Category: Uncategorized

Sometimes the Person Who Needs Help Is You

I take mental health very seriously.

Over the years, I’ve advocated for people struggling with their mental health. I’ve listened, offered support, and helped people navigate some of the darkest moments of their lives. I believe in checking on people, being there when someone needs a hand, and reminding others that they don’t have to fight every battle alone.

But there’s a funny thing about being the person everyone sees as strong. Sometimes, you forget you’re allowed to struggle, too.

When it comes to my own mental health, I seldom seek help. I rarely tell people when I’m struggling, and I certainly don’t make a habit of asking others to check in on me.

So, more often than not, I end up checking in on myself. And today? Today, I hit my mental health breaking point.

I’m not ashamed to admit that. When I reach this point, I know I need to step back, take some time for myself, and figure out how to reset. I need to slow down, breathe, and give myself the space to sort through the mess in my head before I can move forward.

My goal is simple: relax, figure some shit out, and come back stronger.

But here’s the part people don’t always understand. Owning a small business is stressful under the best circumstances. Owning a restaurant in today’s economic climate brings a whole different level of pressure. You’re responsible for your employees, your customers, your bills, your inventory, your equipment, and a hundred other things that never seem to stop demanding your attention.

The business doesn’t care if you’ve had a bad week. The bills don’t care if you’re exhausted. The problems don’t politely wait until you’re in a better headspace to deal with them.

They just keep coming. And if you’re anything like me, you keep pushing.

You find a way. You solve the next problem. You put out the next fire. You tell yourself that things will get better if you just work a little harder and push a little further.

Until one day, you realize you’ve pushed yourself too far.

I have a bad habit of going until I snap. I keep carrying the weight until I reach a point where I simply cannot carry it anymore.

Today is that day. Here’s what I’ve learned about myself: I can work on myself. I can take a step back, regroup, and find ways to get my head back in the right place. I will put in the work to get myself through this.

But I’m also struggling with a much bigger question.

What happens when the source of your stress is something you can’t simply fix by working on yourself?

I can work on my mindset. I can work on my habits. I can make changes to how I handle stress. But I can’t magically create resources that aren’t there. I can’t make the challenges facing small businesses disappear. And I can’t keep pretending that sheer determination is enough to solve every problem.

Sometimes, the resources and support a small business desperately needs just aren’t available when they’re needed most.

And that leaves people like me trying to figure it all out on our own.nThat’s an incredibly frustrating place to be, especially when the business you’ve poured your heart, time, money, and energy into starts taking a toll on your mental health.

So, this weekend, I’m making a decision. I’m closing Basil’s Sports Bar for the day.

Not because I don’t care about my business. Not because I’ve given up. And certainly not because I don’t understand the inconvenience it may cause.

I’m doing it because I need a day. A day to put down the weight of being a business owner. A day to stop thinking about payroll, bills, staffing, and everything else waiting for me on the other side of the door.

A day to be a husband. A day to spend with my wife and my dog.

A day to relax without feeling like I should be doing something else.

And yes, I’m going to be a little selfish with that time. Time that has me pulled in two different directions.

Because sometimes, taking care of yourself means accepting that you cannot be everything to everyone, every single day.

Sunday and Monday, I’ll get back to work on a different kind of problem-solving. I’ll dig deep into the challenges facing my business, examine what’s working and what isn’t, and start putting together a plan to address the problems that have been weighing me down.

I don’t expect to solve everything in two days. I’m not naive enough to believe that.

But I can start looking at things with a clearer head. I can make decisions without the immediate weight of exhaustion clouding my judgment. And I can give myself a fighting chance to find a better way forward.

That’s the plan. And if there’s one thing I want people to take away from all of this, it’s this:

Please take your mental health seriously.

Check on your friends. Check on your family. Check on the people who always seem to have everything under control. Sometimes, those are the very people who have gotten so good at hiding their struggles that nobody realizes they’re drowning.

And if you’re the person who always shows up for everyone else, remember that you deserve that same consideration.

You don’t have to wait until you hit your breaking point to take a step back. You don’t have to earn the right to rest by working yourself into the ground. And you don’t have to prove your strength by suffering in silence.

I’m still figuring things out. I have a business to fight for, problems to solve, and plenty of work ahead of me. I’m not walking away from any of that.

I’m simply recognizing that I need to take care of the person who’s been doing all the fighting.

So here’s to taking a breath. Here’s to hitting the reset button. Here’s to admitting when we’re struggling and having the courage to do something about it.

And here’s to remembering that we can’t pour from an empty cup, no matter how damn determined we are to keep pouring.

Take care of yourselves, folks. Not just when it’s convenient. Not just when everything else is taken care of.

Take care of yourselves before you reach the point where you have no choice.

Because your mental health matters, too.

THE SPOT

A Restaurant Satire and Nine Questionable Employees

From the outside, The Spot was a masterpiece of hospitality.

A local favorite. A neighborhood institution. A culinary destination where the food was fantastic, the beverages flowed freely, and the service appeared to operate with the effortless precision of a Swiss watch.

Guests arrived, ate, drank, laughed, and left happy. Plates landed on tables. Drinks appeared at precisely the right moment. The kitchen hummed. The dining room buzzed. Everything seemed perfectly under control.

And that was the beauty of The Spot.

Because behind those doors, hidden from the unsuspecting public, was a rum-dumb skeleton crew that looked less like a restaurant staff and more like a gang assembled for a deleted scene from The Warriors.

These were not the employees anyone would deliberately recruit to run a restaurant. These were the employees fate had delivered. And fate, apparently, had a wicked sense of humor.

The Busybody

First, there was the Busybody. Always moving. Always hustling. Always making certain that anyone watching could see just how incredibly busy they were.

If a clean floor needed swept, it was swept. If a table needed clearing, it was cleared. If there was a task to be done, the Busybody was already halfway through doing it.

Productivity was their religion, and standing still was apparently a punishable offense. The Busybody got shit done. Nobody could deny that.

There was just one small complication. The Busybody operated at a pace that suggested the restaurant was permanently three minutes away from being evacuated. Efficiency occasionally took a back seat to speed, and the collateral damage was usually discovered by whoever had to fix whatever had just been accomplished.

But hey, the task was done. Mostly.

And if a few new problems had been created along the way, well, those were tomorrow’s problems. Probably somebody else’s. This is also, “That’s Not My Job” guy.

Do-Little

Then came Do-Little. A minimalist in the purest sense of the word.

Where the Busybody saw seventeen tasks, Do-Little saw an opportunity to conserve energy. Standing was an art form. Leaning was a profession. And the ability to remain physically present while contributing almost nothing was a skill that deserved its own certification program.

Do-Little never technically refused to help. That would require accountability.

Instead, assistance was met with a thoughtful pause, a concerned expression, and an explanation of why the requested task was somehow impossible at that exact moment.

Too busy with something else. Just finished something important. Was about to do that. Didn’t realize anyone needed help. And if all else failed, there was always the classic: “Nobody told me.”

Do-Little didn’t avoid work. Do-Little simply believed work should happen organically, preferably somewhere outside their immediate vicinity.

The Excuse Maker

Do not confuse Do-Little with the Excuse Maker. Do-Little at least understood that work existed.

The Excuse Maker operated on a much more advanced philosophical plane: nothing was ever their fault.

A mistake? Someone gave bad instructions. A missed task? Nobody called it out. A forgotten responsibility? There was a misunderstanding.

A disaster of biblical proportions? Well, if management had organized things properly, none of this would have happened. The Excuse Maker could manufacture a justification faster than the kitchen could produce a burger.

Excuses flowed like the salmon of Capistrano, migrating majestically toward a destination that nobody could identify and nobody could stop.

Accountability was an unfamiliar concept, like a foreign language they’d once heard spoken on vacation. “Cierra la puerta!!”

And the truly remarkable part? The Excuse Maker could explain precisely why something hadn’t been done without ever appearing to consider the possibility of simply doing it.

It was a gift. A useless, exhausting, professionally inconvenient gift.

The C-Squad Captain

Every dysfunctional crew needs a leader. Unfortunately, The Spot had the C-Squad Captain.

