Flushing, We Have A Problem

My one lasting memory of the 2019 Mets season —  more than the team missing the playoffs, more than Jacob deGrom winning the National League Cy Young Award, more than Pete Alonso winning the Rookie of the Year award — is the profound disappointment I felt when I attended a home game on July 27.

I'd bought tickets for the game for two reasons: One, I'm a Mets fan, but two, the team was giving away a bobblehead. I'm hardly a collector of bobbleheads. I own four — two are accumulating dust on my work desk, and the other two remain in their original box, sitting on a shelf in the back of the closet.

But for whatever reason, I was drawn to this one:

RT to enter to win a @MrMet on the moon bobblehead!

The first 25,000 fans this Saturday will get their very own. https://t.co/iXmLdNwjWp pic.twitter.com/R2ObvdYv2w

— New York Mets (@Mets) July 22, 2019

Mr. Met on the moon! The bobblehead, as you may have realized, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. I wasn't alive in 1969 so I can't say with any degree of certainty that Mr. Met actually walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but ya gotta believe, right?

The Mets were handing out the bobblehead to the first 25,000 fans in attendance. I was confident I would be one of those 25,000 fans, even though I would arrive late because of a prior commitment.

I met my friend outside the ballpark 15 minutes before first pitch. We waited on the security line. We waited on another line to have our tickets scanned at the gate. We waited in a third line to receive a bobblehead.

We saw an employee hand out one bobblehead from a large cardboard box, and then another and then another. As we approached him, we could see inside the box. It was empty. We looked to our left and to our right: Other employees had empty boxes, too.

Flushing, we have a problem.

The Mets ran out of bobbleheads. My friend and I were, quite literally, the 25,004th and 25,005th fans to enter the ballpark.

I couldn't believe it. I was so close to owning a Mr. Met on the moon bobblehead. One small step and one giant leap away from owning a Mr. Met on the moon bobblehead.

I'm really kicking myself over that one. That bobblehead would have looked so nice sitting in the back of the closet.

The Upside To Palming A Half-Deflated Basketball

I'd like to share with you a recent experience I had on the street the other day, because it's one of those New York moments I love so much.

Some background first: I was running errands in the neighborhood when I swung by Goodwill. I go to this Goodwill two or three times a month. I always find interesting items there. For example, during this particular visit I saw a PlayStation 2, a "Space Jam" jersey and a Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine. If I had to summarize my life from ages 15 to 25 in 10 words or less, the words "PlayStation," "Space Jam" and "Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine" would absolutely make the cut.

I didn't buy any of those items from Goodwill, but I did buy a basketball. I'd been meaning to buy a basketball for a while. I used to play every day as a teenager, when I wasn't busy making homemade sno-cones. As an adult, I've played five times, if that. There's a court near my apartment, though, and I've been itching to shake the rust off the ol' jump shot.

So I left Goodwill with a basketball in hand. I should point out a few things: One, the basketball was half-deflated. I didn't mind since I have a bicycle pump at home; I could easily refill it. Also, the basketball had caved in juuuuust enough that I was able to palm it, and I got a real kick out of that.

Two, I was wearing a hoodie and a pair of basketball shorts because I was planning to stop in at the gym.

Here I was, walking around, palming a basketball in my hand, wearing a hoodie and basketball shorts. In 48-degree weather. In that moment, I was the most imposing 5'6" basketball player in the neighborhood. I could see it in others' faces. They were really impressed.

I even had a spontaneous exchange with one person; it's the reason I'm writing all of this. A man walked up next to me, made eye contact and blurted out, "Who is the best basketball player of all time?" Completely out of the blue, only it wasn't completely out of the blue because I was palming this basketball and therefore must have had some insight on the subject that I'd be willing to share. I was flattered.

My answer to the question was Michael Jordan. The reasons are obvious: I grew up watching him, he won six championships and 10 scoring titles, and, most importantly, he was the star of "Space Jam."

The man chose Dr. J, who, for the record, tallied three championships, three scoring titles and zero appearances in "Space Jam."

It's funny how I earned more respect palming a half-deflated basketball than I ever earned when I actually played basketball when I was younger. I may never inflate the basketball. I might skip the court entirely and just palm the ball around the block for a few laps every now and then.

