My friend, Eric, reminded me of a classic and poignant Peanuts comic strip.

In it Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty are discussing what "security" is. Charlie Brown says it's when you've been somewhere with your parents and now it's night and you're in the back seat of the car and you can sleep because your parents are in the front seat doing all the worrying and they will take care of everything.

Peppermint Patty says "That's neat!" but Charlie Brown points out that it doesn't last.

"Suddenly you're a grown up and it can never be that way again. Suddenly it's over and you'll never get to sleep in the back seat again."

"Never?"

"Absolutely never!"

"Hold my hand, Chuck!"

I do think that's funny but the truth of this observation also hit me like a punch in the stomach.

At least it did until I was on a recent road trip with my wife, my kids and my dad. Because look who's zonked out in the back seat of our mini-van while I was driving 6 hours doing all the worrying.

That's right. My DAD.

So, while Charlie Brown makes a compelling point, I believe I may have poked a hole in his theory.

I can only hope I'll be around about 30 years from now to enjoy it.

On Christmas Eve my father attempted to slice a pumpkin pie. Somewhere during the act, he briefly lost his mind.

My friends Dan and Lisa were visiting and Dan documented what occurred with the following post on Twitter:

Now, in my dad's defense, while he did have a cocktail or two, the holidays can be stressful time of year. There are several factors that could lead to such a Christmas tragedy, as illustrated by this handy pumpkin pie chart...

In addition, he's also the man who's famous for doing this on my cakes while SOBER.

(More on his outstanding cakes and one of the best Sneeze features of all time, right here.)

(Raisins for Christmas 2009 - coming soon.)

"OH MY GOD!!! I TOUCHED HIM!!! HE'S SO SLIMY!!!!! IT WAS HORRIFYYYYING!!!"

While eerily similar to the call my wife made to her mother on our honeymoon, this was actually the scream I heard from my son the other night.

But let's rewind a bit.

We got a fish. Eddie the Fish. Specifically, Eddie the Blue Betta Fish.

My 9-year-old, Lux, had spent a good few months relentlessly busting our balls for a pet. My wife and I talked it over and felt he was responsible enough. More importantly we're up for anything that might make him stop talking for 3 minutes.

We all piled into the mini-van and headed off to Petco. Their slogan is "Petco. Where the pets go." Most people don't know that's actually a shortened version of their original slogan: "Petco. Where the pets go. All over each other. In tiny, smelly cages."

And this is where we found Eddie struggling to survive in a container 4 sizes too small for him - (not unlike my feet in these heels, but that's another story).

Now let's flash-forward back to the screaming.

Lux has been taking good care of Eddie for a couple of weeks, until -- "OH MY GOD!!! I TOUCHED HIM!!! HE'S SO SLIMY!!!!! IT WAS HORRIFYYYYING!!! OHHHH MYYY GOD!!!!!!" He came running in to us, having a complete little kid, tears shooting of his head, nuclear meltdown.

"What happened?!!!"

"I put my finger in the hole on the top of the tank where we feed him, and I touched him -- OOOH MYYYY GOD!!!!! HE BIT ME!!! AND I TOUCHED HIM!!! OHHHH GOD!!!!"

"He didn't bite you."

"YES, HE DID!!!!!!"

"Are you bleeding?"

"WELL -- NO... OH GOD!!!! WASH MY FINGER!!!!! WASH IT!!!!"

"Calm down, you're fine. Maybe he was just trying to give you a kiss?"

"NOOOO!!! HE HATES ME!!! I NEVER WANT TO SEE HIM AGAIN!!!!"

At this point I walked Lux reluctantly back to Eddie's little tank and said, "Would it make you feel better if you see me put MY finger in there?"

"Yeah."

I poked my finger down the hole into the water. "See, he's not doing anyth--" CHOMP. Holy crap! The little blue bastard bit me!

I immediately pulled my finger out and that's when EDDIE CAME UP AND OUT OF THE HOLE -- ATTACHED TO THE END OF MY FINGER. He flew off and landed on top of the tank with a small wet thud.

After a brief moment of stunned silence...

"OOHHHH MY GOD!!!!! EDDIE'S DEAD!!!!!! DAD KILLED EDDIE!!!!!"

"HE'S NOT DEAD!" I yelled, as my wife quickly whisked Lux out of the room and I carefully dumped the little finger-biter back in the water.

A few minutes later I went in to console Lux and found him lying sadly on his bed. "You okay?" I asked.

"No. His fish blood is mixing with my human blood. I can't breathe."

"Stop it. How's your finger?"

"It tingles."

"He probably just thought you were a big pellet of food."

"No, he hates me. I never want to see him again."

"So can I get rid of him?"

"No, I love him."

"Okay. Then why don't you go and feed him a little so you two can be friends again."

Which is exactly what he did. And I'm pleased to report Lux and Eddie have worked out their differences and are buds once again.

Also, as an added bonus, I placed a special microphone in the tank and managed to capture actual audio of what Eddie sounds like when he's looking at us.