To be fair, this one understood the operation. They knew the people, the procedures, and the general idea of how a restaurant was supposed to function.

On a good day, they could coordinate a shift, solve a problem, and keep the whole operation moving. On a bad day, however, the wheels came off.

Pressure arrived, the dining room filled, the kitchen started barking, and suddenly the Captain looked like someone had handed them the controls to an aircraft while explaining that the manual was written in Chinese.

The ability to recognize a problem was there. The ability to rally the troops and conquer it? That depended heavily on the weather, the alignment of the planets, and how many people were asking questions at once.

The Captain wasn’t necessarily incapable. They were simply a reminder that knowing how a ship works and keeping it afloat during a storm are two very different things.

And at The Spot, it was always storm season.

I’m Your Guy-Guy

“I’m your guy!” Four of the most reassuring words ever spoken in a workplace. Until you actually need the guy.

I’m Your Guy-Guy loved being involved. They volunteered for shifts, offered assistance, and enthusiastically positioned themselves as the solution to nearly every staffing problem.

Need someone to cover? I’m your guy. Need an extra set of hands? I’m your guy. Need someone to stay late and help clean up after a brutal shift?

Suddenly, the guy was experiencing a mysterious disappearance that would have made Houdini question his career choices.

Nobody ever saw it happen. One minute, Guy-Guy was everywhere, making promises and radiating team spirit. The next, there was a suspiciously Guy-Guy-shaped hole in the operation.

And when confronted, the response was always some variation of genuine surprise. “Oh, I thought you had it covered.”

Of course we did. We always had it covered. That’s why we called you. But don’t worry, someone else will stop what they’re doing and get it done.

The Zombie

The Zombie wandered the halls of The Spot like an extra from a low-budget apocalypse movie. Slow movements. Vacant expression. No discernible destination.

They drifted through the dining room, crossed the kitchen, paused near a counter, and continued their migration toward absolutely nowhere.

Were they looking for something? Possibly. Did they know what it was?

Unclear. Were they helping? Not unless help had recently been redefined as occupying square footage.

The Zombie wasn’t completely useless. That would have been too simple. Give them a direct instruction, and something remarkable happened: life returned to their eyes.

A task was assigned. The task was completed. Evidence of a functioning employee briefly emerged. Then, once the assignment was finished, the Zombie returned to their natural habitat.

Wandering. Aimlessly. Eternally.

The Zombie was living proof that initiative could not be taught to someone who hadn’t yet established a clear understanding of where they were going.

The Cable Guy

Every restaurant has that one employee who knows everything. At The Spot, that employee was The Cable Guy.

Ask about the television schedule, and you had an expert. Movies? Shows? Streaming services? Current events? The Cable Guy was a walking encyclopedia of entertainment, armed with opinions, recommendations, and enough useless trivia to fill a commercial break.

They could tell you what was on every channel, who starred in that movie from twelve years ago, and why the latest series had gone downhill after season three. They were informed. Articulate. Engaged.

Just don’t ask them to julienne a carrot or make ranch dressing. That was how an ordinary culinary task became an engineering consultation.

The knife appeared unfamiliar. The carrot presented several logistical challenges. The cutting board became a potential hazard zone.

You could practically hear the gears turning. Somewhere, a culinary instructor felt a disturbance in the universe.

The Cable Guy could explain the entire plot of a Lost television series but needed a detailed demonstration to turn a vegetable into matchsticks.

It was impressive, really. A mind capable of storing so much information, yet somehow unable to locate the part of the brain responsible for kitchen fundamentals.

The Volunteer

Then there’s The Volunteer. A rare and generous soul who already has a full-time career elsewhere but, for reasons that remain under investigation, insists on helping out at The Spot.

Technically, they’re part-time. Spiritually, they’re a humanitarian. And in their own mind, they’re an invaluable addition to the kitchen staff.

The Volunteer genuinely wants to help. That’s the beautiful part. The problem is that wanting to help and actually being helpful are two entirely different ingredients, and neither one is available on the prep list.

Cooking is not their strong suit. In fact, calling it a weakness would suggest there was some underlying strength to begin with.

Ask The Volunteer to prepare a dish, and you’ll quickly discover that their culinary experience appears to have been assembled from cooking shows, vague childhood memories, and the assumption that professional kitchens operate pretty much like cooking at home.

A recipe calls for a roux. The Volunteer sees milk, flour and figures the rest is a matter of personal interpretation.

A pan needs to be heated. The Volunteer turns on a burner and waits for divine intervention. And if someone asks them to jump in and help during a dinner rush, they’re more than happy to oblige.

Credit where credit is due. Because somewhere between their enthusiasm and the finished plate, a perfectly innocent food item has entered a situation it may never recover from.

Still, The Volunteer keeps showing up, ready to lend a hand, eager to contribute, and blissfully unaware that the kitchen crew has quietly begun supervising every movement.

Nobody wants to discourage the enthusiasm. That’s just mean. But there’s a fine line between lending a hand and creating a situation that requires three people to undo what one well-meaning person has just accomplished.

The Volunteer crosses that line with the confidence of someone who has never once considered that they might be the problem.

And the most frustrating part? They’re genuinely trying. Which makes it almost impossible to tell them to stop helping without feeling like you’ve just kicked a child out of the bouncy house.

So The Volunteer remains on the roster: occasionally useful, consistently enthusiastic, and always one cooking instruction away from an unexpected staff meeting.

Their heart is in the right place. Their knife skills are not.

The Reminiscer

“At my old restaurant, we used to…” And there it was. The opening line of another historical lecture from The Reminiscer.

At the old restaurant, everything had been better. The systems were smoother. The employees were sharper. The food was prepared differently. The shifts ran beautifully. Everyone stayed and prepped and cleaned.

Apparently, the old restaurant had been a cross between a Michelin-starred operation and the lost city of Atlantis.

The Reminiscer could recall its procedures with extraordinary detail. How they organized prep. How they handled service. How they trained new hires. How they managed inventory.

There was only one small problem.

None of those wonderful ideas ever seemed to make it to The Spot.

The Reminiscer was a historian, not an innovator. Their job was to preserve the memory of a superior workplace that existed somewhere in the distant past, while continuing to work in a present where nothing changed.

Every suggestion came wrapped in nostalgia. Every opportunity to implement a better system somehow vanished.

And so the stories continued, shift after shift, while everyone else quietly wondered why the old restaurant had apparently figured out everything except how to bring its best employee practices along for the ride.

The Chatterbox

Finally, there was the Chatterbox. A natural politician.

A conversationalist who could turn a thirty-second interaction into a full campaign stop, complete with personal anecdotes, follow-up questions, and promises of a brighter tomorrow.

Guests adored them. Regulars knew their name. Strangers became friends. Friends became confidants. If talking generated revenue, The Spot could have retired its entire debt within a month.

The Chatterbox moved through the dining room cultivating relationships as though election day were approaching and every table contained a swing voter.

Unfortunately, there was a small downside to this gift. When actual work needed doing, the Chatterbox developed a remarkable talent for being somewhere else.

A table needed attention? They were deep in conversation. A task needed completing? They were just wrapping something up.

Someone needed a hand? They were apparently in the middle of a very important discussion about someone’s nephew, vacation plans, or the latest neighborhood gossip.

The Chatterbox could find a person to talk to in an empty building. Finding them when they were needed, however, required the services of a private investigator.

And Somehow, It Works

Taken individually, these employees presented a collection of challenges that would make a seasoned restaurant manager reconsider every career decision that had brought them to this moment.

Together, they were a logistical contradiction.

The Busybody ran around fixing problems, some of which had not existed before they arrived.

Do-Little conserved energy for reasons known only to themselves.

The Excuse Maker ensured that no failure ever went unexplained, even when it went unresolved.

The C-Squad Captain attempted to steer the ship.

Guy-Guy promised to help before vanishing into the mist.

The Zombie wandered until given a mission.

The Cable Guy remained available for all questions unrelated to the actual job.

The Reminiscer kept alive the glorious legend of a restaurant that apparently existed in another county.

And the Chatterbox made sure everyone felt heard, whether or not anyone had actually been helped.