The One Time I Ran The New York City Marathon

The New York City Marathon rolls through my neighborhood every year, and I find it to be a mixed bag. On one hand, it adds excitement to an area that's otherwise relatively quiet. I mean, how often does a world-class sporting event take place right at your doorstep?

On the other hand, the marathon is a mess, quite literally. The amount of trash discarded on 1st Avenue by the runners is something to behold. It's a sea of paper cups, granola bar wrappers, sponges and more for miles.

Every now and then when I see litter on the street, I'll collect it and toss it into the nearest trash can. Litter bothers me. Sanctioned litter, which is what the waste left behind by the marathon runners really is, bothers me a little more. What if every runner picked up just one piece of trash on the route? That would be nice and thoughtful, wouldn't it?

Especially those runners who take their sweet time. If you're stopping every couple of minutes to wave and say hello to your friends and family, or to take photos, can't you grab that banana peel on the ground and carry it with you for a bit, while you're at it? Let's keep our city clean.

My other ongoing concern with the marathon is that it's a real challenge for residents to cross 1st Avenue in either direction. You're essentially sealed off from the other side for most of the day. This was a great source of frustration and stress for me a few years ago, when I was dating my now-wife.

I was supposed to meet with her for a walk to a friend's birthday party in the neighborhood. The problem was, I was on the eastern side of 1st Ave, and she was on the western side. I could see her from across the street, and I didn't know how to reach her.

This is the hidden cost of marathons that no one talks about. They split couples apart.

"I'll come over to you as soon as I can," I told her on the phone. "Don't move!"

Forty-five minutes later, after a long and slow walk up 1st Avenue through the crowd cheering on the runners, still with no idea of how I'd cross the street, I approached a police officer. I explained my situation.

"Officer, I need to get to the other side. My girlfriend is waiting for me and I have to get to her right away. I love her and my entire future depends on it," I said. OK, so I didn't say that last line, but I kind of wish I had, in retrospect. It sounds very urgent and Marty McFlyish.

"If you can find an opening, you can go for it. But make it quick," he replied.

He was suggesting I dash across the street in the middle of the New York City Marathon, which was not the solution I was hoping for. I don't know what I was hoping for, but it was not my preference to position myself in front of dozens and dozens and dozens of oncoming runners.

But that's what I did, because what other choice did I have? I zigged in front of one person, I zagged in front of another. I might've hopped over trash once or twice. It was "Frogger," "Paperboy" and "Mario Kart" all mushed into one.

I made it to the other side of the street in less than 10 seconds. Really, I ran the marathon in less than 10 seconds. Not in the correct direction, of course, but given how little training I had, it's still a remarkable achievement.

That was the one and only time I ran the New York City Marathon. And, fortunately, my future marriage remained intact.

The Know-It-All Health App

I've become a little too reliant on the Health app on my phone. It's embarrassing, to be honest. It knows more about my health than I do.

I don't even know how it knows. For example, it knows my blood pressure. I swear, I don't remember entering this into the app, but somehow it recalls that on Dec. 24, 2016, at 1:33:23 p.m., I recorded a blood pressure of 133/87. Evidently, it was a very stressful Christmas Eve for me.

For two and a half years, I lived with this data in my Health app. I would open it to check my steps and it would punch me in the gut: You've walked 10,000 steps, you've recorded 15 mindful minutes, and, oh, by the way, you suffer from prehypertension.

I went to Rite Aid last Tuesday just so I could use the blood pressure machine and update the numbers in the app, once and for all. I'm proud to say that, according to Rite Aid, my blood pressure is now 106/76. I was so thrilled that I bought two pints of Ben & Jerry's for $6. I realize I could've celebrated in a healthier way, but would you turn down a two-for-$6 deal on Ben & Jerry's?

A couple of days later I signed up for a blood drive, and here's where my complete lack of awareness regarding my health shined through. I assumed, based on the poster for the blood drive, that I would simply show up, give them some of my blood, and be out of there in 10 minutes. "Come donate blood and receive two tickets to a baseball game!" Sure. Easy-peasy.

No. Not easy-peasy. I was out of there in 10 minutes, but I didn't give them any of my blood. It turns out they had a few questions about my medical history.

Actually, more than a few, and I was ill-prepared. I had to fill out what was essentially a pop quiz about myself: What's your height? What's your weight? What's your age? Are you using prescription medication? For what? And what is the name of the medication, exactly?

What was this, a blood drive or a blind date?