Merry Christmas, everybody! I gotta go eat fishsticks in front of Eddie.

My buddy, Don, recently created this great little Christmas-themed Tree Brain comic strip over on his site Doodlemonkey.

Click here to check it out full-size.

Some of you may also remember this awesome digital postcard Don made a few Christmases ago...

Thanks, Don!

By request for my friend Kevin at Forgotten NY, here is a special Christmas post from a few years back...

My four-year-old didn't ask for much this Christmas. His main request was a little scooter "with a horn so people will know I'm coming." He even drew a picture of it in his letter to Santa.

The fat man came through with the scooter, and being the awesome Daddy, I helped out by going to Toys 'R Us to get the horn. It's pretty funny to see this big ol' bike horn mounted on this little scooter.

It seems so obvious now, but the boy totally set me up. How could I not realize the horrendous combination of "7:30 Christmas morning" and "Bike horn?"

Under the guise of cute, my son had hatched his plan for the loudest Christmas ever and succeeded. He even used me as a pawn to make it happen.

I have created a special sound bite just for you. This is not a re-enactment. This is actual audio of my horn-filled Christmas morning pulled from our video camera. (To truly enjoy the experience as I did, I suggest you turn up your speakers as loud as they can possibly go. And play it over and over.)

_{(or download an mp3)}

Note how the official little brother babbles something in between the honking. He's speaking in Baby, but it loosely translates to "Ha ha!!! You wanted us and now you will pay! This is what you get for having sex with Mommy!!!"

The boy has a point. In the future I'm going to attach the horn to my weiner to warn my wife when I'm coming.

Let me be a cautionary tale, guys. Don't get your kids noisy presents. Get them something quiet like pillows or raisins.

(But for what it's worth, they still ride that scooter all the time.)

Raisins (now somehow 6) learned about opposites in kindergarten this week. Well, he didn't so much learn them as get the basic idea then develop his own system.

When I arrived home from work, he grilled me with the following list and kept score on his Magnadoodle (that's like a Jumbotron for those who still pull their pants down to their ankles when they make pee-pee.)

Now you can enjoy the home version of The Opposite Game. Simply highlight with your cursor to reveal the answer. Be warned: they get trickier as you go.

Award yourself 1 point for each correct answer. If you get all 9 points, congratulations and please take your meds.

(HIGHLIGHT ANSWERS TO REVEAL)

The opposite of UP is:
Answer: -->DOWN

The opposite of HAPPY is:
Answer: -->SAD

The opposite of BIG is:
Answer: -->SMALL

The opposite of SUN is:
Answer: -->MOON

The opposite of BALLOON is:
Answer: -->POP

The opposite of CHICKEN is:
Answer: -->EAT

The opposite of DOOR is:
Answer: -->CLOSED

The opposite of CHICKEN SOUP is:
Answer: -->TURKEY SOUP

The opposite of WALL is:
Answer: -->THE OTHER WALL

If you'd like to post your own pairs of opposites, the COMMENT BOARD IS OPEN. I will gladly run a bunch of them past Raisins and let you know what the actual correct answers are.

Some of you may remember when my friend, Terry Border, created this awesome bent wire sculpture for me a few years back. Not surprisingly, it's called "The Sneeze."

I'm happy to report that Terry has completed his first book, "Bent Objects" and it's now available. It's a fantastic collection of ordinary objects brought to life in funny and weird vignettes.

Is "The Sneeze" sculpture in the book? Well, no. But the book is still terrific. And you should still definitely check it out right here on Amazon. Lucky for Terry, I'm not the type of guy to dwell on this kind of thing. I prefer the high road. To be the bigger man.

And for only $12 on Amazon, the book will make a perfect little gift for the holidays. When we have our friends in our hearts. (Something, apparently, Terry's not the best at. But that's cool. He's extremely talented. I'm sure it was just an oversight.)

I'm just kidding, of course. Congratulations, Terry! I'm truly thrilled for you.

Also, please be sure to check out Terry's excellent blog, "Bent Objects," right here. (I mean, I wouldn't, but you should. Well "should" is a strong word. You *could* - if you really wanted to. I guess.)

In the previous post, Kelly's use of a semicolon was deemed incorrect by several of you. Rachael weighs in with this thought:

Dear The Sneeze,

While Kelly's use of the semi-colon is technically incorrect in both British and American, the Brits do insist on using semi-colons in this manner. It will therefore become acceptable usage in our lifetimes. Kelly, it would seem, is both Fancy and ahead of her time.

Sincerely,
Rachael

I don't know what to make of any of this, but feel free to drop a comment if you can provide enlightenment. (I'm not sure how well the comment sections are working these days since I upgraded my software, so this may not go that well.)

Honestly, I don't care that much about semicolons, I was just curious to see if the comments were working. If you don't want to talk about semicolons, we can just talk about your day, or what you had for breakfast, or if your nose had to be a fruit, what fruit would you choose?

The comment board is open.