

"If I had a superpower, it would be to be able to fill things whenever I want. Like, to fill people's refrigerators or water tanks or bank accounts or whatever. Just fill things."

In 2000, William Strauss and Neil Howe released the first book devoted to this generation, titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. Defined as anyone born between 1982 and 2004, it's something I never realized I had in common with my fifteen-year-old daughter—we're both tail-enders, she being born in 2000 and I with about a minute to go in the fourth quarter of the Baby Boom.

According to Wikipedia, academic opinions vary on the Millennial mindset—anywhere from civic minded and tolerant to narcissistic and entitled (Just between you and me, that's a check-check-check-check for my kid, plus a few more).

She and I talk about lots of things, but always in small, concentrated blocks, and usually sandwiched around dinner. The remainder of her time she spends either in her room or with friends. In a few short months she'll have her driver's license and be ever scarcer around these digs.

Over the years, I've enjoyed interviewing people, especially my kids. Inevitably, a nugget will surface that I hadn't anticipated, a view of the world I hadn't known or appreciated. Well, it's been a while, six years in fact. since I got her feedback down in pixels, so I thought I'd check back in.

I sat down with my daughter on a recent Wednesday evening, following a nearly-satisfying dinner of Costco Asian chicken salad and a zealous negotiation culminating in the eight-dollar interview fee. Clad in her post-shower garb of t-shirt, sweats and fuzzy socks, she reclined on the couch two cushions down as I opened my notebook.

How do you feel when you hear an adult say something like, "Oh, she's just a teenager. You know how they can be. Their brains are completely offline, raging with hormones and they're incapable of perceiving consequences?

Honestly? It pisses me off. It's totally degrading to us, calling what we say and think invalid.

Interesting. What about the consequences part? 

Adults like to put kids into stereotypes: these kids go here, those kids go there. I'm not this person or that person.

Knowing what you do now, what advice would your almost-sixteen-year-old self have for the nine-year-old I talked to six years ago?

Oh, Geez. Um, even though you don't have any friends now, you're going to have friends who are really cool. Everything turns out a lot better for you. And... try to like your sister more.

That makes me sad.

You can't do that. You're supposed to be the interviewer.

Right. So I have to ask—is dating something you're interested in right now?

Not really. I don't want to talk about this stuff. I don't want this stuff on your blog.

Fair enough. How do you visualize yourself as an adult? In other words, at what age do you imagine your established adult self? In your 20s? 30s?

I picture myself around 30. I've got a really good job and I'm hella rich. I've probably been married for five years already and have one kid. I'll have another one later.

What's this job you've got that makes you hella rich?

No idea. I'd really like something to do with marketing. I'm good at pretending to have confidence when I really don't. I guess I'm really good at bullshitting.

Yes, it is a very special skill. Good luck with that. Okay, so just to get a better idea about your attitudes, we're going to play a game called "You can only have one." First off, you can only have one: Eating lunch in the school cafeteria every day for six months with just your parents, or not talking to your friends for six months?

Really? Oh. .. I'm going to go with sitting with my parents. Oh, my God, I can't believe I said that. But losing all my friends for six months? I can't even imagine... oh, that would be so bad. Yes, parents.

Hey, thanks!

Um, I don't think you should feel good about that.

Okay, one more. You can either give up bread forever or lose all your friends and have to start from scratch.

I guess it has to be bread. I do love bread though... that's okay. There's a lot of people out there who are gluten free.

Who do you like for president?

I'm feeling the Bern. He stands for everything I like.

Everything?

Pretty much.

What about Hillary?

I think she has made several mistakes. I saw something on Twitter from the 60s or 70s and she said some racist and anti-gay stuff. I don't know if it's true, but I do trust Twitter.

Are you serious? You trust Twitter?

Yes.

How do you feel about Mr. Trump?

Oh, my God. I don't want to waste the energy I have on him. He's the exact definition of a joke.

Along those lines, what qualities do you admire in a person?

Let's see... honesty, loyalty and... having a good sense of humor. Yes, all three.

Do you see those traits in yourself?

Yes, I do.

Okay, last question: who's your favorite guy over 50?

I guess... my dad?

Correct!

You weirdo.

And with that, she stood and dropped the pillow onto the cushion and walked away, "I'm going to go chill and watch some Gossip Girl.  Oh, and don't forget," she yelled just as her bedroom door closed behind her, "you owe me eight dollars."

Hey, no problem. She won't let me forget.

Chances Aren't.