Yet somehow, the food went out, slowly, but it went. The drinks got poured. The guests came back. The bills got paid.

From the outside, The Spot remained a neighborhood favorite, a well-oiled machine delivering excellent food and good times to the locals.

From the inside, it was less a machine and more a shopping cart with one bad wheel, rolling downhill toward a busy intersection. Nobody was entirely sure who was steering. Nobody agreed on the route.

And at least two people were convinced they weren’t responsible for the brakes.

But the cart kept moving. Because every once in a while, the owners stepped up. Stayed late. Quietly fixed a mistake, helped a coworker, or worked tue line because no one else would.

Those moments were rarely celebrated. They weren’t dramatic enough for the stories, and they didn’t generate nearly as much material as the daily circus.

But they mattered. Because beneath the excuses, disappearances, wandering, and endless commentary was a crew of imperfect human beings who, against all reasonable expectations, managed to pull off something worth coming back for.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t always right. And it certainly wasn’t the operation anyone would have designed on purpose.

But it was The Spot. And the Spot, despite it all, was open for business.

A Microphone Doesn’t Give You the Right to Be Cruel

The Owner’s Corner | By Pete

I’ve watched a lot of disturbing things unfold in the media over the years, but sometimes I genuinely wonder just how low we’ve allowed the bar of human decency to fall.

Two recent examples? Megyn Kelly and Stephen A. Smith.

Let’s start with Megyn Kelly and her absolutely despicable comments regarding Jane Doe and defending the Cornell 7.

Rather than showing compassion or allowing the legal process to play out, Kelly chose to attack this woman’s appearance, question her motives, and suggest she may have actually enjoyed the encounter.

Are you fucking kidding me?

These are serious allegations that deserve a thorough investigation and due process for everyone involved. But questioning someone’s attractiveness to discredit a sexual assault allegation? That’s not journalism. That’s cruelty disguised as commentary.

And then there’s Stephen A. Smith. This fucking guy!

Philadelphia Eagles Lane Johnson made the incredibly personal decision to retire from football and prioritize his mental health. A man who spent years sacrificing his body for the sport finally decided his well-being needed to come first.

And Smith’s response on national television? Laughter, sarcasm, and questioning the timing of his decision.

Smith insists he wasn’t mocking mental health. But when someone makes a difficult decision to better themselves, your first response shouldn’t leave people wondering whether you’re laughing at their struggle.

Here’s what absolutely disgusts me about both situations.

We spend years encouraging sexual assault survivors to speak up. We tell people struggling with mental health that it’s okay to ask for help. We preach compassion, understanding, and the importance of breaking the stigma.

Then someone actually finds the courage to speak up or step away, and what happens?

They’re publicly ridiculed by people sitting comfortably behind microphones, collecting paychecks for their opinions.

Having a platform doesn’t make you important. How you use that platform determines whether you’re worthy of it.

Freedom of speech gives you the right to express your opinion. It doesn’t exempt you from being held accountable for the damage your words can cause.

You can question allegations without humiliating the accuser. You can analyze an athlete’s retirement without laughing at his mental health.

It’s called basic human decency.

And if that’s too difficult for some of the biggest personalities in media to understand, perhaps they’re the ones who need to step away from the microphone.

Because being loud doesn’t make you right. Being famous doesn’t make you credible. And being controversial certainly doesn’t make you courageous.

Sometimes it just makes you an asshole. And frankly, I’m tired of watching society reward it.

Title IX Cannot Open the Door… But You Can

Sexual assault, group loyalty, and the people who choose to look away

Title IX cannot walk upstairs and help someone being assaulted. An actual human being can. That person can interrupt. Get help. Call the police. Refuse to participate. Refuse to let a teammate or fraternity brother turn another human being into entertainment. And when someone knows what is happening, has a realistic opportunity to help, and chooses the comfort of the group instead, I have a hard time accepting “I wasn’t involved.”

You were involved in the decision to do nothing.

I am talking about moral responsibility here. Criminal guilt depends on evidence, conduct, and the law. A frightened witness, someone unaware of what is happening, and someone actively encouraging an assault are not interchangeable. But the person who knowingly helps it happen, or knowingly looks away when help is possible, does not get a clean conscience simply because their hands stayed off the victim.

Cornell and the questions that demand answers

A former Cornell student alleges that seven fraternity members sexually assaulted her after she consumed alcohol and drugs. The district attorney reopened the investigation and announced plans to present the case to a grand jury. These are allegations, not criminal convictions. Some defendants have denied wrongdoing. The alleged group chat is central to why this case has drawn much anger. According to reporting on the complaint, messages encouraged fraternity members to join the encounter and described the woman in degrading sexual terms. Those allegations require investigation, including who sent and received messages and what each person actually knew. If people were being invited to exploit an incapacitated person, the question goes beyond who entered the room. Who understood what was happening and could have called for help?

Cornell says its investigation resulted in suspensions and expulsions and that the fraternity was closed and remains barred. It disputes the claim that essays were the sole consequence. Those facts belong in the discussion. So does the unresolved evidence: Cornell says campus police supplied the Snapchat screenshot to prosecutors, the DA says his office did not receive it. Separately, AP reported that a police interview transcript contained the woman’s statement that she was certain she had been raped. The DA said he had not reviewed that transcript when his office declined prosecution.

That is a serious accountability question. What was sent, what was received, and what was reviewed? A cover-up should not be declared without evidence. Neither should conflicting institutional explanations be accepted as the end of the conversation. Establish the record. Identify any failures. Explain how they happened and who was responsible.

AOC said the quiet part loudly

At a town hall in Ithaca, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned what she called a “culture of rape” at elite institutions. Speaking about the Cornell allegations, she said: “This is a culture, this is norms, these are practices.” Her criticism also included the claim that some defendants were required to write essays. Cornell subsequently disputed essays being the sole punishment and confirmed suspensions and expulsions. Political outrage does not settle disputed facts. But her point deserves attention: what conduct does a community tolerate, and whose future does it rush to protect?

My concern is what happens when concern for a promising student, a successful team, or a prestigious institution crowds out concern for the person reporting harm. We should demand fair investigations and refuse to treat someone’s athletic ability or academic prospects as a discount on accountability.

Steubenville was not merely an allegation

In March 2013, two Steubenville Big Red football players were adjudicated delinquent for raping a 16-year-old girl. That was the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty finding. Images, messages, and social media helped reconstruct what happened. People had phones and that information circulated throughout a community. The case forces a brutal question: how can someone’s suffering become material to share instead of an emergency to stop?

The scrutiny also extended beyond the two players. A special grand jury later indicted school officials on charges that included obstruction and failure to report. Indictments were not convictions; charges against the superintendent were subsequently dismissed after his resignation under an agreement. That history matters because accountability cannot end at the edge of a playing field. Adults entrusted with students need scrutiny too, with the same insistence on evidence and accurate outcomes.

Youngstown and the excuse of “hazing”

The Ursuline High School case in Youngstown also reminds us that sexual violence can target boys. A federal lawsuit alleged that football players restrained, stripped, and sexually assaulted a teammate during a team trip, with recordings shared through Snapchat. It also alleged that a coach dismissed a report as “boys being boys” and that school personnel helped conceal misconduct. The school and diocese said they investigated promptly, cooperated with authorities, and imposed student discipline. By September 2026, a settlement involving the school, diocese, and the family was moving through probate court. A settlement is not a criminal conviction or, by itself, proof of the allegations. But come on now… another case of elite protection. But the alleged conduct raises a question every program should answer before another child is harmed: what exactly are adults prepared to excuse under the word “hazing”? Calling sexual abuse an initiation does not make it team building. Humiliation is not a lesson in toughness. A child should not have to accept abuse as the price of belonging.

Hockey Canada and institutional accountability

The five former Canadian world junior players prosecuted over an alleged 2018 sexual assault were acquitted in July 2025. That outcome must be stated plainly. This case cannot honestly be presented as five proven rapists escaping punishment. The institutional controversy still warrants discussion. Public scrutiny exposed Hockey Canada’s use of funds drawn from player registration fees to settle sexual misconduct claims. The fallout included lost sponsors and the resignation of its CEO and entire board in 2022. A settlement does not establish a player’s guilt; the organization’s handling of claims is a separate accountability issue. An institution should be able to explain whether its decisions protect people, address risks, and preserve accountability. Paying to resolve a claim cannot substitute for examining the conditions that allowed alleged harm to occur.