I do use prescription medication, a cream, but I couldn't remember the name. I could only remember that it is a complicated name, something like 12 consonants and eight vowels. Fortunately, my wife was home and was able to send me a photo of the tube.

Unfortunately, she couldn't help me out with another question that stumped me. I received a measles booster earlier this year, which I noted, but then I was asked what kind of measles booster it was. There's more than one? I wondered. I don't know. The kind that prevents me from getting the measles?

"We really need to know," a nurse told me. "Is there any way you can find out?"

"Yes," I said. I opened the Health app. I searched for the tab in the app for my vaccinations. I discovered there is no such tab.

So that was the end of that. I had no choice but to leave the blood drive, with my head hanging in shame, having failed an exam on my own health.

After I walked out of the office I opened the Health app again. I checked my blood pressure. It was 106/76. I wasn't suffering from prehypertension. I started to feel better about myself.

The Awkward Things That Happened On My European Vacation

I recently returned from a 10-day trip to Europe. Unfortunately, my wife couldn't make it, so I was on my own. It was liberating in a way: I was free to wake up when I wanted, eat meals when I wanted, visit the sights I wanted to visit. I was free to do what I wanted, when I wanted to do it. It was so much fun.

For the record, it would have been so much more fun had my wife been there with me and we could have set our own itinerary together, as a couple. I just wanted to make that clear.

Along the way, I had several socially awkward moments, mostly small, but mostly Shane. That's one of the lovely things about travel: You learn that awkwardness transcends borders.

I wish I had written all of them down in a travel diary, but I'd never actually kept a travel diary before so I didn't even consider to bring one. Here's what I remember, off the top of my head:

Flying to Budapest

It was not a smooth journey from Newark to my first destination, Budapest, which wasn't totally unexpected since I've had my challenges flying internationally in recent years.

For reasons not clear to me, Newark International Airport did not have a PreCheck line. As someone who has PreCheck, I was deeply disappointed. Nothing brings me greater joy than the opportunity to enter a PreCheck line and walk right past all of the passengers in the longer line next to me. And Newark had the audacity to take that experience away from me? I couldn't believe it.

As I waited in the longer line and inched toward the X-ray machine, it occurred to me that TSA agents might actually force me to take off my shoes and belt. I had a feeling I knew what would happen next, but I asked an agent anyway, as kindly as I could: "Do I need to take off my shoes and belt?"

What I hoped he would say: "Do you have PreCheck? Yes? Well, then, of course not! You leave everything on and step right into the machine. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible!"

What he actually said: "Did someone give you a PreCheck slip?" 

"No."

"Then you have to remove your shoes and belt."

So I removed my shoes and belt, alongside all of the passengers who did not have PreCheck. Sometimes in life we are tested in ways we cannot predict.

There were other setbacks on my way to Budapest. The flight departing Newark was delayed due to thunderstorm warnings, causing me to miss my connecting flight in Germany, and once I arrived in Budapest I had to wait an hour and a half for an airport shuttle to my hotel.

By the time I arrived to the hotel, it was raining — light enough that I could go for a walk, but heavy enough that I knew I'd get wet after a while. I'm not the type to sit around in a hotel while on vacation, so I pulled my umbrella out of my bag and hit the streets.

A half-hour into my stroll along the Danube River, my clothes were damp. However, as I walked across the famous Chain Bridge, with hilly and historic Buda in front of me and the iconic Parliament Building behind me on the Pest side, I thought to myself, this makes it all worth it: the frustrations, the delays, the absence of PreCheck.

And then a car drove onto the bridge and through a huge puddle, splashing water all over my pants.

Iced Coffee In Vienna

I drink an iced coffee almost every day. I loved a good iced coffee. It's cool, it's refreshing. I'm a little happier in life when I'm drinking an iced coffee.

It's very easy to find iced coffee in New York City. You can literally buy one on every block, whether from a coffee shop, a deli, a food truck, etc.

Conversely, it is very hard to find iced coffee in Central Europe. It's just not as popular there. I saw several Starbucks while in Central Europe, but beyond that most coffee shops I passed didn't list iced coffee as an option.

I was really itching for an iced coffee while in Vienna, a city famous for its coffee culture. At a fancy cafe, I asked my waiter if the cafe had iced coffee available. "No," he answered, "but we do have coffee with ice cream."

