Constitution Day is right around the corner, but don’t be embarrassed if this major holiday slipped your mind this year. The U.S. Constitution is like a software Terms of Service agreement; we all click ‘yes,’ but almost nobody actually reads it.
 
That lack of familiarity leads to some hilarious consequences. For instance, many people believe they have a Constitutional Right to shop at Costco, while others think Freedom of Speech only applies to them. Amazingly, both of these beliefs are incorrect, although you’d never know it from reading internet posts.
 
Never fear, though, as your humble servant has read the document in the original Aramaic and will share all the insights you need to know to become a Constitutional Scholar of the first order. For example…
 
The Constitution was not really all that popular among the people who framed it, several of whom were nearly mortal enemies who disagreed strongly about almost everything. The only reason we ended up with the current version is that The Articles of Confederation (the world’s first Beta 1.0 release) sucked beyond belief.
 
The only way the Constitution got ratified was with the promise to add amendments to it immediately. (Back in 1789, everyone was still using dial-up, so “immediately” meant a couple of years. Still, Jimmy Madison made good on the promise to write up a Bill of Rights for the states to approve.)
 
Speaking of the Bill of Rights, Congress sent 12 amendments to the states, but the first two were rejected. That’s why freedom of speech is in the First Amendment and not the Third. It’s also why people who love the Second Amendment aren’t obsessed with Congressional pay stubs.
 
The Constitution was remarkably advanced for its time, but pretty backwards by current standards. Women didn’t vote, slavery was codified, and the Electoral College gave rural states an advantage that has only grown over time. (Yes, a few people still think the Electoral College is a great idea, but they are the same dopes who put mayonnaise on their pastrami.)
 
The framers of the Constitution were smart, but they weren’t supreme beings. They came up with a pretty good division of powers within government and between government and citizens, but they also failed to invent indoor plumbing or I-Phones or pizza delivery. Maybe it’s time we took some of them down off their pedestals and…oh, wait, that’s actually happening, isn’t it?
 
The concept of judicial review, which makes the U.S. Supreme Court the final arbiter of Constitutional meaning, is not granted by the Constitution. Instead, it resulted from a brilliant political maneuver by Johnny Marshall, who handed Tom Jefferson a tiny win while grabbing a big hunk of power for the court. Smooth.
 
We all should be grateful for that “judicial review” thing, because it’s our primary method of legislation these days. After Congress passes 12,000-page laws that nobody has read before the vote, SCOTUS clerks are the only people who actually read the laws and figure out what they mean. And when Congress fails to take any action at all, it’s up to the courts to dig up some old laws or rulings that they can twist painfully to apply to the pending case.
 
Yeah, I know, lots of people think SCOTUS goes too far in legislating from the bench, but that’s only when an activist* judge rules against them. When the Supreme Court rules in their favor, those esteemed jurists are merely upholding the Constitution. (*Activist = disagrees with me.)
 
As we look forward to this great holiday, it’s wonderful to consider how far we have come in the 23 decades since we adopted the Constitution. Hard to believe, but back then people were actually arguing about how powerful the president should be, separation of church and state, freedom of the press, what and whom to tax, federal power versus states’ rights, and the national debt. Thankfully, we have resolved all of these issues and marched forward in unison since then.
 
Finally, if 34 states approve, everything is up for grabs in a new Constitutional Convention. Depending on how you count “approvals,” we might already be just 6-8 states short of that benchmark, giving today’s politicians the opportunity to reframe our most important document. Fearless forecast: The sequel will not be as good as the original.
 
Before you get all caught up in your Constitution Day celebrations on September 17, do your patriotic duty and subscribe to Dad Writes, as required in Article LVIII.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

I am confused by many things, but I’m too busy watching television to answer my own questions. Desperately seeking clarity this week about...
 

1. Nothing restores my faith in humanity like a broken stop light. Suddenly, it’s a four-way stop and everyone is taking turns!
2. If you want to get men to engage with each other for more than an hour, you have to arrange a tee time.
3. At any casino, the people who know the games end up losing and the newbies end up with a winning streak. Their luck runs out the second time they go, and every time after that, which proves that God is an incredible prankster.
4. I know wisdom is supposed to come with age, but there are a ton of things I’ll never, ever understand, including:
   *  Guys who wear dress shoes and a suit, but no socks.
   *  Women who wear strapless tops with side slits and exposed bra straps.
   *  Toddlers on leashes.
   *  Double doors at restaurants or stores, with one of the doors locked.
   *  Dogs in strollers.
   *  Couples sitting next to each other in a booth, facing an empty seat on the other side.
5. I got stood up at a dinner the other night, but I decided to have a good time anyway. I couldn’t change the situation, but I could absolutely choose my response.
   