Title IX matters and people still have to act

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education, including sexual violence. Its obligations matter, and institutional policies, training, reporting systems, and responses can contribute to prevention. It would be wrong to say the law has no preventive role. But Title IX cannot physically interrupt an assault.

A training session needs to become a decision when someone notices danger. A reporting policy needs a person willing to use it. A school’s promise of safety needs adults willing to act on warning signs. A completed investigation cannot give someone back the night they needed help. And “we followed our process” should never end the inquiry into whether that process worked.

Loyalty needs a better definition

Sports and fraternities can give people friendship, discipline, and belonging. I am not accusing every athlete or fraternity member of misconduct. I am questioning loyalty that demands silence. When belonging depends on laughing at degradation, protecting the popular guy, or treating a report as a threat to the group, that culture deserves confrontation. That is what I mean by rape culture: the attitudes and practices that make sexual violence easier to excuse, enable, or ignore. We cannot keep making prevention another assignment for potential victims. Watch your drink. Watch your clothes. Watch where you go. Watch who you trust. What are we demanding of the people around them?

Do not assault someone. Do not encourage it. Do not distribute humiliating images. If you see danger, get help. If a friend is crossing a boundary, stop it.

Intervention does not always mean physically confronting a group. It can mean dialing 911, getting security, finding other people to help, or creating an interruption that lets someone leave safely. The responsibility is to seek effective help, not perform a reckless act for an audience. But protecting your social standing is a poor excuse for abandoning another human being.

Be the person who opens the door

We need fair investigations, meaningful consequences, and institutions willing to examine their own failures. We also need accountability for people who facilitate harm, conceal evidence, retaliate against someone reporting it, or neglect responsibilities they were entrusted to fulfill. And we need to start earlier. Before the press release. Before the lawsuit. Before a family has to demand answers from people who were supposed to protect their child. There is a moment when someone can decide that the party, the team, or the brotherhood matters less than the person in danger. Be that someone. Be the person willing to interrupt. Be the teammate willing to get help. Be the adult who takes the report seriously.

Title IX cannot walk upstairs. You can.

And if you know someone needs help, being unpopular for ten minutes should not matter more than their safety.

https://apnews.com/article/cornell-rape-allegations-investigation-16f59e89ce97e3a40a8e672f7b3f374b

https://apnews.com/article/cornell-rape-allegations-investigation-7073e8da8b027fe9ee4530ea8a549f64

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/09/30/three-most-chilling-words-cornell-rape-case-texts

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/09/cornell-releases-faq-on-alleged-chi-phi-gang-rape-contradicts-d-a

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/09/aoc-denounces-culture-of-rape-chi-phi

https://abcnews.com/US/steubenville-football-players-guilty-ohio-rape-trial/story?id=18748493

https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Media/News-Releases/November-2013/Indictments-Issued-by-Steubenville-Special-Grand-J

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-mcvey-steubenville-ohio-superintendent-resigns-charges-dropped

https://www.wosu.org/2025-09-04/lawsuit-alleges-hazing-sexual-assault-by-football-players-at-ursuline-high-school-in-youngstown

https://www.reuters.com/world/judge-finds-five-former-players-not-guilty-sexual-assault-hockey-canada-trial-2025-07-24

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/oct/11/hockey-canadas-board-and-ceo-resign-amid-fallout-from-sexual-abuse-scandal

https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/title-ix-and-sex-discrimination

https://rainn.org/help-and-healing/hotline

Why Wait To Be Told

What I Expect, What I Get, and the Lost Art of Just Doing Your Damn Job

The food and beverage industry just might be the only business on the planet where you can hire someone, train them, show them exactly what needs done, and somehow still end up wondering why the job isn’t getting done.

Maybe it’s like this everywhere. I don’t know. I can only speak from my own experience, and I’ve got plenty of that.

So if there’s even a remote chance that you’ll someday scroll past a restaurant job posting and think, Hey, I could do that, I sincerely hope this blog finds you first.

Because we’re going to talk about what I expect versus what I get. And, more importantly, what I think a normal day at work should actually look like.

SHOW UP READY TO WORK

When you walk into the building for your shift, I expect you to be ready to work. Wild concept, apparently.

That means ready to take care of whatever needs done within your job, not personal business, extended phone time, standing around bullshitting, or my personal favorite: finding tiny, meaningless things to do so you can look busy without actually accomplishing anything.

There is a huge difference between being at work and working.

Restaurant owners know the difference. Trust me. We see you wiping the same six-inch section of countertop for the fourth time.

FRONT OF HOUSE: LEARN YOUR BUSINESS

If you work FOH -Front of House- here’s the traditional career path:

Apply for the job. Interview for the job. Oversell yourself so you sound incredibly capable. Accept the job. Get trained. Hustle like crazy while everyone is watching.

Then, once you’re comfortable, see exactly how little you can get away with doing.

Perfect. Or, and stay with me here, you could actually learn the business you applied to work in. Before you ever clock in, learn the products you’re selling.

At my place, that means a shit ton of beer and some pretty damn good food.

Learn the beer. What style is it? Where is it from? What’s interesting about it? What’s the story behind the brewery or the can art? Customers love a good story. Check your product.

Restock what needs restocked. If something is low or out, write it on one of the whiteboards provided specifically for that purpose.

Know what soda brands we carry. Check the bag-in-boxes. Know how to change one. Walk through the areas where customers are going to sit and eat. Are the tables clean? Is there food on the floor? Did somebody spill something? Don’t step over it six times waiting for another human being to discover it.

Know how to use the POS. Know how to change a keg. Tapping a keg is incredibly simple unless you decide to turn it into an advanced science project.

Know where things are stocked. And please understand that napkins, condiments, coffee, salt, pepper, sugars, creamers, dressings and every other little thing a restaurant needs do not magically refill themselves overnight.

If you couldn’t restock something at the end of your previous shift, then when you walk in for the next one, get on it.

And if your attitude is: “Someone else will do it.” Then you are probably not the right fit for this business.

ONCE THE RUSH ENDS, YOUR JOB DOESN’T

Working in food and beverage is supposed to be fun. And a lot of the time, it is. There are also moments when you’re getting absolutely murdered, tickets are flying, customers are everywhere and you become convinced the rush will never end.

Every job has those moments. But eventually the dust settles. And when it does, guess what? There is still a job to do.

YOUR job. The absence of customers does not mean the beginning of recess.

AND NOW… THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE: BOH

Back of House. The magical land capable of sending me spiraling into another dimension.

The process starts the same way.

Apply. Interview. Tell me how experienced you are. Tell me everything you can cook. Tell me how busy your last restaurant was. Tell me all the things your last job made you do, then don’t do it here.

Get hired. Get trained. Learn the menu. Get shown exactly how things are prepared.

Then have a complete meltdown the first time you’re required to actually cook during a rush. Fantastic.

But before any of that happens, let’s start with something simpler.

Get to work on time.

And in a restaurant, “on time” doesn’t mean flying through the door at the exact second your shift starts and then spending fifteen minutes getting yourself situated. 20 minutes early is on time!

Be ready. Know the menu. Know the portions. Know how dishes are supposed to look.

Most importantly, understand that the customer who orders something Tuesday should receive essentially the same dish as the customer who orders it Friday.

Consistency matters. Every plate. Every shift. Every time.

PREP ISN’T OPTIONAL

Prep might be the least glamorous and most important part of a restaurant kitchen. What needs done will vary from restaurant to restaurant.

At mine? There’s a list.

Appetizers need portioned and bagged every single day.

Chicken needs cooked, sliced and diced for the appropriate recipes. Pasta sauce needs made. Chili needs cooked. BBQ pulled pork needs cooked, pulled, portioned and stored. Beef needs cooked and sliced. Mac & cheese needs made. Coleslaw needs made, with backup.

