MeSoFun Blog

Sixteen years ago, I was just out of high school. It's a little strange to type that line, since I don't remember most of the last 16 years. Another byproduct of aging, I suppose. Ohmygd. My Dad is so annoying. That's Colldoll on the left. I needed a break from school. The grades were fine, it just wasn't any fun. Not even remotely fun. Rather than hang out in my parents' basement and work at McDonald's , I wanted to do something unique. At 4 a.m. on a random midweek day in July, my Dad and I hopped in the car. I was moving to Florida to live with my Aunt Flo (no, seriously) and Uncle Kevin. Flo and Kevin already had a daughter, Megdoll. Flo was 8.5 months pregnant with Colldoll when I arrived. My job duties would be varied. Some days, it was stripping electrical wire with my pet Exact-O knife. Others, I would do helper work for Kevin's electrical company. Almost every day, I did the duties of a live-in nanny. My name is Jim and I'm a male blogger. I use...

This is exactly the same car I had. It was 4 a.m. on a Monday in early July. That's about all I remember. Cruising east on Interstate 94 with my Dad in my Dodge Duster. Yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that I owned a Duster. Have I mentioned that I hate Dodges? I hate Dodges. But we'll get to that. Dad wanted to beat the traffic for our long run to Nashville. Because there's a lot of traffic headed through central Wisconsin on a Monday. Or something. It was somewhere on that roadtrip, amid multiple listenings of " Kashmir ," that I stopped being a high school student. There were no more graduation parties to go to and, rather suddenly, I stopped being a social butterfly. Outside of Chattanooga, Dad told me I should visit a strip club sometime in my lifetime. "It's fun for about 10 minutes," he told me. I have yet to fulfill his vision for me. It was two 50-gallon drums full of this stuff. Plus more. So much more. That long, two-plus day trip brought...