Every so often, a new piece of technology is so exciting, so revolutionary, that you just can’t believe it wasn’t invented sooner. Seriously, I can’t tell you how obsessed I am about these cutting edge “pablets.”
 
Omigod, this hot new technology is solving so many of my problems. All day, I’m switching from one website to another to keep up on what’s what in my busy world. I’m checking on sports, business, entertainment, world developments, investments…frankly, it all gets dizzying and I forget where I’m at. Some days, I end up reading the same story two or three times because it appears on multiple sites.
 
And, when I want to make a note about something I’ve read, I have to put the note in a text or email that I send to myself or comment on a page that everyone else can read. It’s hard to corner the market on World’s Best Dad coffee cups when your evil plan is visible to the entire universe, and I can’t tell Alexa I need to stock up on Clearasil, because she’s a big blabbermouth who will tell every advertiser in the world about my zits.
 
Now, all my problems have been solved by a new service that’s just like Grubhub or Jet.com or Amazon, but instead of having my food or books or undies delivered to my door, I get a printed report about my world every morning. Soon, I hear, it will be delivered by drone.
 
These newfangled “pablets” are amazing with a capital Mazing. A simple lifting motion that’s very similar to a left swipe allows me to log in, with no passwords to memorize and retype over and over again.
 
Spotty wifi is no impediment to getting my updates and I don’t need to worry about being hacked when I’m at Starbucks, because it is 100% air-gapped. Public networks are suddenly risk free, and I never have to worry about my battery dropping to 1% while I race to finish exotic recipes or movie reviews.
 
Groundbreaking fiber technology allows me to actually separate the paper-thin screens, so I can leave the screen with upcoming television shows in front of the TV and the screen with recipes in the kitchen. If I want to share something interesting with my wife, I can just tear off that screen and hand it to her to read while I’m reviewing other screens.
 
If I want to remember something or make a note to myself, I can use a special stylus to record my idea directly on the screen, and the screen is remarkably flexible, so I can fold it up and put it in my pocket or a file folder to retrieve later.
 
But wait, there’s more. Nobody is tracking me while I shift from the business sites to politics to entertainment, no pop-ups slow me down, and the unique, fiber-based screens are 100% recyclable.
 
Best of all, it’s a terrific time-management tool. Most websites have the same amount of information every day, but this advanced technology prevents information overload when I’m heavily scheduled during the work week. Conveniently, it stores important data during the week and then provides a more complete package of information on Sundays, when I have more time available for page-surfing.
 
Whatever was the greatest invention since sliced bread has dropped to a distant second. If the people behind these “pablets” can market them effectively, the sky is the limit.

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​Now that my daughters have their own children, they call me every day to ask me for advice on how they can be the bestest-ever parents like I was for them. Okay, they aren’t really calling about this, but I once had a dream where one of them said I wasn’t the worst father in the world, so it’s the same thing.
 
Anyway, if ever there was a time when my daughters should be calling for fatherly wisdom, this is it. Halloween is coming up in a few days and every good parent is looking for answers to the world’s most important question:

How do I make sure my kids bring home Hershey bars instead of candy corn?
 
Because, let’s be real about this whole Halloween thing. We say it’s fun for the kids and they love to dress up and get free candy, but we’re lying. No little kid has ever wished for the opportunity to put on a sweaty plastic costume and cover their faces with a cardboard mask so they could stand out in the cold and the rain while some stranger hands them a malted milk ball.
 
Yeah, they’ll say they like it after we coach them enough, and they’ll tell their parents they’re having fun, but that’s only to avoid being left out in the cold near the old house that everyone knows is haunted by a real ghost.
 
By the time they’re three, every kid knows there are much easier ways to get candy. Either whine non-stop until mom gives in or wait for gramps to show up and just ask him. Getting dressed up to beg for crap from strangers? That’s amateur stuff, and way too much work.
 