Potato chippers need cooked and prepped. Dressings need portioned. Cheeses needs portioned and wrapped. Product in the walk-in needs unboxed, organized and stacked properly.

Stations need checked and completely stocked before service. Menu items need cooked according to the recipes and required temperatures.

Ranch needs made… which, based on the amount people consume, may actually be the single most important substance keeping American society together.

And then there’s cleaning. Sweep. Mop. Check the trash throughout the building. Take it to the dumpster. None of this is exciting. None of it makes you a celebrity chef.

But all of it is the job. The same job you saw advertised. The same job you applied for. The same job you sat across from me and said you were capable of doing. And the same job you’re being paid to perform.

“NOBODY TOLD ME”

This one absolutely kills me. “Nobody told me to do it.” Why should they have to?

If you’ve worked somewhere for a year, why does another adult need to tell you that the thing you’ve done hundreds of times needs done again today?

If the ranch gets made every day… MAKE THE DAMN RANCH.

If the station gets stocked every day… STOCK THE STATION.

If the trash is full… TAKE OUT THE TRASH.

If something is empty… REFILL IT.

If something is dirty… CLEAN IT.

You don’t need a meeting. You don’t need a memo. You don’t need someone standing over you providing turn-by-turn navigation like restaurant GPS.

Seeing what needs done and doing it is part of the job. That’s the piece people seem to miss.

CRITICISM ISN’T AN ATTACK

Here’s another disappearing skill: Being able to hear that you did something wrong without acting like you’ve just been personally betrayed.

Restaurant work requires correction. Food gets sent back. Mistakes happen. Someone is going to tell you that something wasn’t done correctly.

That’s not necessarily an attack. That’s information. Fix it. Learn from it. Get better.

I’ve made mistakes my entire career. I’ll make more tomorrow. The difference is what you do after somebody points one out.

You can get defensive. You can blame someone else. You can sulk for the rest of the shift.

Or you can say: “Got it.” And make sure it doesn’t happen again. One of those responses makes you better.

THE SECRET ISN’T REALLY A SECRET

The food and beverage industry comes with some great perks. It can be chaotic, hilarious, exhausting and ridiculously fun, sometimes all within the same fifteen minutes.

And succeeding in it isn’t complicated. Manage your time. Prioritize. Use some common sense. Have a sense of urgency when urgency is required.

Show up. Be ready. Learn your job. Pay attention. Have some pride in what you do. Hold yourself accountable. Accept criticism. Learn from failure. And when you see something that needs done…

DO IT.

I’ve watched far too many people fail at seemingly simple tasks, and I keep coming back to the same question: Why?

Nobody expects perfection. I certainly don’t. But I do expect effort. I expect awareness. I expect you to give a shit. Because somebody is always paying attention.

Your coworkers notice. Your managers notice. Your customers notice. And your owner definitely notices.

So make sure when the people paying attention see you, they’re thinking: “I’m glad that person works here.”

Not: “What the hell are you doing here?”

America: The Greatest Lie Ever Told?

“The land of the free.”

We have heard those words our entire lives. We say them with pride. We put them on shirts, bumper stickers, buildings and beer cans. We stand for the anthem, puff out our chests and celebrate the idea that America is different. America is free. But how often do we actually stop and ask what that word means?

How free are we, really?

From almost the moment we’re born, we begin entering systems designed to identify, document and organize us. Birth certificates. Social Security numbers. School records. Driver’s licenses. Tax records. Then comes school. Be here at this time. Sit here. Go there. Ask permission to leave. Follow the curriculum. Pass the test. Graduate. Then adulthood arrives, and apparently that’s when the freedom kicks in. Except now there are licenses, permits, taxes, regulations, cameras, databases, background checks, identification requirements and an ever-growing digital record of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. Some of those things have perfectly legitimate purposes. That’s important to acknowledge. The question isn’t whether society needs rules.

The question is how many pieces of freedom we surrender before we stop calling the result freedom.

Smile. You’re on Camera.

Take automated license-plate readers. Companies such as Flock Safety have built networks of cameras capable of recording vehicles as they travel through communities. Police departments say these systems help locate stolen cars, missing people and criminal suspects. Fair enough. But Americans are increasingly asking another question: Who watches the watchers? Who can search that information? How long is it stored? Who gets access? Which agencies can share it? What happens when technology created to find a stolen vehicle becomes infrastructure capable of reconstructing the movements of ordinary Americans who have committed no crime? That isn’t some dystopian Netflix pitch anymore. That’s a legitimate debate happening in American communities right now. And maybe that’s the problem. Technology advances at warp speed while laws, oversight and public understanding stroll casually behind it eating a sandwich.

Then There’s History.

History shouldn’t make us comfortable. History should make us informed. America has accomplished extraordinary things, and America has done terrible things. Those two statements can exist in the same history book without causing the republic to spontaneously combust. Yet every few years another political battle erupts over what Americans should be allowed, or required, to learn about their own country. Books are challenged or removed. Exhibits are changed. Monuments disappear or are relocated. Historical language gets rewritten. School boards and state governments fight over curricula. Federal administrations change policies governing museums and national historic sites. And every side seems convinced that their version is the version that should survive.

That should bother us. In 2026, the Center for American Progress analyzed a leaked Department of the Interior database concerning materials at National Park Service sites that had been flagged for removal or revision. CAP concluded that historical and scientific material across numerous sites was being targeted. People can debate CAP’s politics. They can debate the administration’s reasoning. They can debate whether particular exhibits were inaccurate, ideological or overdue for revision.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/censored-erasing-250-years-of-american-history-on-public-lands

Good. Debate it. But don’t erase the debate. Because history doesn’t belong to Republicans. It doesn’t belong to Democrats. It doesn’t belong to presidents, professors, activists or bureaucrats. It belongs to all of us. Show us the ugly parts. Show us the heroic parts. Show us slavery, abolition, the Civil War, Reconstruction, segregation and the civil-rights movement. Show us the victories and the hypocrisy. Then let people think. A country confident in itself shouldn’t need to sanitize its past.

Free Speech… Until Everyone Hates What You Said

The First Amendment is one of the most powerful ideas ever written into law. But free speech was never supposed to mean freedom from consequences, criticism or disagreement. Nor does every restriction on speech violate the Constitution. That’s exactly why we should understand the distinction. Government censorship is one issue. A private company banning somebody from its platform is another. An employer firing somebody is another. A mob trying to destroy somebody for an unpopular opinion is another. They aren’t legally identical. But culturally they can contribute to the same dangerous instinct: Shut up the person instead of challenging the argument. I don’t want a country where everyone agrees with me. Hell, I don’t even want a sports bar where everyone agrees with me. That sounds horrifying. I want a country where you can tell me I’m completely full of shit, and then I can tell you why you’re wrong. That’s discourse. That’s uncomfortable freedom.

And What About Protest?

Americans have protested their government since before there officially was an American government. Protest is supposed to be inconvenient. It’s supposed to make powerful people uncomfortable. That doesn’t mean protesters have unlimited authority to trespass, destroy property, threaten people or ignore every lawful restriction. But government doesn’t get a blank check either. When police disperse demonstrations, make arrests or use force, citizens should be willing to ask whether those actions were necessary, lawful and applied consistently. And that standard shouldn’t magically change depending on whether you like the people holding the signs. Civil liberties aren’t terribly impressive if we only defend them for people on our own team.

Go Visit Washington

Washington, D.C. is an interesting place to contemplate American freedom. Everywhere you look are monuments dedicated to liberty, independence, sacrifice and democracy. And surrounding many of the institutions representing those ideals? Police. Barricades. Security checkpoints. Fences. Restricted areas. Some of that security exists for very obvious reasons. Presidents, members of Congress, judges, government employees and visitors have legitimate safety concerns. But the symbolism is still hard to miss. The government belongs to the people, yet the people increasingly experience their government from behind a barrier. Maybe that’s necessary. Maybe some of it isn’t. But shouldn’t we at least be willing to ask?

