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.
 

​There was a time when I wondered how I might fill my days if I retired. Now, I wish I was back at work so I could get more rest. Why didn’t anyone warn me that retirement is harder to manage than a career?
 
The first big surprise for most of us is how bad we are at time management. We never really appreciate while we’re working, but our jobs organize our lives for us. They determine the hours we’ll sleep and the hours we’ll be home and what we’ll be doing all week. It feels like a straitjacket at times, but the daily grind creates a structure that holds our lives together. 

When we're working, we know the time pressures of doing the laundry and we stick to the schedule. We're more likely to let things slide when we're retired, which is why so many old people wander around all day in sweat pants and World's Best Grandparent T-shirts.

After we've mastered time management, it's on to Latin 201, which is a prerequisite for reading the reports from our MRIs and our CT scans and our blood tests and everything else the medical profession throws at us.  
 
Then we're forced to learn an arcane dialect known as Legalese, a combination of Latin and arrogance invented by attorneys to convince us we need to pay them $500 per hour. Otherwise, how would we know if we’re leaving money to our pet turtles pari passu or per stirpes, or both? Seriously, it’s better to die broke.
 
Beyond linguistics, retirement demands expert timing to sync with the medical machine. The internist will only see patients on Tuesday from 10 to 4, but the dentist is only in on Wednesdays from 9 to 3, and the pharmacy is closed for a lunch break every day from 1 to 3. Abandon hope, all ye.
 
Then there’s the issue of insurance, as in Medicare. You need at least two policies from Medicare and one or two more as supplements, depending on your medication needs, and the amount you’ll pay will vary with your income and other factors. It was so much easier when the company picked our insurance and we had to take whatever they gave us.
 
Yes, I know, the company’s insurance plan rejected 100% of our claims 100% of the time, but at least we didn’t have to shop for all the coverage we weren't getting. It will be much simpler for our kids, of course, since all of them are “independent contractors” who don’t get any insurance at all. How I envy them.
 
With all these demands on our time, we can’t schedule activities with friends, which is fine because we don’t have any. We put them on the shelf while we were building our careers and now they’ve all dumped us. That’s why we need to spend our free time with the grandkids, who are the only people who aren’t fed up with us by now.
 
Of course, the other reason we don’t have many friends is that they’re dropping like flies. We retire at exactly the same time our working parts go kaflooey. After a while, hospital visits and funerals are almost a regularly scheduled event.
​
Meanwhile, it’s damned near impossible to get any sympathy from our still-working brethren as we struggle to fill our days with meaningful, non-medical, non-funereal pursuits. At a social gathering some months ago, a business executive asked me if I was retired. When I said I was, he simply turned around and walked away.
 
I wanted to chase after him to tell him all the new Latin words I had learned that week, but then I thought better of it. Why cheat him of the opportunity to discover the challenges of retirement all on his own?
 
One of our favorite Latin words is subscribe, which is what we want you to do by clicking right HERE. Really, what else do you have to do with your time?
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

​Jill and I turn 65 this year, and we always make plans for a special trip when our anniversary or birthday year is divisible by five. We’ve visited four continents together and I have been lucky enough to get to another two, but there’s still more to see than can ever be seen, as the song goes.

While the list of faraway treasures is seemingly endless, I’m considering someplace much closer to home this year. I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower—both in Pisa and in Niles!!—and Coit Tower and Willis Tower and the tower of cars that used to stand at Harlem and Cermak.

In 2018, though, I want to see something even more exotic and legendary: my abs. Like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster and UFOs, my abs are rumored to exist. Thus far, however, no sightings have ever been reported. Once, while standing in the bathroom and inhaling very, very, very deeply, I thought I saw a glimpse of one, but it turned out to be a streak on the mirror.

Hope springs eternal, much like delusion, and I am convinced this is the year it will happen. Like Edmund Hillary and Stanley Livingstone, I will see what no man or woman has ever seen before. (Well, with Hillary and Livingstone, it was no white European men, but the concept is the same.)

Yes, I have attempted this journey before, only to fail again and again. This time will be different, though. I have been exercising pretty regularly for almost two years now and my calves are now almost visible. Then, on to the biceps, triceps, foreceps, and finally the holy grail, my abdicators, or abominables, or whatever abs is short for. (Probably absentia in my case.)