Oh my God, that was ridiculous. And that poor kicker—hooking a point-blank 27-yarder wide left to vaporize a cocksure Viking triumph. Holy Hell. In one hurried thud, Blair Walsh scrawled his name into the annals of pigskin calamity, alongside other greats like Trey Junkin, Ernest Byner and Tony Romo. In the shank of an eye, Pete Carroll cemented the chance to slap his chinos and chomp his gum for another sixty minutes plus three hours of Chevy commercials.

Granted, placekickers know what they’ve signed on to do. While their teammates repeatedly launch their beefcake into each other, inciting unthinkable peril to body and brain, the kicker… well… kicks. He lopes onto the field, works for two seconds, then trots back off, his chin jutting in exultation or sagging in dejection; no gray area exists for those who boot the rock.

But still, we’re talking about an 81-foot field goal. Missing one is as unlikely as a child vacuuming well. It's as crazy as a goose in a ball pit (Did you picture that goose? Crazy!). 

According to ESPN.com, heading into Sunday’s game, kickers had made 188 of 190 kicks, or 98.9% of field goals this season inside thirty yards. That translates to a single turkey every 100 kicks. On the surface, you’d think that 1 in 100 borders on the impossible. And I suppose it does—until it happens. 

Like you, me and anyone else who’s ever roamed the planet, we’ve all defied such minuscule odds that a one-percent probability of success seems just shy of a sure freaking thing.

Think about it. Without getting too specific, what do you imagine your chances were of being the "swimmer who won the medal round"? I’ll tell you, it's around one in 300 million. I don’t see Michael Phelps beating a field that large, but by golly, y’all sure did, and without the seven-foot wing span. All you had was a cute little tail that shimmied its way to paydirt.

But if you really want to enter the Land of Blown Minds, let’s look at the endless combination of events that had to transpire to enable your existence. For example, if If it weren’t for Kohar of Kardashian and her unique ability to market nonexistent talent in her 13th century village of Bellairhkadzor, Armenia, she and her five daughters would surely have starved and wiped out an entire branch of the family tree.

Just to fathom a world without them… can’t… won’t.

Anyway, you see what I’m saying? We’ve  defied some fairly husky odds to even compete in the sperm sweepstakes. Factor into that the smattering of close calls and near-catastrophes we’ve encountered during the course of our lives, and all told, each of us is a singular link in our lengthy and fortunate legacies. Kind of makes that kicker’s miss seem a little more probable, eh?

Just kidding. What a choke.

2015: A Little Skin in the Game.

"Is that potato...or finger?" My wife poked through the blood-spackled chunks of Yukon Gold potatoes, brushing them into a ring and isolating the little morsel of pinkish meat.

I held my arm aloft, squeezing the paper towels so hard my bicep went to sleep. My stomach lurched at the sight of the kitchen knife she gripped, the same instrument that seconds before had pruned the tip of my left pinkie.

"That's finger," I said, tiny waves of nausea rippling through my entrails.

It was Christmas Day, which signifies the one meal of the year that my family indulges in a recipe originally found in Oprah magazine. The kids call it "Oprahtatoes," a heart-stopping mashup of gold spuds, butter, half-n-half and cream cheese, topped with cheddar and chives.

Seriously, if any food is worth spilling blood over, it's Oprahtatoes, but this bleeding wasn't stopping. Desperately desiring not to spend Christmas evening in the ER, I watched as my wife tightly wrapped the finger in Band-Aids, attacking from all angles.

To avoid boring you with a step-by-step account of the ensuing 36 hours, I'll just say that there's an urgent care doctor working at a facility in a strip mall in Vancouver, Washington, who knows fingers like the back of his hand. The dressing he crafted rolled on like Grey Poupon to a Little Smokie, and I won't even delve into my awesome pinkie hammock.

So yeah, anyway, that's pretty much how my 2015, shall we say, wrapped up. How was yours? Be honest, how much do you actually recall about what happened last year? I'm only asking because until I looked it up, basically all I remembered was watching the Seahawks blow the Super Bowl and reading memes about dogs and Obama.

But I also knew that A.D. Twenty-fifteen witnessed its share of extraordinary happenings—some good, some bad, some... well... meh. I found a great source to refresh my memory, a website called onthisday.com, which chronologically registered the year's major world-wide goings-on. And just to get a feel for the type of year it was, I'm going to randomly pick a few events and we'll see how things stack up overall. Let's dive in!

On March 26, King Richard III (1452-1485), whose remains were discovered beneath a parking lot, is exhumed then interred at England's Leicester Cathedral.

Conclusion: Bad. I'm from Seattle. Reverse composting is a gross misdemeanor.

On April 14, the world's oldest stone tools, dating back 3.3 million years, are found in Kenya.

Conclusion: Good. This proves that I'm not the only guy too lazy to get the hammer. Sometimes a big rock works fine.