The Government Was Supposed to Work for Us

This might be the part that bothers me most. Government isn’t supposed to be royalty. Politicians aren’t our rulers. They’re employees. Whether the person sitting in the Oval Office has an R or a D beside their name shouldn’t change that relationship. Congress works for us. Federal agencies work for us. State governments work for us. Local governments work for us. At least that’s the theory. And yet Americans routinely encounter institutions so enormous, complicated and insulated that challenging them can feel like screaming into darkness. Try fighting the IRS. Try navigating a federal bureaucracy. Try getting a straight answer from an agency that has decided your problem belongs to another department. The individual citizen has limited time and money. Government has attorneys, agencies, databases, investigators, regulations and virtually endless institutional resources. That’s an enormous imbalance of power. Which is precisely why government power deserves scrutiny regardless of which political party currently controls it.

Maybe “Freedom” Was Never Supposed to Mean Comfortable

Here’s where things get interesting. America is free in many profoundly important ways. We can criticize our president. We can criticize Congress. We can worship, or not worship. We can organize. We can protest. We can publish a blog like this one questioning the government itself. People throughout history have died trying to obtain those rights. So pretending they don’t exist would be ridiculous. But pretending those freedoms can never erode would be equally ridiculous. Freedom isn’t something a country wins once and sticks in a trophy case. It requires maintenance. It requires skepticism. It requires citizens willing to challenge power, even when their preferred political party happens to be the one holding it. Especially then. So maybe the next great book, documentary or Netflix series shouldn’t be called:

America: The Greatest Lie Ever Told. Maybe it should have a question mark: America: The Greatest Lie Ever Told?

Because I’m not interested in telling you the answer. I’m interested in making you uncomfortable enough to ask the question. Take away the flags. Take away the slogans. Take away the political parties. Take away the Fourth of July commercials telling us we’re the freest people who ever cracked open a Miller Lite beside a grill. Look only at the relationship between the individual and the institutions governing that individual. Look at surveillance. Look at censorship. Look at government secrecy. Look at bureaucracy. Look at historical revision. Look at restrictions on protest. Look at the amount of information collected about ordinary citizens. Then ask yourself: How much authority should a government have over people who are supposed to be the source of that government’s authority? And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all: If our freedom were slowly disappearing, would we recognize it happening? Or would we still be standing there, chest puffed out, repeating the words we’ve heard since childhood?

The land of the free.

The Enshittification of Society

A Story of Bumfuckles, Ultracrepidarians, and How Everything Went Cattywampus

I’m not exactly sure when society started going to shit. There probably wasn’t a meeting. Nobody sent out a memo.

There wasn’t some Tuesday morning when humanity collectively gathered around the conference table and said, “Okay everyone, civilization has had a pretty good run. Who wants to start fucking it up?”

It happened slowly. One tiny act of stupidity at a time. And somewhere along the way, we entered what may be the perfect word for our current predicament:

Enshittification.

Thank You Vince!

It’s the gradual process of something becoming worse. Something that once worked becomes less useful, more frustrating, more complicated, more expensive, or just generally shittier.

And once I discovered that word, I realized something. Enshittification doesn’t happen by itself. It requires people.

Specifically, bumfuckles. Now, I’m not going to pretend “bumfuckle” has a prestigious linguistic history. You’re probably not going to hear Morgan Freeman calmly narrating a documentary about the migration patterns of the North American Bumfuckle.

But you know one when you see one. The bumfuckle is the person who stops their shopping cart sideways in the middle of the grocery aisle while staring at their phone.

They’re the driver sitting at a green light because apparently TikTok has become more important than the 37 cars behind them.

They’re the person who walks into a restaurant five minutes before closing, looks around at employees cleaning the place, and says:

“Are you guys still open?” Technically Yes. Mentally? We closed twenty minutes ago.

The bumfuckle isn’t necessarily evil. That’s important. Most bumfuckles are simply wandering through life completely unaware that seven billion other people are also trying to use the planet.

But then something happened. The bumfuckles discovered the internet. And the internet gave birth to something far more powerful.

The ultracrepidarian.

An ultracrepidarian is someone who confidently gives opinions and advice about subjects they know absolutely nothing about.

In other words, the internet’s natural apex predator. We used to have a wonderful little phrase: “I don’t know.” Remember that? Three beautiful words.

Someone would ask you a question about astrophysics, international economics, immunology, constitutional law, artificial intelligence, nutrition, or why your washing machine sounds like two raccoons fighting inside a dumpster, and you could simply say:

“I don’t know.” Perfectly acceptable answer. Not anymore.

Now everyone knows everything. Give someone fifteen minutes on Google, two YouTube videos, half a podcast, and a Facebook meme posted by a guy named Jeff and suddenly we have ourselves a fucking expert.

The ultracrepidarian doesn’t learn. The ultracrepidarian declares. And confidence has somehow become interchangeable with knowledge.

That’s where the enshittification really starts accelerating. Because now the bumfuckles have information. Or at least something that looks like information.

And worse… they have an audience.

Enter the blatherskite. A blatherskite talks endlessly while somehow managing to say absolutely nothing.

Humanity has always had blatherskites. Every bar has one. Every workplace has one. Every family reunion has at least two. The difference is that forty years ago, the local blatherskite had an audience of six people sitting around a bar.

Today? Give that bastard Wi-Fi and he can reach six million. And inevitably someone challenges him. They provide facts. Evidence. Maybe even the radical suggestion that he could possibly be wrong. This is where our next creature emerges.

The mumpsimus. A mumpsimus stubbornly clings to an incorrect belief even after being shown evidence that it’s wrong. The mumpsimus does not retreat. Oh no.

The mumpsimus doubles down. Then moves the goalposts, changes the subject, posts a meme, calls everyone sheep and announces that they have “done their research.”

And now the whole conversation has gone completely… cattywampus.

That beautiful word means crooked, askew, out of order. Which might be the most accurate one-word description of modern society we have.

Because somewhere along the way, we stopped rewarding curiosity and started rewarding certainty. We stopped saying, “I might be wrong.” We stopped listening long enough to understand what another person was actually saying.

We became addicted to outrage, obsessed with being right, and convinced that every thought entering our heads needed to immediately exit through our mouths. Or our keyboards. And so the cycle continues.

The bumfuckles create the problem. The ultracrepidarians explain the problem despite knowing absolutely nothing about it. The blatherskites discuss the problem for six straight hours. The mumpsimuses refuse to accept any solution that contradicts what they already believe.

Everyone gets angry. A kerfuffle erupts. The internet turns it into a brouhaha. Someone inevitably engages in skullduggery. The rest of us watch the entire thing unfold, completely gobsmacked.

And society becomes just a tiny bit more… enshittified.

Maybe that’s the real problem. We’ve become so busy proving that someone else is the bumfuckle that we’ve stopped asking the uncomfortable question:

Am I being the bumfuckle? Because every one of us has been one. I have. You have. That guy blocking the grocery aisle definitely fucking has.

The difference isn’t whether we occasionally do something stupid. Being human pretty much guarantees that. The difference is whether we can recognize it. Whether we can laugh at ourselves. Whether we can say, “You know what? I was wrong.” Whether we can shut the hell up occasionally and listen.

Whether we can admit that reading three Facebook posts does not constitute a doctorate. Because maybe reversing the enshittification of society doesn’t require some massive cultural revolution.

Maybe it starts smaller. Put the shopping cart back. Use your turn signal. Get off your phone at the green light. Say thank you. Listen more. Ask questions. Be curious. Admit when you don’t know something. And for the love of everything holy… don’t be a bumfuckle.

We already have plenty.

My American Healthcare Payment Plan

169 Year Payment Plan

My cervical spine surgery was back in May.

Before surgery, I did what you’re supposed to do. I talked to the insurance company. I tried to understand my coverage. I tried to figure out what this whole adventure was going to cost before somebody started doing construction on my cervical spine.

And here’s where my health insurance enters the story. My insurance is abysmal.

One of its more spectacular features is that even if I find the medical care I need, going out of state means I will NOT be covered at the highest benefit.

Apparently crossing a state line while seeking medical treatment causes insurance executives to clutch their pearls. So I already knew I wasn’t getting the best coverage.

