Dad and Mom had this wonderful meal that they spoiled themselves with at this restaurant aside Holiday Inn.  It was a Christmas banquet, so nothing was held back, and they had a great time.

Mom then asked Dad for a little tiny eenie bit of a favor.  “Can you please come to the Mall with me, so I can find a Christmas gift for our son?”

Now see here, Dad hates shopping.  Hates, with a passion.  But he loves Mom far more, so he swallowed his pride, and agreed.  Off they went to the mall.  The first store they came up to, Mom took a look around.  Nope, nothing here.  They then trekked across the mall to the second major store.  Mom took a look around.  Nope, nothing, she declared.  Dad sighed, and followed her out to yet another store.  Nope, nothing.

Finally, they reached the end of the mall, to JcPenney’s.  Aha, Mom declared, the perfect gift!  A nice gorgeous belt for their son to wear, something to add to his look, and it’s about time he wear a belt, no?

Slowly they rang it up, and slowly they walked back across the entire mall to their car.  Mom quickly wrapped it up and placed it under the Christmas tree.

Now bear in mind here, that I wear 30-34 at that time.  30 inches inseam, and 34 length.  I’ve since then ballooned up to 34-34.  Yes, I know you are jealous, now shut up and let me tell the story here.

So it remains for weeks until Christmas Day, where we all ran down to the tree, and started opening up the presents we all deserved, us good and nice cold hearted bastards, of course.

Dad apparently had weeks to recover from that laborious trip.  He watched with interest as I opened this present Mom carefully searched for, and Dad suffered through.

“A BELT?  BUT MOM, I DO NOT NEED A BELT!”

Dad continues to remind me to this day how tactless I was that day.

*turn* Hmm, cold. *turn* Still cold. *turn* Yup, too cold. *turn* HOLY FRACKIN’ BRIAN! It’s too hot!

* * *

The room service patron still standing there expecting a tip, despite the automatic 18% gift they already added.

* * *

The little things the cleaning person would overlook. Most of the time, it’s silly, such as not folding the toilet paper, and forgetting to resupply the shampoo bottle. Other times, it’s downright obscene such as forgetting the towels, and in some cases, not even cleaning the room!

* * *

Don’t you have the feeling hotels want to just kill you as soon as possible? Look at the food they provide. Fried foods, heart-clogging snacks, and salads overdosed with cheese and heavy dressings. Healthy breakfast? Heck no, bring on the hearty continental meal! No V8. Few diet drinks. Want that water bottle in your room? Pay 4x the price of a Coke, sir. Sure does drive me to drink, but no! The minibar is removed. Of course, that water was imported. Imported, my butt. It have been imported from the great bang billions of years ago — are you paying God for the license fee?

* * *

$10 Internet fees. But wait! They are more than happy to throw in free long distance phone calls in that bill! How so nice of them. But those hotels that got free net? Free dialup-speed net, more likely.

* * *

When you decide to get up early in the morning to burn off that cholestrol you ate last night at the hotel bar, you will realize that there’s 300 others with the same brilliant idea as you do, and 2 stairmasters, 1 treadmill, and a heavy ball to occupy everyone for the next 30 minutes.

* * *

The add-on features on their TV. And the absence of honest-to-god good channels, such as Discovery Channel. Who do you know still use that internet-on-TV feature? When is the last time you paid $24.95 and allowed it to show up on your hotel bill for some honest-to-goodness hearty shows?

* * *

Loud sex next door. When you are between girlfriends. Nuff said.

* * *

When those hotels will ever figure out that giving you 30 pillows, and only 2 of them are actually meant for sleeping… that’s going a wee bit too far.

* * *

When someone call in for a wake-up call, and gave your room number instead of their… maybe they should at least check on the names of the occupants in the room or something. Thanks to myself being deaf, I’ve had my room barged in by hotel folks in panic because they couldn’t wake me up and thought I may be dead or something.

* * *

Speaking of waking up, hotels that does not provide outlets easily accessible to the bedside for alarm clocks that you prefers instead of their $5 tiny radio thing. (Yes, I know Hilton have the iPod clock. They also have the TV with $14.95 N64 games and no closed captioning. So shut up.)

* * *

I’ve had some hotels with bed bug problems. Never ever liked those. I always told the folks right away when I notice.

* * *

Vegas-related: I know you want me to see the casino, but why do you have to make it a huge journey for me to find the elevator to my room?

* * *

Disneyland-related: Having a Mickey Mouse theme is one thing. Having Mickey Mouse hands reaching out from the wall to hold up bowls and lights… is a wee bit too creepy.

As found on ArsTechnica, this quote is brilliant:

As a father of (currently) three, raising children is like the pleasure of slow cooking ribs in a cast iron smoker using real hard woods you’ve harvested off your own property.

It is amazingly time consuming, but the end result is awesome.

Before the awesomeness is in full force, you have to do a lot of prep work. Doing the prep work wrong can really ruin the final outcome.

There is no magic temperature control knob. You’ve got to work hard and plan to keep the flames at the right temperature, but some times it will be a little hot, and other times it will be a little cold, but thing even out over the long haul.

The more you put into it, the more you get out of it. I don’t really NEED to know what limb of what tree was cut and split and used to stoke the fire, but because I do, the meal is almost spiritual. You don’t need to pass your family heritage on to a new generation, but it is an honor to be able to do so.

Almost all shortcuts reduce quality. Propane and lava rock might seem nice at the store, but they don’t create competition winning BBQ. Ignoring your kids might give you more time to work , but it doesn’t build awesome families.

There is a lot of environmental fluctuation, and you’ll never have the exact same outcome twice. However, the fluctuations are often the flavor that makes them amazing.

The outcome is one of those awesome things that you can never get without a sacrifice of time and commitment. Just like the best restaurant ribs pale in comparison with ribs that spent 8+ hours in a cast iron smoker with layers of homemade BBQ sauce, the most fun you’ve ever had with someone else’s children pales in comparison to the golden moments you share with your own children.

Someone else saw fit to add this:

People who don’t eat meat are always going to bitch about how superior they are for it. You just smile and enjoy your ribs.