In truth, Halloween is a holiday for parents, and it’s all about the candy that the parents can score, even if it means pimping out their costumed progeny as “trick or treaters.” The whole thing is truly nuts, though. Mom loads up on Snickers and Milky Ways and all the other candy she likes, but then she ends up giving those treats to a bunch of snot-nosed tykes while hoping that her own snot-nosed tykes will bring home….Snickers and Milky Ways. If everyone eliminated the middlemen, or middlekids, this would all go so much better.
 
But we’re Americans and we love to complicate things, so we’ll all be dressing up the kids to go out and collect the candy and telling everyone how much fun it all is for the little ones. And we’ll all be regretting our choices when dad brings Junior and Little Missy home with a tub full of candy corn, popcorn balls, wax lips and Necco wafers. Meanwhile, back at home, mom has been reduced to tears as she gave away the last of the really good candy she was hoping to enjoy with dad after Missy and Junior went to sleep.
 
Happily, all this nonsense can be avoided if parents follow our simple Dadwrites Guide to Halloween Bliss. The seven-volume how-to manual won’t be out until next year, but here are a few of the highlights:

1. Spend $5, max, on the costume. Just buy a mask or a hat, and add a bit of glitter to their cheeks. It’s almost November and you’re going to be bundling them up in a coat, anyway, and there’s no extra candy for the kid who wins “best costume.” Halloween life hack: With the money saved on the costume, mom and dad could buy a “reserve supply” of Heath Bars.
2. Go where the fancy people live. If there’s a subdivision near you where everyone competes to mount the most lavish Christmas display, or they leave their Beemers in the driveway instead of parking them in the garage, that’s the spot to find the best candy.
3. Take notes. If they handed out Circus Peanuts and Smarties at the Olsons’ place last year, plan to skip that house this time. Maximizing your Halloween haul depends partly on how many doorbells you ring, but mostly it's a function of which doorbells truly matter.
4. Train your children to grab the good stuff. Most people will toss an assortment of candies into a plastic pumpkin and tell their little visitors to take the one they want. Make sure to teach your children which one “they” want by creating a deck of flash cards…and drill twice a day. If your pride and joy has a shot at a Butterfinger and she grabs a Mary Jane, that’s on you as a seriously bad parent.
5. Chat up your friends. Many parents take their darlings out at 3:30 or 4:00, but don’t join them. Instead, use your friends as scouts to find the best places to score when you set out at 5:00 or 6:00.  “Hi, Agnes. No, we haven’t started yet. What kind of candy are people handing out this year? Really, the full-size Snickers? What was that address again?”
6. Divide the spoils fairly. And isn’t it fair that mom and dad share in the festivities? Yes, it’s absolutely fair and well deserved. After the children are back at home and it’s time to enjoy the fruits (Someone actually gave them fruit???) of their labors, let them have a taste or two and then promise to protect their candy for the days ahead. Of course, they should understand there is a storage charge, plus reimbursement for the cost of the costume, plus other user fees and assessments.  If they don’t have enough cash to cover their debts, they can pay off their obligations in Hershey bars. As we said, it’s only fair.

 
 
Halloween is only one of the many tests that parents face as they strive to clear the path for their children’s success. Whether we’re fighting for admission to the preppy pre-school or the Ivy League college or the top summer camp for entrepreneurs, it’s our number one job to make our children winners, not whiners. Because, except for our “fair share” of the Snickers, we’re doing it all for them.
 
Your children will succeed at Halloween, along with everything else they do in life, but only if you read and follow all the incredible parenting insights that we offer here at Dadwrites. Make sure to subscribe by clicking here and save your children from the total failure experienced by losers who don’t sign up.
 