I knew this surgery was going to cost me money. Then the surgeon’s office submitted everything to insurance and sent me an estimate of what my portion of the surgery might be.

Approximately: $3,600. And I was actually excited. Seriously.

That’s where we’re at with healthcare in America: somebody tells you that you’re going to owe them $3,600 and you react like you just scratched off a winning lottery ticket.

But considering my insurance, the out-of-state issue and the fact that this was cervical spine surgery, $3,600 sounded manageable. Was I thrilled about spending it? Of course not. But I could deal with $3,600.

So I went into surgery understanding that my insurance wasn’t giving me its highest benefit and believing, based on the estimate I’d been provided, that my financial responsibility would be somewhere around $3,600.

That was May. Fast-forward five months. The estimated $3,600 surgeon’s fee? Still there. But apparently $3,600 was just the appetizer.

Because another bill showed up: $31,200.

And then another: $1,800 from a second doctor who, apparently, was also involved in my surgery.

Grand total: $36,600.

Thirty-six thousand six hundred dollars. Guess what I don’t have just lying around? Correct. $36,600.

I checked the couch cushions. I checked the Jeep. I even considered checking my wife’s secret stashes. Nothing.

So now we enter the financial-planning portion of our program. I have a mortgage. I have a Jeep payment. Utilities. Food. Coda’s Prescriptions.

And occasionally I’d like to participate in this extravagant financial indulgence known as leaving my house.

So I sat down and figured out what I could realistically afford to send toward this medical debt every month without allowing one surgery to financially consume the rest of my life.

The answer? $18. Eighteen dollars a month. And this is where the math becomes magnificent.

At $18 per month, paying off $36,600 would take approximately: 2,033 months. Or roughly: 169 years.

Which means my final payment should arrive sometime around the year 2196. I’d like the billing department to go ahead and pencil that into the calendar.

Unfortunately, I do foresee one minor complication with this payment plan.

I’ll be dead. So will my surgeon. So will everyone currently working in the hospital billing department.

We are officially entering the portion of the payment plan where ancestry.com becomes part of the hospital’s collections strategy.

And there’s a reasonable chance the hospital itself won’t even exist anymore. So who exactly gets payment number 2,033?

Does some poor descendant of mine receive a holographic collection notice?

“Dear Future Descendent of Pete,

Our records indicate your ancestor had cervical spine surgery in 2026. We appreciate your family’s continued commitment to satisfying this balance.”

And that’s where this stops being just funny.

Because somewhere inside all this ridiculous math is a legitimate question: What exactly is the realistic solution here?

I didn’t expect my surgery to be free. I already knew my insurance wouldn’t cover me at its highest benefit because I went out of state.

I knew I would have financial responsibility. And when I received an estimate of approximately $3,600, I thought: Okay. I can handle that.

Five months later, I’m looking at bills totaling approximately $36,600. That’s not a little estimating error. That’s an entirely different financial universe.

So here’s my proposal. The hospital and I should come to the table and acknowledge reality.

I can pay $18 a month. At that rate, nobody currently alive is going to see this balance paid off. Or we can arrive at a number that actually makes sense.

My suggestion? Honor the approximately $3,600 I was originally estimated to owe.

I’ll pay it. The remaining balance gets adjusted. The account gets marked paid in full. The hospital gets actual money instead of receiving eighteen bucks a month until America has flying cars, colonies on Mars and somehow still hasn’t figured out health insurance.

Everybody moves on. Because the alternative is a 169-year payment plan. And I’m willing to hold up my end of that agreement.

For about the next 30 years, anyway. After that? You’re going to have to talk to my estate. Or my descendants.

Whoever answers the phone first. Which I assume will be nobody!

For Sale By Owner? Please, Just Hire a Damn Realtor

My wife and I have been house shopping for quite some time now.

Most people who know us know that we want to move out of our current neighborhood. So every day, like two emotionally unstable contestants on some horrible HGTV game show, we open the realtor app and search for the one.

The perfect house. The perfect property. The place where we walk through the front door, look at each other, and say, “Yep. This is it.”

Apparently, that house is being guarded by a magical wizard. Because finding it has become unbelievably difficult.

First, can we talk about the price of homes? Holy shit.

We make very good money, and I still find myself scrolling through listings wondering what the hell everyone else does for a living.

Four hundred thousand dollars. Four-fifty. Five hundred thousand.

And sometimes you click on the pictures expecting to see a beautiful, move-in-ready home only to discover that your $400,000 gets you a kitchen from 1987, three different kinds of flooring, a bathroom that needs an exorcism, and a deck that appears to have been constructed during the Reagan administration.

And it still needs renovations. Excuse me? You want half a million dollars and you want me to fix the place?

That’s adorable. But housing prices are an entirely different rant for another day. Because even when you finally find a house you like, now you have to survive the ridiculous logistics of actually buying it.

Our house is basically ready to list. Great! Except we can’t just casually throw it on the market because what happens if it sells immediately?

Congratulations! We’re homeless. So instead, we wait until we find a house we want to buy.

Then we find one. We get excited. We start talking about making an offer. But our house isn’t technically on the market yet.

So while we’re getting everything lined up, somebody else swoops in and buys the house we wanted.

Fantastic. Back to the realtor app. It’s a rat race where you’re simultaneously trying to sell a house, buy another house, coordinate financing, schedule inspections, make offers, negotiate contracts, and somehow avoid living in a Holiday Inn with all your belongings packed into a U-Haul.

And then… For Sale By Owner enters the chat.

Oh, good. Because apparently this process wasn’t complicated enough already.

Look, I understand the thought process. “Why should I pay a realtor when I can sell my house myself?”

Because the rest of us have jobs, Susan.

People work. They have businesses. Kids have sports. Families have schedules. People have appointments, obligations, and lives that don’t magically stop because somebody wants to walk through your house at 6:15 on a Tuesday evening.

Now the buyer has to contact the homeowner. The homeowner has to check their schedule.

The buyer checks theirs. Someone can’t do Tuesday. Someone suggests Wednesday. Wednesday doesn’t work.

“How about Thursday at 5:30?”

“Can you do 6:00?” “No, my kid has a game.”

Jesus Christ. Hire a damn realtor.

You know what happens when professionals are involved? I tell my realtor, “I’d like to see that house.”

And then, through some sort of sorcery apparently unavailable to the rest of civilization, a showing gets scheduled.

Beautiful. Efficient. Civilized.

And there’s another benefit nobody talks about enough: I don’t have to tour your house with you standing there.

Because that is weird. House hunting requires saying things you absolutely should not say in front of the person who currently owns the house.

“Why the hell would anyone put tile there?”

Meanwhile, the homeowner is standing six feet away thinking: I put that tile there. Wonderful. Now we’re all uncomfortable.

Or you’re walking through the kitchen whispering to your wife: “This countertop has GOT to go.” And somewhere behind you the homeowner is thinking:

We installed that last year. Perfect.

Nothing makes a real estate transaction smoother than accidentally insulting someone’s taste while standing in their living room.

That’s why having realtors involved works. The seller leaves. The buyer looks around freely. People can ask questions. People can criticize things. People can talk honestly about renovations without worrying that Karen is hiding behind the pantry door clutching her Live Laugh Love sign.

And here’s my biggest question for the For Sale By Owner crowd:

How much money are you really saving?

Because selling a house isn’t just sticking a sign in the yard and waiting for someone to show up carrying a briefcase full of money.

There’s pricing. Marketing. Showings. Negotiations. Contracts. Inspections. Appraisals. Deadlines. Contingencies. Financing. Closing.

And approximately 47 opportunities for something to go sideways. Sometimes paying a professional isn’t wasting money. Sometimes you’re paying someone because they know how to do something you don’t.

That’s literally why professions exist. I own a restaurant. People occasionally look at what we do and think running a restaurant can’t possibly be that complicated.

Buy food.

Cook food.

Sell food.

Easy!

Sure.

Come spend a Saturday night behind the scenes and we’ll revisit that theory around 8:15 when the printer hasn’t stopped screaming for forty minutes, somebody called off, table 8 wants to know where their wings are, and we’re somehow out of something we had seventeen cases of yesterday.