OK, well, I wasn't in the mood for ice cream, but ... why not? I was on vacation, right? I ordered the coffee with ice cream.

Here's what the waiter brought to me:

That's not coffee with ice cream. That's a Friendly's sundae on steroids. And that was in addition to the chocolate cake I'd ordered, which had a chocolate candy on top of it. In summary, this was a lot of chocolate.

And a lot of sugar. This is actual video of me leaving the cafe:


via GIPHY

Honestly, consuming all of that sugar messed me up for days. And once I finally recovered, I ate the  "sugar cookie" in Bucharest.

"Sugar Cookie" In Bucharest

I met up with a cousin in Romania, where, I'm happy to report, we found an iced coffee at a coffee shop in Bucharest. I'm even happier to report it did not have ice cream, whipped cream or edible straws.

It did come with what I believed to be a small heart-shaped sugar cookie wrapped in plastic. It was adorable and, I assumed, delicious.

My cousin stepped away from the table for a minute. I finished my iced coffee, then tore open the plastic and popped the cookie in my mouth. It was tasty, but it had too much sugar, I thought.

As soon as my cousin returned he picked up his cookie and said, "Oh, they gave us a sugar cube in the shape of a heart."

Sugar cube? No wonder there was too much sugar in the cookie. It was all sugar.

A sugar cube with an iced coffee. That was completely foreign to me. What was with this continent and the sugar?

Rembrandt Face In Amsterdam

Months before leaving for Europe, I booked tickets for a Rembrandt exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It's funny how much emphasis I put on visiting museums when I travel. I live in a city that's home to at least two of the most famous museums in the world, and I never go. I could easily walk to the Met if I wanted to, but I don't. And yet I'll fly thousands of miles to see paintings in other, arguably less famous museums. I have no explanation for it.

I liked the Rembrandt exhibition a lot, though there were many tourists doing touristy things that I don't care for, like holding their smartphones inches away from the paintings to take a picture. For the life of me I don't understand the logic behind this behavior. For one, it was blocking my view, but putting that aside, a smartphone photo of a painting will not do the painting justice. If you really want a photo of a painting, buy a postcard from the gift shop. Or, Google the painting; the smartphone has Google, you know.

Anyway, the Rembrandt exhibition was interesting. I got a kick out of the self-portraits, in particular this one. And yes, I took a photo of it with my smartphone, but only so I could text it to my wife and make a funny comment about it.

I could relate to this piece of art more than any other in the exhibition, because I made the same exact face on many occasions during my trip: when the waiter at the Vienna cafe brought me the coffee with ice cream, when I almost missed my flight to Romania, when I needed to use a public WC but didn't have the proper change to enter the facility, when a woman winked at me through a store window in Amsterdam. (It was the first time I'd been winked at somewhere other than a text message in years. I couldn't even process it.)

Actually, other fun memories just came to mind: the basketball game in which I slipped and landed hard on my back; the spicy Indonesian dinner that threatened to light my mouth on fire; the person who talked smack about me to a friend in a foreign language on the check-in line at the airport.

Basically, the whole trip was a Rembrandt self-portrait.

The Infinity Popcorn War

One out of every three conversations I've had this week has begun with this question: "When are you seeing the new 'Avengers'?"

It hadn't been my intention to see "Avengers: Endgame" on opening weekend. I'm a wait-a-few-weeks-until-the-crowds-die-down kind of person. Actually, I'm more of a wait-a-few-months-until-it's-out-on-DVD-and-the-library-has-it-in-stock kind of person.

I decided today I would make a rare exception for "Endgame." I was worried that by next week I would accidentally read spoilers on the internet, or, worse, purposely read spoilers on the internet. I do not trust myself. I watched "Aquaman" last night — a half-hour in, I picked up my phone and read the entire plot on Wikipedia. (I also needed to make sure that that was Dolph Lundgren with red hair in the movie. It was.)

I booked a ticket for "Avengers" on Fandango and chose my seat: M5. (Who else is seeing the new "Avengers" from M5 this weekend?) Strangely, I also booked a flight today, and I did not have the option to choose my own seat for that. Why is it that I can reserve a seat with a $10 movie ticket but not with a $100 plane ticket? The plane isn't even going to be showing "Avengers." 

I'm seeing "Avengers" solo. I didn't get a ticket for my wife, since she has other plans. Believe me, I wish I was seeing the movie with my wife. She offers me great protection when I'm at the movies, which I discovered when we saw the last "Avengers" film, "Infinity War," together. 

