West Wing Boyz

I had trouble falling asleep the other night. That doesn't happen to me very often, so I'm not really sure how you're supposed to deal with it.

Word on the street is that you're supposed to count sheep, but that ended up getting me all flustered. Are you supposed to count them as a big herd in a pen? Or are you supposed to count them as they walk by one by one? I tried the latter, but then I got distracted by the ones that had already walked by and gathered off to the side. I wanted to know what they were up to.

So I finally said fuck it. Instead I came up with frat house nicknames for all of the U.S. Presidents. They are terrible. And I am going to share them with you. You're welcome.

George Washington  -  G Dubs

John Adams  -  Number Two

Thomas Jefferson  -  TJ

James Madison  -  Mad Man

James Monroe  -  Five Spot

John Quincy Adams  -  Q Tip

Andrew Jackson  -  Ajax

Martin Van Buren  -  Eight Ball

William Henry Harrison  -  Scary Harry

John Tyler  -  JT

James K. Polk  -  Poker Face

Zachary Taylor  -  Zack Attack

Millard Fillmore  -  Milli Vanilli

Franklin Pierce  -  Frankie P

James Buchanan  -  Bucky

Abraham Lincoln  -  Abelicious

Andrew Johnson  -  AJ

Ulysses S. Grant  -  U Boat

Rutherford B. Hayes  -  Ruthie

James Garfield  -  Slim

Chester A. Arthur  -  Chestnuts

Grover Cleavland  -  Ohio

Benjamin Harrison  -  Big Ben

William McKinley  -  Mack

Theodore Roosevelt  -  Papa Bear

William Taft  -  T Train

Woodrow Wilson  -  Woodie

Warren G. Harding  -  G Unit

Calvin Coolidge  -  Cool Cal

Franklin Roosevelt  -  Rosie

Harry Truman  -  H Bomb

Dwight D. Eisenhower  -  Double Ds

John F. Kennedy  -  Fritz

Lyndon B. Johnson  -  BJ

Richard Nixon  -  Slick Dick

Gerald Ford - Model T

Jimmy Carter  -  JC

Ronald Reagan  -  Four-O

George Bush  -  Bushwacker

Bill Clinton  -  Spanky

George W. Bush  -  Junior

Barack Obama  -  Beezy

Practically a Sequel to "Deliverance"

There's a stretch of river back home that my dad and I like to canoe every chance we get. We park a car at the river's edge and have Mom drop us off a few miles upstream. I love that little trip because in just a few hours we paddle through woods, reedy swamps, a calm lake, and over a beaver dam.

Getting over that beaver dam is a bitch. It's basically a small waterfall with a bunch of logs and scraggly tree branches on each side. Your only hope is to shoot right down the middle. But you have almost no time to line up your canoe because the dam is just after a sharp bend in the river, and it comes as an abrupt surprise every time.

A couple of years ago, my dad and I were making that trip after a rainy stretch of weather. The river was high and fast, and we were having fun maneuvering around the rocks and various river debris. Then we came up on that f-ing beaver dam.

We took the bend way too wide and couldn't get our canoe straightened out. Going over the dam sideways would definitely capsize us, so we paddled as hard as we could, trying to reach a bit of clear shore nearby. Instead, we smashed into a fallen a tree. The river was pushing us deeper into the tangled branches and I was about to take a branch to the eye, so I ducked violently out the way. This made the canoe sort of halfway tip over and my dad fell out.

"Dad!" I screamed.

He grabbed the side of the canoe to keep his head above water and to keep from being swept downstream. The water was rushing over his shoulders and I was sure this was going to be the end of him.

Oh my God! Oh my God. My dad is going to drown right in front of me. How am I going to keep his corpse from floating away without falling in too? Holy shit, this is awful. It's all happening so fast.

But then Dad got his feet under himself and stood up. And I remembered that the river was, like, two feet deep. And then I felt really embarrassed inside for immediately making the leap to planning my father's funeral after witnessing what amounted to a minor inconvenience. It's like sometimes my brain forgets that my life is not an award winning AMC drama.

A Girl Can Dream

Remember when Crystal Clear Pepsi was a thing? How awesome was that? Granted, I was nine when it came out, but I was totally in awe with the entire campaign. I'm not saying for surely, but clear cola might have been one of the greatest technological advancements of the 90s.

But then it went away. Sad face. I've noticed that sometimes they have Pepsi Throwback, where they use the old recipe or something. My dream is that someday I'll walk into a store and see Crystal Pepsi on the shelves.

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