Dad, there's a black man outside!

Yesterday I had a very uncomfortable experience. I hope it never happens to you.

So I'm in my home office working nicely. The wife and three of the four kids are out of the house. Emily, the five year-old, is playing on the computer in the front room.

I hear her yell out to me: "Dad, there's a black man outside!"

Now as you may know, kids will make lots of loud noises and yell out odd things from time to time. So I guess frankly although I heard her yell something, I wasn't really listening. It didn't sound urgent anyway, so I just kept working.

Again, this time much louder: "DAD, THERE'S A BLACK MAN OUTSIDE!" Nothing ominous in the voice, just simply stating a fact as she saw it.

OK, so now I'm walking towards the front room and my brain's processing the whole thing. There is clearly a man at the front door, probably black, and Emily has seen him through the front window. (I thought I heard the doorbell ring?) I look out the peep hole. Yep, just what I thought. FedEx guy. African American FedEx guy with a package.

You getting the picture yet? My mind started to race. Sizing up the situation, I had to figure there was about a 90-95% chance that the young man standing outside that front had heard every one of Emily's words. The poor guy's got to be thinking that he's about to deliver a package to a white-trash, hillbilly, racist family, right? What do I do?!

I know, I'll just address it head-on. Something like, "You know, you must have heard her -- my daughter. I don't know why she felt the need to specify to me that you were a "black" man. I mean, we like black people -- we have tons of black friends, hundreds! Oh, you know what? I do let her watch The Family Guy and The Cleveland Show from time to time. I bet that's where she picked it up!" No good. Abort plan. It will never work.

In a split second I made the decision. I would just open the door, accept the package and just pretend the whole thing never happened.

So that's what I did, but with an embarrassing twist. As I accepted the package, chatted with the fellow, signed his electronic pad, I guess I must have felt the need somehow to let him know that I liked him a lot. No need to worry about Dan Green being a racist! I was super nice. I smiled. My eyes were incredibly friendly, my voice warm and charming.

As I said goodbye and closed the door it hit me that the poor guy must have thought I was coming on to him. Boy, I hope I never have to experience anything like that again.

Thinking Via the Box

Are you a creative trailblazer? If so, you must always remember to: "Think {Insert any random preposition here} the box."

You say, "Wait Dan, please. I have a list here of about 70 different prepositions I got off the internet, and a lot of them don't really work. For example, I can't think 'amid' the box."

And of course you really can (and should). You simply need to have the ability to think per the box my friend.

Demonologist

I don't really believe in the supernatural -- especially things like ghosts, devils and the like. The other day I read about some dude who claimed to be a demonologist. (That was his line of work I guess.)

I say that some nouns ought not be allowed to add the -ologist suffix -- and "demon" is one.

On a somewhat related note (and I guess you're going to say that it makes me a bit of a hypocrite), I am actually a licensed Leprechaunologist, and my (late) uncle Rick was a Bogeymanologist -- until the Bogeyman got rather annoyed over it all.

How to Determine if Someone is Truly an Atheist, or The Kübler-Ross Gambit.

I've got a foolproof method to determine if someone who proclaims to be an atheist really is -- in seven easy steps! Try it.

Step I) Kidnap the person who told you he's an atheist and place him in a previously highly secured room in your home. Make sure the room's equipped with hidden cameras and microphones so that you can keep tabs on him. Also, there should be a speaker system in the room so that you can talk directly to him through that sound system.

Step II) Inform this "atheist" that while you admit to being quite mad, you're willing to feed him his favorite fast food items. Ask him what they are. Let's say for our purposes here it's Big Mac and fries.

Step III) After withholding any and all food for days, deliver the McDonald's food -- nice and hot.

Step IV) Tell the "atheist" that, in keeping with your proclivity for madness, you've decided to kill him. Let him know that the McDonald's food he ate was laced with a highly potent poison that will be killing him in exactly 8 hours. (You don't really need to poison the poor schmuck -- the key here is just to act crazy enough, so that he'll believe you.) It is absolutely key though that he believes he has been poisoned, and that there is absolutely no antidote. Death is imminent.

Step V) Tell him that while the death that occurs as a result of ingesting this particular toxin involves highly painful symptoms prior to death, you're willing to help out by providing him with very strong pain killers, but under one condition: He has to verbally walk you through his entire thought process -- from that moment all the way up to his death. He'll go for it, probably.

Step VI) OK, it's pay dirt time. Even if we didn't take that Thanatology class back in college, we all know, or have heard of the five stages of death and dying: 1] Denial, 2] Anger, 3] Bargaining, 4] Depression, 5] Acceptance. (This is why I also refer to this whole ploy as the "Kubler-Ross Gambit.") As our hostage here verbally emits his stream of consciousness (per your agreement) the hidden mikes pick it all up as he rambles through the five stages. It should go something like this: Stage 1] Denial. "I don't believe it! You didn't poison my food!" Stage 2] Anger. "You A-hole!! You're a crazy SOB!" Stage 3] Bargaining. HERE IS WHERE THE TRUE ATHEIST IS REVEALED OR EXPOSED AS A BELIEVER. In this stage the dying person will attempt to bargain with a supernatural power of some sort and will think or say something like, "God, I know I haven't been to church in a long time -- I guess it's been since I was a kid really, but if you just get me out of this I'll give half my earnings to charity -- forever." A 100% real bonafide atheist will of course skip this step all together and move on to Stage 4] Depression (at which time he'll probably get all quiet).

Step VII) That's it. You're done with the project. You now know whether or not your subject is truly an atheist. You can even let him go now if you'd like. However, I really wouldn't do that if I were you. He's likely to go to the police and you're looking at some pretty serious kidnapping charges.