She left the theater just as the credits began to roll; she had to run somewhere. Not even a minute later, I felt a piece of popcorn hit my head. Then another. And then another. 

A large group of kids had been sitting directly behind us during the movie, making noise, doing the things that kids do when they're at the movies. But they apparently decided to wait until I was alone before starting an infinity popcorn war.

What could I do? They were kids. I couldn't fight back with popcorn. I'd already eaten all of the popcorn in my bucket.

What I really wanted to do was some version of this:

Instead, I calmly walked toward the back of the theater, settling into an empty seat so I could continue to watch the credits. 

Before I see "Avengers: Endgame," alone, on opening weekend, I'd like to offer this reminder to all of the kids who have tickets to the same screening: Shane demands your silence (and your best behavior).

Sweatin' to "Conan"

I went out of my comfort zone and did something a little different on Sunday: I watched TV at Shape House while lying in bed, wrapped inside an infrared heated sleeping bag.

Usually my comfort zone is watching TV at my house while lying on my couch, wrapped inside a room-temperature blanket.

I should explain what Shape House is, since it only has a handful of locations, all in New York and the Los Angeles area. Shape House touts itself as the first and only urban sweat lodge. Basically, you slip into a hot sleeping bag on a bed and just sit back and relax. Kind of like this:

                                 
via GIPHY

And, as I mentioned, there's a TV.

The idea, of course, is to sweat. I mean, really sweat. The sweating can burn calories, improve skin and lift moods, according to Shape House.

I've tried to lift my mood in other ways in recent years. I've tried meditation. I failed. I've tried yoga. I failed. I don't do wellness very well.

But, as I demonstrated earlier this year when I went square dancing, I'm not afraid to sweat. So when my gym sent me an email last month offering a free sweat sesh at Shape House, I was all for it.

Soon after I arrived at Shape House, I was told my television would be equipped with Netflix, Hulu and HBO. My mood was lifted. I don't have HBO at home. I won't pay for premium cable, but I will gladly sweat for premium cable.

I changed into the sweat clothes provided to me and then walked over to one of the private beds, where I tucked myself into a sleeping bag for a 55-minute session. I left my right hand slightly loose outside the bag so I could use the remote control.

I opened the Netflix app. After spending a solid 60 seconds judging what the person before me had watched (I wish I could remember what the shows were so I could continue to judge here), I scrolled through my options. I found myself shaking my head often. The Fyre Festival documentary? Too long. "You"? Too creepy. "Tidying Up"? Too ...  organized?

I gave up on Netflix and switched to Hulu. Twenty minutes passed by and I was still searching. I couldn't even find something on HBO to my liking.

One of the staffers checked in with me to see how I was doing. "I have a question: Don't you have anything good to watch around here?" I wondered. At this point I couldn't tell if I was sweating because of the infrared heated sleeping bag or because I was against the clock and running out of time to pick a decent show.

Eventually I returned to Netflix and settled on "Conan Without Borders," partly because I'm a fan of Conan O'Brien's work, partly because it was near the top of the menu screen, and partly because my remote control hand was getting very sweaty.

I watched the episode in which he travels to South Korea. I really enjoyed it. Have you ever laughed out loud while wrapped like a pig in a blanket, with beads of sweat pouring down your face? It was a fun new experience for me.

So that's what I did on Sunday. Would I go back to Shape House? Sure. I still have five more episodes of "Conan Without Borders" to watch. I can't watch them at home while wrapped in my room-temperature blanket. It wouldn't be the same.

Don't Throw Your Phone While Watching "Hocus Pocus"

I learned an important lesson a couple of months ago that I'd like to share with all of you now: It's best to not throw your phone onto your bed while watching "Hocus Pocus."

I was flipping through the channels on a Tuesday night in mid-October when I came across the start of "Hocus Pocus" on Freeform. I'd never seen the movie, it was Halloween season, and it was Bette Midler. Needless to say, I put down the remote.

I wanted to watch the movie without interruption — no calls, no texts. I casually tossed my iPhone onto my bed. I could have put the phone on a table. I could have put it underneath the couch cushion. I could have just turned it off. But instead, I chose to send it airborne across the room and toward the bed.