On April 23, Loretta Lynch is confirmed as the first female African-American Attorney General of the United States.

Conclusion: Good, especially if you're Donald Trump ("I don't care who she is. It's goddamn amazing for anyone to be both an attorney and a general.").

On May 11, India's population officially reaches one billion.

Conclusion: Meh, it was a misunderstanding. Trump thought they said Indiana ("My people tell me Indiana has a billion illegals. Trust me, I will round these people up. What's that? It's actually India? Shut up, punk! Get him out of here.").

On June 17, the United States Treasury announces that the Alexander Hamilton ten-dollar bill will be replaced by a woman.

Conclusion: Meh, another misunderstanding. Trump was stoked because he thought they meant a real woman.

On July 20, The Impact Team announces they have hacked into the client list of Ashley Madison, the marital cheating website.

Conclusion: Good, except stock for Motel 6 and the makers of Febreeze for Car Upholstery tanked.

On August 21, the oldest known message in a bottle is retrieved on a German beach after 108 years adrift.

Conclusion: Bad. It was a list of Germany's top ten baby names, with Adolph coming in at a solid number three behind Axel and Gerd.

On December 7, Time readers voted Bernie Sanders Person of the Year.
Conclusion: Very, very good.

Wow, so it wasn't such a rotten 2015 after all. Our representative sample landed on four "Goods", two "Bads" and two "Mehs." Let's just hope things work out even better for 2016, if you know what I mean.

The Trump jokes are getting less funny.

A Last-Minute Gift Guide For The Guy Who Doesn't Want a Gift

Last I checked—which was very, very recently—I’m a guy.

And we guys are not easy to buy stuff for; I understand this. We’re weird and quirky individuals. We’ll say thanks so much for the thoughtful gift, then secretly exchange the bow tie and sweater vest for a machete.

So I’m here to help. My aim is to assuage your uncertainty, to hedge your apprehension that you've chosen the right gift for Captain Dontworryaboutme. My guess is that he's like me—an average middle-aged dude who needs nothing and wants nothing… unless it’s cool. And since you’ve still got a solid week-and-a-half to procure a gift that doesn’t suck for your finicky fellow, here are my top ten token tips this Gringletide season:

10) Hockey tickets—Even though your hometown may be absent an NHL team, that doesn’t mean good hockey isn’t played in your area. Here in the PNW, we’ve a couple of junior hockey teams, the Everett Silvertips and Seattle Thunderbirds. Tickets range from $16 to $40 for the opportunity to watch highly-skilled teenagers sling each other around like spatulas of Crisco. Good times, seriously.

9) 1960s Animé cartoons—Before you judge, check out some of the old Speed Racer or Gigantor episodes. Fast moving and a smidge mistranslated, your beau will squeal like a pig as he hoists this out of his stocking ($23 for the first eleven episodes). 

8) Personal grooming devices—You and I both know that your chap could use a little Bastille Day for that old growth around the nose and ears. Nothing will capture his imagination like the sound of the nasal trimmer hitting paydirt. It may sound like a cross between a weed whacker and the Magic Bullet, but you’ll be able to eat tapioca out of those nostrils when he’s done ($33 at Nordstrom).

7) Lunchboxes—They’re back! Did they ever go away?

When I was in grade school, a lot of kids had this Charlie Brown model. Why not drop a subtle hint to see which pail your best bloke had as a schoolboy? He’ll love you for it, even though the price isn’t peanuts (Around $65 on eBay).

6) A pack of floats—I’ve done this a couple of times and it’s fantastic. Suspended in a light- and sound-controlled environment that reduces sensory stimulation, your guy will float in a super-saturated solution of epsom salt and water. The liquid is heated to skin temperature and after about fifteen minutes, he'll lose track of where the water ends and his body begins. 

Not suitable for the claustrophobic, it's amazingly relaxing and I’ve come out feeling better and for longer than after a conventional massage (Nearly always available on Groupon, around $40 per hour-long session). 

5) National Lampoon’s Vacation Boxset—All four original films are included on this DVD for only $30! Give him Chevy Chase at his comedy apex, bring back Clark, Audrey, Rusty and of course, Cousin Eddie. The shitter will runneth over, and so will your man’s cup.

4) Risk—Appeal to your guy’s inner nerd with the famous board game of world domination. For only $30, you’ll have a million rainy Saturdays-worth of fun while learning how your lifemate handles both megalomania and tactical impotence. Or maybe you already know.

3) A gift card to… nowhere. Seriously, don’t buy him a gift card, even to Hooters.

2) "Feel the Bern” products—Bernie Sanders, opting to forego super pac funding, still rivals Hillary Clinton in dollars raised thanks to small contributions from over 750,000 private donors. 