Every profession looks easy from the outside. Until you actually have to do it.

Real estate is no different. So maybe the next time something comes up in your profession and you find yourself wondering why people think they can do your job without any experience, remember that feeling.

Because somewhere out there, a realtor is probably thinking the exact same thing. Stop making this harder than it already is.

Price your house for what it’s actually worth. Hire a professional. Leave during the showing. And let me walk through your kitchen and quietly tell my wife how much I hate your backsplash without having to look you in the eyes afterward.

Everybody wins.

The Question Nobody Wants to Ask: Sandusky, Epstein, and the Possibility of a Bigger Story

This is an opinion piece. I am not claiming the theory explored below is fact. I am asking questions based on publicly reported events and recently released information.

There are conspiracy theories. And then there are those uncomfortable little questions that crawl into your head, pull up a chair, crack open a beer and refuse to leave.

This is one of those questions. Jerry Sandusky has spent more than a decade behind bars following one of the most infamous criminal trials in American sports history.

In 2012, a jury convicted the former Penn State assistant football coach on 45 counts of child sexual abuse. Eight young men testified against him. The accusations stretched across years, destroyed reputations, devastated Penn State and forever changed how many people viewed one of college football’s most respected programs.

Sandusky has maintained his innocence ever since.

For years, most people, myself included, probably didn’t give that claim much thought. Then something happened.

One of the men who testified against Sandusky, recanted his allegations.

And that’s where my curiosity started.

A Recantation Changes the Conversation

According to a sworn affidavit reported by the Associated Press, the accuser now claims that his allegations were influenced by suggestive questioning, prosecutorial pressure and discussions about how trauma can fragment memory.

Those are his allegations today. They do not automatically mean his original testimony was false.

Pennsylvania prosecutors have called the recantation “highly suspect,” and Sandusky’s attorneys ultimately chose not to present the accusers testimony at a September 2026 hearing.

That’s important. It is equally important to remember that Sandusky wasn’t convicted because of one witness.

Eight young men testified against him, and a jury convicted him on 45 counts. So no, one recantation does not suddenly make Jerry Sandusky innocent. But it does something else.

It gives us permission to ask questions.

And then Jeffrey Epstein entered the story. Yeah. That Jeffrey Epstein.

The Email I Didn’t Expect

Among the massive collection of Epstein-related documents released to the public was a December 2012 email in which Jeffrey Epstein discussed Jerry Sandusky.

And Epstein wrote something extraordinary: “I also entertain the possibility that Sandusky is innocent.”

Read that again. Jeffrey Epstein, a man whose own sexual abuse and exploitation of girls would eventually become one of the most notorious scandals in modern American history, was privately discussing whether Jerry Sandusky had been wrongly convicted.

Epstein complained about the speed with which Sandusky had been convicted in the court of public opinion and compared the atmosphere surrounding the case to the hysteria of the Salem witch trials.

That does not prove Sandusky knew Epstein. It doesn’t prove Sandusky was involved in Epstein’s network.

It doesn’t prove Epstein knew anything about the Sandusky investigation that the public didn’t. And it sure as hell doesn’t prove Jerry Sandusky is innocent.

But come on. It is weird. And sometimes weird deserves a closer look.

So Here Comes My Theory

This is where I leave the world of established fact and enter the world of speculation. I’m labeling it clearly because that’s important.

I have no evidence proving this theory. But I have a question: What if the Sandusky case and the Epstein world intersect somewhere we haven’t discovered yet?

Epstein surrounded himself with extraordinarily wealthy, connected and influential people.

Politicians. Business leaders. Academics. Royalty. Financiers. Celebrities.

That doesn’t mean everyone who knew Epstein committed a crime. Being photographed with him, emailing him or appearing in records isn’t proof of criminal conduct. But we now know Epstein operated inside circles of enormous influence.

So my mind goes somewhere uncomfortable. What if Jerry Sandusky knew something? What if someone connected to Sandusky knew something? What if organizations, donors, intermediaries or powerful individuals overlapped between these worlds?

And here’s the darker version of my question: If powerful people had something to lose, would they have an interest in controlling what victims, witnesses or defendants eventually say?

I don’t know. Neither does anyone reading this unless somebody produces evidence. But that’s precisely why I think the question deserves investigation instead of ridicule.

Follow the Money. Follow the People.

This is where conspiracy theories usually go flying off the rails.

Somebody finds two interesting facts, connects them with a red Sharpie and suddenly, the CIA and three dudes from the local dive bar are running the Illuminati.

That’s not what I’m interested in doing. If there’s a genuine connection between Sandusky and Epstein, there should eventually be something tangible.

Money. Emails. Phone records. Shared acquaintances. Organizations. Donors. Travel. Lawyers. Victims. Intermediaries. Financial settlements. Something.

Without those things, my theory remains exactly what I’m calling it: a theory.

And right now I have not seen credible evidence establishing that Jerry Sandusky was part of Jeffrey Epstein’s network. That’s an important sentence.

Because questioning the official story doesn’t give us permission to invent a replacement story.

But There’s Another Question

Penn State eventually paid more than $100 million resolving claims associated with Sandusky’s abuse. Again, settlement money does not mean victims lied. People who suffered abuse absolutely deserve compensation, and financial settlements are common in institutional abuse cases.

But when enormous amounts of money, powerful institutions, criminal prosecutions and conflicting testimony occupy the same story, transparency matters.

Now we have an accuser saying his original allegations were influenced. We have Sandusky still insisting he’s innocent. We have his attorneys continuing their attempts to challenge his conviction.

And we have the utterly bizarre revelation that Jeffrey Epstein himself privately questioned Sandusky’s guilt back in 2012.

Those facts don’t create a conspiracy. But they sure create questions.

Here’s What Bothers Me Most

We’ve learned something over the last several decades that Americans should never forget: Power protects itself.

Institutions protect reputations. Corporations protect money. Political parties protect politicians. Universities protect brands. And sometimes people with tremendous wealth and influence manage to avoid scrutiny that would bury an ordinary person.

Epstein himself is practically a case study in that reality. That doesn’t mean every institution is corrupt. It doesn’t mean every prosecutor lies. It doesn’t mean every victim is unreliable.

And it certainly doesn’t mean every wealthy person associated with Epstein participated in his crimes. It means power deserves scrutiny.

Especially when vulnerable people are involved.

And What About the Victims?

This part matters more than anything else. Real victims of sexual abuse already face enormous barriers to coming forward.

So questioning aspects of the Sandusky prosecution cannot become an excuse to attack victims or assume everyone lied.

Likewise, if testimony was improperly influenced in any criminal case, investigating that doesn’t disrespect victims.

It protects the justice system. Because justice has to work both ways. We have to be willing to protect victims fiercely while still demanding that prosecutors, investigators and institutions follow the rules.

Those ideas aren’t enemies. They’re supposed to be partners.

I Don’t Know If Jerry Sandusky Is Innocent

And I’m not sitting here proclaiming that he is. A jury heard extensive testimony and convicted him of 45 counts. That carries enormous weight. But I’m also unwilling to say: “Stop asking questions. The case is closed.”

Because history has taught us what happens when society decides certain people or institutions are above questioning.

Sometimes the uncomfortable person asking, “Wait a minute, does this make sense?” turns out to be wrong. Sometimes they uncover something nobody wanted uncovered.

Either outcome is acceptable. That’s how inquiry works.

So Here’s My Challenge

Don’t believe my theory. Test it.

Search the Epstein documents for Sandusky. Search The Second Mile. Look at donors. Look at foundations. Look at lawyers. Look at political connections. Look at financial relationships. Look at the people surrounding both men. Look for intersections.

Maybe there aren’t any. If that’s what the evidence shows, fantastic.

Theory dead. Case closed.

I’ll buy the conspiracy corkboard a respectful funeral and move on. But if there are intersections? Then follow them.

Because there is one thing Jeffrey Epstein taught America that we should never forget: Sometimes the craziest part of the story isn’t the conspiracy theory.

It’s discovering how much of the unbelievable story was true all along.

Unfortunately, powerful people have much to lose and that’s why we may never fully see the Epstein files!