The phone landed three or four inches from the edge of the bed. And then it started to slip, and then it slipped a little more, and then it slipped a little more, until it teetered on the edge. And then ...

SPLAT!

My wife walked over to the phone and picked it up. She gasped. It was not a good gasp. It was a gasp that affirmed what I had already suspected, which was that I was a complete bozo for throwing the phone.  

"How bad is it?" I asked, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the phone wasn't damaged.

She showed me the screen. It was shattered. 

This was the first time I'd cracked an iPhone screen. I checked Apple's website to see how much it would cost to repair it. It was more than I was willing to pay ($129), so I searched online for iPhone repair shops and found one in my neighborhood that charges less than half that amount. I brought my phone there the next day and received a new screen later that week. 

Since then ... since then my phone has acted very strangely. I wish I could show you the weird things I've seen with the phone since the screen was replaced. The phone has ...

... deleted complete sentences I've typed. Earlier this year a friend texted me with upsetting news. I can't remember what it was, but it required an immediate response. I typed, "I'm so sorry to hear that. Let me know if there's anything I can do." As soon as I finished writing the message, the cursor moved backward and erased it, character by character. I typed it all out again. The phone erased it all again. I had this back-and-forth with the phone for — no exaggeration — 15 minutes. The phone had no empathy for my friend whatsoever.

... placed calls on mute at random points in the conversation. Coincidentally or not, this has often happened while I was on the phone with my parents. The phone has also hung up on them on occasion. It is literally cutting me off from my family.

... moved apps without my even touching it. I've invested a lot of time — a lot of time —  curating the apps on my phone and arranging them just the way I like it, so this glitch is beyond frustrating. I don't want the phone to drag Instagram four screens over; I want Instagram to remain where it is, on the first screen, next to Facebook and Twitter. The social media apps should be all together, obviously. It takes me a while to move Instagram back to its original spot. Ever try to move an app to another screen while making sure the other apps stay in place? It's kind of like Jenga, but much, much harder. You need to be extremely precise.

... opened the Venmo app on its own several times. This is my greatest concern with the phone. I'm not the type of person to transfer cash to friends as a spontaneous gesture, but my phone, on the other hand, is very receptive to the idea of giving away my money. If you haven't sent me a friend request on Venmo yet, now is the time.

The other week I broke down and I took the phone to an Apple store, explaining how I'd damaged the screen and had it replaced.

"Did you have it replaced in an Apple store?" I was asked.

"No, I brought it to a third-party repair store," I replied.

The employee shook her head. (She may have added a couple of tsks, too. I'm not certain.)

Her best suggestion was to restore the phone to its factory settings, which I did. When it restarted, I was asked to choose a language. I attempted to select English. The phone settled on Chinese.

So the problem with the phone persists. My guess: It's haunted. At the very least, there's some real hocus-pocus going on with the phone.

I can tell you this: I will never be tempted by a Bette Midler movie on cable again.

The Tension In Square Dancing

"Oh, we could go square dancing."

I stared at my wife with a blank expression on my face for what must have been 15 seconds, if not 30, 40 or 50 seconds. It was January 2, and she was brainstorming ways we could really have some fun in 2019. 

I was lukewarm on the idea. I'd only square danced once in my life  — in elementary school, in fifth grade. It was part of the gym class curriculum. To the best of my recollection, I didn't learn any other type of dance in gym that year, or any other year I attended elementary school. Why my gym teachers felt I had to learn the do-si-do and not, say, the foxtrot or the Viennese waltz, I'll never know.

The unit on square dancing did mark a major milestone in my life: the first time I'd asked a girl to dance with me. This was the sort of pressure I did not want or need in my life at the time, but my gym teachers apparently felt differently. They didn't leave me with much of a choice: I had to find a partner to dance with, and that was it.

You may find this hard to believe, but I was kind of awkward around girls in fifth grade. I didn't have many girl friends, and I hadn't asked them for much  — maybe a pencil sharpener once or twice. But all of a sudden, I had to ask one of them if she'd be willing to let me swing her round and round. That's quite a leap.

Somehow, after several days of panic, I pulled myself together just long enough to ask a girl to be my square-dance partner. And, somehow, she agreed. Without much enthusiasm, mind you, but it didn't matter much to me. She said yes, and we square danced, and then we moved on with our lives.

That was the last memorable exchange I had with a girl until five years later, when I would ask one out for the first time. (She said no.) And it would be another 25 years before I would dance with a female again. It was on my wedding day. 