Why not dish out $15 for a coffee mug or $25 for a t-shirt to make your dude look a little smarter than he actually is!

1)  Any type of artwork, done by you—How often have I heard a friend say, “I’m not an artist. I can barely draw a stick figure.”? And my reply is, who says you have to draw a stick figure? Everyone’s an artist; I truly believe that. Sketch something out, paint a nice abstract scene, take a beautiful photograph—then frame that shit up because everything looks better in a frame. Trust me, he’ll love both it and you for putting yourself out there.

I know your man's been hard to buy for in the past, but keep in mind: he’s still a guy. While his interests may seem to vary immensely, when you really break things down he’s really only interested in four or five distinguishable topics and one of them is quite fleeting.

Good luck and happy shopping!

It's Time to Get Real About Guns.

Time to play the familiar loop ...again:

A shooter unleashes his (and now her) demented angst upon a school, a shopping mall, a workplace.

We're not shocked; that emotion has been slowly phased out of the routine, vaporizing years ago, so we move on to horrified. From that point, our behaviors branch out a bit—some are sad, some are grateful that tragedy hasn't yet knocked on their own doors, and others, others are angry and ready to blame.

We blame the president or NRA, the liberals or conservatives, even the cultural demise of the American family. Rhetoric spins around in a sideways number eight, always moving but never veering off its predictable track.

You may agree with what I'm about to propose. Perhaps you'll dissent yet agree in principle. Or, maybe you'll think I'm just another bleeding heart progressive whose head's been in the sand so long it's formed a cement block around my senses. In fact, it's what I anticipate the reaction will be among my conservative friends and family members.

That's fine, I just wanted to get this down in words, because as macabre and dramatic as it sounds, tomorrow could be the day it happens—maybe at the grocery store, on the bus, at the office or during a high school band concert.

And as scary as the threat of terrorism is, of ideological thugs entering America with bad intentions, that's not my biggest fear. The lion's share of my trepidation is the home-grown variety. Since the Columbine killings ushered us into a new age of indigenously-sparked carnage, 388 Americans have died in mass shootings at the hands of fellow Americans.

I'm not including those paralyzed or disfigured, not those who were murdered in groups of two or even three. According to the New York Times, 388 is the tally of people whose last breaths were drawn in large-scale acts of violence committed overwhelmingly by US citizens with lawfully-owned weapons,

Although a few should not have been sold firearms despite failing background checks, a large proportion of wholesale killers hadn't broken a single law prior to visiting their collective slaughter upon our innocent brothers and sisters.

So what the hell can we do about this? I think most of us, liberal and conservative alike, believe that mental health screening is the key to keeping guns out of the hands of the psychopathic, but after that, our squads quickly diverge.

The Republican right, already consumed in a state of seething indignation over Obamacare and increased government "handouts," would hardly endorse further spending for a concept as abstract as preventative mental health care. Ronald Reagan, standard-bearer for all that is Right, enacted the Brady Bill while simultaneously slashing funding and casting millions of schizophrenic government dependents to lives of homelessness.

The cons may maintain that the private sector can handle this burden, that faith-based organizations can pick up the slack, but how's that been working out?

Those of the libertarian persuasion, already highly distrustful of an executive branch hell-bent on taking their guns, would just as soon allow the feds to pay a visit to a mentally ill family member as they would go to a concert where Jane Fonda opens for the Dixie Chicks.

In light of these belief systems, where does that leave us? Same place as usual—gun control. During Barack Obama's first term, 91% more background checks were performed than in George Bush's initial four years, and over 65 million Americans have purchased firearms during the Obama administration. I'd say we're pretty well stocked at this point, wouldn't you?

For those friends among us thinking that the Apocalypse may very well happen a week from Tuesday, I'm willing to bet they've got enough ammo to set them up until then and a thousand Tuesdays into the future.

So since you people already have yours and then some, how about we think outside the box a little? Why not impose a moratorium on gun sales, or at the very least on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines? Simultaneously, how about cracking down the illegal weapons trade while we're at it? Last I checked, it's not too easy to order yourself an RPG launcher, and there's a reason for that. It's time to treat guns like the weapons of mass destruction they really are.

Contrary to what you may believe after reading this, I'm not stupid. Guns are as American as cookie dough and Maxwell House, and we're a country built largely from the business end of a rifle. The Second Amendment secured the ability of a ragtag militia from rural Massachusetts to hide in the bushes and pick off all those redcoats dumb enough to march down the middle of the road. Later, the fastest and easiest way for a lawless West to be settled was through a lot of shooting and threatening to shoot.

But wake up. Times have changed, if you haven't noticed. How many freaking guns do you need, people? I guess in America, the answer is more.

Always more.