6. Now that so many people are continuing to work from home, I’ll bet absenteeism has plummeted. If you “can’t make it in today,” where do you go?
7. When you start to type an email address and the first name comes up, is it a name that surprises you or does it fit?
8. When the waiter comes by and asks, “May I take your order?” I have an urge to say, “No, you may not.” But I have resisted that impulse…so far.

We’re incredibly open minded at Dad Writes, so we will allow you to subscribe by clicking here, even if you put your dog in a stroller and keep your children on a leash when you’re sitting next to each other in a booth. However, socks are a must.
 

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After couple of months of tipping people 50% to deliver my pizza and toilet paper, I’m reconsidering the entire concept of tipping. Why am I tipping some service providers but not others, and when did a lagniappe become a requirement? For example:

1. Why am I expected to give a tip to the person who hands me my coffee at Starbucks, but not the person who hands me my coffee at McDonald’s? Seriously hoping I didn’t open a can of worms with this question.
   
   
2. If tipping is a reward for good service, shouldn’t I be tipping the person as an incentive before I get served? Afterwards, it’s too late to make a difference, right?
   
   
3. Sometimes, I get really bad service and I still leave a tip, because I know the server is so bad she won’t make enough money to pay her rent. Does this make me a philanthropist or a schmuck?
   
   
4. The server comes to our table about 20 times to take and deliver our orders, refill the water, and convince us to order desserts we don’t need. She earns about $3 for her efforts until I decide if I’m going to leave a tip or not. This is clearly a job for daredevils.
   
   
5. By what percentage do you reduce a tip when:
   
   *  The cab driver is on the phone, speaking in a foreign language, while looking at you in the rear-view mirror and smirking?
   
   *  You have to get up and walk over to the coffee machine for a refill?
   
   *  They give you the wrong entrée and then it takes five minutes before you can flag someone down?
   
   *  You have to wait 25 minutes for your luggage at the hotel?
   
   
6. Servers who work for tips are absorbing some of the risk for restaurant owners, because they get paid very little when the place is empty. Since they’re taking an “ownership risk,” shouldn’t they get a share of the profits when the place is busy?
   
   
7. When you give money to a panhandler, is that a tip for their “service” of making you feel better about yourself? And if so, shouldn’t it be a deductible medical therapy expense?
   
   
8. In some Chicago restaurants, the bill includes a 3% surcharge for employee health care. Am I supposed to be happy to see that the owner is paying anything at all, or should I be ticked that he wants me to pitch in as well? 

Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that nobody in a position of authority chooses to work for tips. Maybe there’s a lesson here, if only I could figure out the hidden meaning.
 
 
Subscribing to Dad Writes is almost like giving me a tip, except it doesn’t cost you anything and you don’t even need to enjoy the experience in order to do it. Just click here to sign up and I will feel fully compensated.

 
 

 Looking back on it, all my time in isolation has had its upsides, including a bunch of life hacks and new games that can pay big dividends in any future pandemic, snowstorm or hangover. Just in case we end up with a second wave in the fall, or sooner, you’ll want to bookmark this list of new pastimes I discovered while in the hole…

1. Child torture: Make small donations to obscure and questionable charities in honor of your adult children. When they receive the acknowledgement and ask you about it, tell them you’ve changed your will and now all your money is going to the left-handed, eleven-toed Nigerian mining engineers’ retirement fund.
2.  Rescue mission: Isn’t it time that you finally disassemble your dryer and find out where all those unmatched socks have been hiding? Hint: They’re usually inside the motor housing.
3. Spice inventory: Try to remember why you bought eight jars of parsley as you dig through the hundreds of spices in your kitchen cabinet. Instead of organizing them alphabetically, try ranking them by anti-oxidant strength. 
4. Scavenger hunt: Open up the junk drawer in your kitchen and grab all the weird plastic pieces and tiny screws that fell off your appliances over the past ten years. Now, set the oven timer, if you can figure out how, and try to find where they fit, assuming you still have the appliances.
5. Face mask fabrication: Anyone can make a face mask from a handkerchief or a kippah. Join the big leagues by creating unique PPE supplies from those blue jeans you were hoping to fit into some day. Bonus: Tell your friends the jeans were actually loose on you, so you sacrificed them for the greater good.
6. Artisanal crafts: While everyone else focuses on sourdough bread and lutefisk recipes, revive the ancient art of making rubber band balls and chains of paper clips.
7. Improve your view: Bite the bullet and get rid of all your skinny clothes that…let’s face it…you are never going to wear again and all the souvenir coffee mugs that you never use and the pens that don’t have any usable ink anymore and…voila…your home will be so much lighter that it will rise off its foundation and you can see over the trees.
8. Make $Millions on eBay: Self-quarantine is the perfect time to finally assure a comfortable retirement by selling all those Beanie Babies, baseball cards, coins, stamps, Pogs and every other “collectible” that you just knew “will be worth something someday.”