No, that's not true. I danced with my prom date to The Cardigans song "Lovefool." Or, rather, I danced in the middle of a circle of friends while she watched. But that's a story for another day.

I told my wife I would go square dancing with her because I'm a good husband and that's what good husbands do — they square dance. As I told her on the subway ride to a square-dancing event a few days later, "Of course I would do this for you. I'd do anything for you. And I have every expectation that you'll do something for me someday."

The event was held inside a gym, so of course I had flashbacks to fifth grade, having to learn a new dance, having to find a partner. But it turned out to be much less stressful this time. I didn't have to ask a woman to dance with me. A woman asked me to dance.

She was one of the organizers, and she realized right away I was new to square dancing and needed someone who could lead me. She was more enthusiastic about it all than my fifth-grade partner was.

She was very patient with me, very helpful, as was everyone else I danced with that night. (Since my wife was also a beginner, we were split up and didn't dance together.) They encouraged me and offered instruction where necessary.

"Hold me tighter! With tension!" one partner said as I was swinging her.

"With my wife in the room?" I thought to myself.

My wife and I stayed for nearly two hours. It was a real workout. My button-down shirt and jeans were drenched in sweat. It was easily the most intense dance I've ever participated in, ahead of that time I played "Just Dance" on the Wii for a half-hour.

I had fun square dancing, much more fun that I figured I would. I'm glad my wife suggested it.

She still owes me one, though. I've already started brainstorming.

The New Year's Eve Money I Didn't Take

We are a few hours into the new year, and yet I still can't let go of 2015. Or, rather, my family still can't let go of 2015, when I apparently made a terrible, terrible mistake at a New Year's Eve party — a mistake they've reminded me of every year since.

At the time I didn't feel I had done anything wrong. I'm still not sure I did anything wrong. I kind of think I did something right.

But I could be wrong.

That holiday season I'd traveled out of town with my parents to visit relatives, and we all celebrated New Year's Eve together at the home of a family friend. This was someone I'd never met before. She was very nice, very friendly, very Persian. 

It was your typical New Year's Eve party. At least it was for most of the night. There was lots of good food, lots of fun conversation. We all gathered in front of the TV at 11:59:50 to count down the final seconds of 2015, and we all cheered wildly when the ball dropped, signaling the start of a new year.

Everyone was feeling great, myself included.

And then the host did something that caught me completely off-guard: She handed out money to all of the guests. Five dollars. Per guest. She pressed a bill into my hand and said, "Happy New Year!"

I clutched the bill and stared at it for a solid minute. I thought of all the different things I could do with it. I don't mean all the different ways I could spend it. I mean all the different ways I could dispatch of it. I could return it to the host. I could hide it behind a couch pillow. I could flush it down the toilet. I could leave it in the mailbox on the way out. I could dig a hole in the backyard and bury it. The possibilities were endless. 

The one thing I absolutely was not going to do with it, though, was keep it. I just didn't feel comfortable accepting money from someone I didn't know very well. Perhaps if it had been my New Year's resolution to accept more money from people I didn't know very well, I would've been more comfortable with the whole situation. But I'd made no such resolution.

Ultimately, I placed the bill on a small table in the living room as we said our goodbyes. I was very discreet about it. To this day I have no idea if the host knows I'm the one who left the bill there. It might still be on that table, for all I know.

The morning after the party, I told my family what I'd done. I don't think I could ever disappoint them more than I did in that moment. 

"WHAT?! Shane!! Why did you do that?"

"I don't know, I felt weird about it."

"It was a gift!"

"It wasn't wrapped. A gift is wrapped."

And on and on it went for the next 10 minutes, though the passage of time hasn't resolved much. We have this same argument every New Year's Eve. My family's point, which they've articulated in one form or another over and over again: If someone gives you something, you should accept it and be grateful.

(Update: After I published this blog entry, one family member emailed me to note that it's Persian tradition to hand out money on New Year's. It is a Persian tradition ... on the Persian New Year. And the money is usually for children.)

I mentioned this story to someone at a New Year's Eve party last night. His response: "I would've taken the money!"

Who knows, maybe there really was nothing to feel weird about, and maybe I should have taken the money. My goal for this year is to score another New Year's invite to that home so I can check the table for my $5 bill. I'll reevaluate my decision then.