Successful people are boring, the mystery of hot bicycle seats, and one question you should never ask, among the deep thoughts we've been thoughtifying all week…

1. The greatest luxury in life is doing what you want.
2. Almost every day, I end up walking past a bike that’s locked up, but someone has stolen one of the wheels or a seat or the handlebars. And I can’t help but be amazed that there is actually a market for stolen bicycle parts.
3. I am going to change my name to Aaron Aaaba, so I can get called on faster and out the door. I missed a meeting a while ago because the people at my prior event decided to call on us by last name, like we're still in high school. Speaking of which, do they still stigmatize kids in school by seating them according to last name or, even worse, height?
4. I’ve gone through a number of periods when I’ve felt I’m on the outside looking in, but that's what other people think, too. Don't they?????
5. When someone regales me about their great track record in life or business, I lose interest in them pretty quickly. Mistakes are how we learn and they make for much more interesting stories. Tell me about the time you failed miserably and how you came back from failure. Now that’s worth a listen.
6. Never ask: How bad could it get? That's like a prayer that will absolutely be answered.
7. I'm saddened a bit when I hear about the first woman or the first black or other minority person appointed to some job. After more than a century of women's/minority rights efforts, companies should be embarrassed to admit they haven’t had a ______ in the role of _______ already.
8. Sometimes Jill and I will be at dinner and I will send the girls a text or a photo of our experience. Am I making them a part of our enjoyment or am I just plain rude?

 
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For some reason, I keep thinking chicken and waffles should be my favorite breakfast choice.

Fried chicken for breakfast. How can that not be great? It’s right up there on the food pyramid with bacon and, unlike bacon, I can eat it in front of my rabbi. Likewise for waffles, the breakfast food so delicious they named an entire restaurant chain after them. Put them together and you have a surefire winner.

Except, you don’t. My odyssey has been going on for about two years now and I have yet to find a place that serves chicken and waffles to die for, or even to get seriously injured.

The best fried chicken is moist inside, crisp outside, with breading that is almost a second skin. Great waffles have endless pockets of crust surrounding an inner body of chewy dough. There’s give and take, push and pull, crunch and gush, an ideal combination. Yes, there is an art to this, but it’s not like fried chicken and waffles are new inventions without 5 zillion how-to videos on YouTube.
 
You can find thousands of restaurants where they know how to make fried chicken and thousands more with great waffles. Doing both at the same time should not be close to impossible, and yet it is.

Part of the challenge, of course, is that both waffles and fried chicken are more complicated than their homespun legends would suggest. Making fried chicken with crispy skin and not too much breading, with meat that’s still moist and not overcooked…that’s a major challenge for everyone. Creating waffles that are almost crunchy without being a dry pile of crust is likewise a feat.

Even restaurants that get these basics right will find a way to screw it up, though. Some cooks think it’s a great idea to throw a couple of burnt chicken wings on a waffle, because nobody really wanted any edible “chicken,” while others deliver a thigh that’s still dripping with fat that ruins the waffle’s structure.

Some restaurants put no seasoning at all on the chicken, or come up with bizarre combinations like sriracha syrup with blueberry compote and ramp. A few places have decided corn is the absolute best flavor for a waffle, such as the restaurant that proudly served me a chewy concoction slathered in corn flakes and an ungodly agglomeration of spices I have never experienced before on Planet Earth.

Over the past two years, I’ve ordered chicken and waffles about 40 times at roughly 30 restaurants. This search has morphed from a fun excursion to a death march, as I slog through one disappointment after another. I feel like Prince Charming, doomed to touch every smelly foot in the kingdom in hopes of finding my true love.

After all this time, I’m in too deeply to call it quits. The search continues and it will not end until I find the chicken and waffles that are every bit as wonderful as I had believed them to be when the journey began.

Clearly, this is a noble quest.

​Just as clearly, I have way too much time on my hands.
 
You can follow this incredible odyssey (odd-yssey?) until its dramatic conclusion by subscribing to dadwrites. When we find the pot of golden waffles and brownish chicken at the end of our rainbow, you’ll be one of the first to know, but only if you click here to subscribe.