 
Normally, we’d say, “don’t try these tricks at home,” but not this time. Of course, it’s a good idea to make sure your homeowner’s insurance is up to date, just to be safe.
 
 
Last year on Fathers Day, we chronicled the missed opportunities among unengaged dads. Next week, we look at a different kind of role model. What kind? Just click here to subscribe and you’ll be the first to know.

In the spring, an old man’s fancy turns to leaving the damned house and complaining about the heat and humidity. And bugs. Now that the nation is reopening, it’s time to review what’s out there and what’s ahead, from the only source you can trust 137% on 73% of the issues.

1. We only get to do this once, so nobody really knows what would have happened if we didn’t have the closings and the isolation. It's absolutely indisputable that less contact translates into less infections,  but the precise impact from reduced contact is a mystery for eternity. Most of my friends insist they know, and they have You Tube videos to prove it, but they’re kidding themselves. We do not know because we cannot know. It’s that simple.
   
   
2. Looking ahead, warm weather might slow the spread of the virus, or not, while re-openings could be leading to a new wave, or not. We do not know, and we cannot know, until whatever happens happens. It’s that simple.
   
   
3. I’ve come to the unalterable conclusion that we need more citizens and fewer partisans in the United States. Somebody, everybody, should be on the side of the entire nation, not just the people who share our political views.
   
   
4. I’m venturing out more as the weather improves and, yes, I’m wearing a mask, because it’s the right thing to do in a civilized society. Every so often, you gotta do something for the greater good and, really, nobody wants to look at my face anyway. 
   
   
5. When the pandemic wanes, what will the grandkids think about hugging? Will they miss it so much they’ll want to do it all the time, or will they be so used to the distancing that they won’t feel the need any more?
   
   
6. The most boring part about meeting people at a restaurant is the 30-minute recap of everyone’s commute. Now that we’re meeting online, we spend the first 30 minutes of every call recapping the challenges of logging onto Zoom. I never thought I would miss traffic, but here we are.
   
   
7. Not everything is political, in spite of what we read online. If you were visiting a dying relative, would you spend your last hours together in a debate about politics? If so, maybe you should skip that visit.
   
   
8. Right now, my most time-consuming task is unsubscribing from all the sites that invite me to three webcasts per day, plus a couple dozen surveys about how they are serving my needs. Seriously, I’m getting two or three invitations a day from some of these guys and I can’t help but wonder how they think this is going to make me like them more.

 
Of course, we only invite you to subscribe to Dad Writes once per week, and only after you’ve taken the time to read our latest whining. Certainly, you should reward our restraint by clicking here to subscribe, right now!!
 

Now that pretty much every state is reopening in some way, it’s time for a refresher course on why we should all be dead already. Just in case you were excited about finally getting out of the house…
 

1. Did you ever notice that the guy who clears the tables at the restaurant uses the same rag to wipe both the seat cushions and the table top? Did you also notice that he also holds your cup by the rim when he refills your coffee? No, you never noticed that? Now you will.
2. Speaking of which, did you ever notice that women will put their purse on the floor, then rest it on the napkin on their lap, and then wipe their mouths with their napkins? Nope? Now you will.
3. At the doughnut shop, they avoid touching your doughnut by picking it up with a piece of waxed paper, but then they throw the waxed paper into the bag with your donuts. Isn’t that just an inefficient process for infections?
4. When buffets come back, we’ll all be admonished to use tongs in order to avoid touching the food with our hands. But then we all end up holding the same tongs, so what’s the point?
5. When gyms reopen, people will spritz every surface they touch, or breathe on, but nobody spritzes the door handle that everyone grabs when they leave. Speaking of which, nobody spritzes the handle of the spritzer bottle, either.
6. It doesn’t matter how much hand sanitizer you use, I don’t want to shake hands in a restaurant. Look, I wouldn’t kiss the palm of the guy I’m having lunch with, so why would I shake hands with him before picking up my sandwich?
7. Nothing gives me more faith in the cleanliness of hospitals than sitting on the bus next to a guy in scrubs. Of course, now I won’t be sitting next to him, but the ick factor is the same.  
8. When the next pandemic arrives, it won’t come from China. We’ll get it from sharing the pancake syrup dispenser at the local diner.

 
And don’t get me started on the people who let their dogs lick their hands and faces and then say, “Their mouths are cleaner than ours.” First, it’s not true and, second, even if it was, did you see what they were licking before they licked you? Stop it. Now.
 
Helpful hints like this are yours at no charge, because you wouldn’t pay anything for them anyway, if only you’ll click here to subscribe to Dad Writes.