I know they exist, because they hurt like hell after I’ve done a set of planks or Russian twists or Albanian gerbils. The pain is a lot like a heart attack, although you don’t get the relief that comes from losing consciousness.

I’ve done the math and this is doable. The flab on my gut is my most loyal of friends, guaranteed to stick with me to the bitterest of ends, so I’ll need to lose about 30 pounds before the hidden gems begin to show themselves. At 3,500 calories per pound, that’s a mere 105,000 calories. If I want to do this over three months, all I need to do is consume roughly 1.200 fewer calories per day. So, I’ll be taking in about 1,000 calories per day, every day, for the next 90 days, including weekends and benders.

Piece of cake, or maybe two pieces of cake, depending on how you slice it. No problem giving up the cake, which I almost never eat anyway. No problem giving up kale, either, or Brussels sprouts or quinoa or ramp. These aren’t really food, anyway, just repackaged tree bark they sell at Whole Foods.

But what about jalapeno poppers? How can I jeopardize the security of already impoverished popper farmers in southern Costa Rica? Can I really give up Cheetos if it means that Chester Cheetah will lose his job and starve in an urban jungle? How can I force thousands of tiny pretzel twisters onto the street, just because I want a six pack. And what about the people who make six packs? Don’t they have dreams, too?

Suddenly, I realize how many people are depending on me for their careers and happiness. In truth, I am like Atlas, holding the entire world of food industry workers on my incredibly ripped shoulders. I dare not falter, or even shrug.

All I need to do is consume 5,200 calories per day and I can be the savior of pretzel twisters and popper pickers everywhere. It’s a major sacrifice as my abs remain enshrouded in mystery, and fat, but that’s the price of making others’ lives more fulfilling.

I know my incredible buffness is in there, somewhere, buried deeply and safe, and that will have to suffice.

Anyway, I hear Willis Tower is lovely this time of year.

Will we ever discover the majesty of our abominable/abdominal muscles? Will we ever escape our quarantine to visit Willis Tower? If you click here to subscribe to Dad Writes you'll be among the first to know.  

My friends have always denied their addiction, but now they're desperate and the defenses are slipping away. I think they're lucky it’s not a deadly habit like opioids, but that's not going to stop the whining.   
 
A few weeks ago, they were on top of the world, with dealers feeding their  jones at any hour and any place. They were getting it in bed, at the gym, at work, anyplace they wanted a fix. Then the joyride ended and they're cut off until, well, nobody really knows.
 
March Madness? Gone. NBA finals? Gone. Baseball? Gone. Masters? Gone. Olympics? Probably gone, as well.
 
I hoped they'd use this opportunity to break the habit, but I suspect they're  too panicked to be smart about it. I can see them now, streaming grainy video from the 1980 Olympics and 60-year-old episodes of Home Run Derby.  Next, they'll be scoring a quick hit off Little League World Series reruns, but the high will fade after a few minutes and it's back to whimpering about free agents.
 
I know I should have some sympathy, but I don’t. For as long as I remember, they've spent more time on the Bears offense than with their kids. Actually, that might be a good thing, since their kids have turned out pretty well while the Bears offense is, well, the Bears offense.
 
Like millions of other sports addicts, they know the stats for players on the local high school teams, all the pro players in town, and everyone on their fantasy baseball teams. Also fantasy football, along with basketball, badminton and sculling, but nothing after that.
 
Does Fremont remember the $50 he owes me from last month? Does Albert remember whose turn it is to buy the next round? Does Percival remember his anniversary? C’mon, we all know the answer to those questions.  All they crave is sports and they probably won't survive until their next fix.
 
Meanwhile, I’m hoping this global off-season lasts for a long time. Finally, I can spend a day without news bulletins about some guy’s groin injury.
 
Beyond my own glee, this is a major opportunity for medical advancement. I’ve always maintained that we could have cured cancer by now if people spent as much time and money on research as they do on sports. Okay, sports addicts, it’s your big chance to be heroes. Don’t blow it.
 
 
Will my friends give up on sports and cure cancer? Will they finally pay me the $50 they owe me? Find out by clicking here to subscribe to our weekly updates.