Ask Mr. Smartypants

In a recent column I said:

1) That I live in a world of my own creation called Lanetopia, and I rule it like a pudgy, naked, frolicking Norse God.

2) That I plan to run a half-marathon on April 25.

It is indicative of the very high esteem in which I am held that of these two assertions, it was the idea of me running 13.1 miles that people found hard to believe.

I think my sister-in-law, Michelle, summed up the feeling of the world at large best when she e-mailed, "Wow, I think it's awesome that you're going to run a half-marathon. Make sure Angela gets pictures of you at the finish ... if it's still light out."

Since the Greer Earth Day Half-Marathon begins at 8 a.m., I did not take this as a vote of confidence.

But, being so competitive that even when the contest centers on who can say the nastiest things about me, I still thirst to win, I replied, "Perhaps by the time I finish, the sun will have risen again."

I did not begin running intending to start racing over long distances. "I just want to be a bit healthier," I told my wife those many months ago. "I'm not going to go nuts with it. Moderation in all things, that's my watchword."

But Angela had seen my attempts at moderation before:

Me: "What? It's one piece of apple cake."

Angela: No, it's an entire apple cake. The fact that it has not been cut does not mean you can define it as 'one piece.' "

It turned out the amount of running I could do was limited by the fact that I'm so smart. I'm so smart, I knew that I didn't really need running shoes (my Keds from 10th-grade P.E. still had plenty of life in them, even if they were two sizes too small), I didn't need to stretch (I think that's only for girls, to prevent "the vapors" or something) and I could go from 1 mile per day to 10 miles per day, in three weeks, if I ran every day.

And 10 days into this plan, reduced to a tear-inducing hobble (I think I actually caught "the vapors" - first man ever, gosh I'm proud), I explained to Angela that I must continue to run "through the pain."

Six months later, when I was able to walk unassisted and had been weaned off the pain medication (I'm a poor weaner), I bought a $120 pair of shoes from a foot professional, with $30 inserts and (this really blew my mind) three pairs of socks at $10 each.

Previously, I had budgeted my sock purchases at $10 per incarnation.

I started running again, slowly. I built up mileage, slowly. I took days off, tried to eat right and stretched before and after running.

Oddly, it worked. Apparently all those people who had been running for, oh, say 30 years, knew more about it than I, who had for 30 years run only from responsibility, reality and mirrors.

And my goals, because anything worth doing is worth doing to the point of fearsome, mind-numbing, psychotic intensity, grew.

Now, I plan to run a half-marathon in April. In December, I hope to go the full 26.2 miles on my 39th birthday.

And at the successful conclusion of each, I'll party like a pudgy, naked Norse God who just got over "the vapors."

'Hello," my Aunt Jan said when I answered the phone. "What are you doing home?"

Does it indicate something about my personality that friends and family so frequently say, "Oh ... I thought you'd be out," when I pick up the phone? Are they all plotting furiously to call when they'll miss me?

Anyway, it was noon and I work nights, so I replied, "Where did you think I'd be?"

"Eating lunch with Quinn at school," my aunt answered. "Don't you take her lunch from Wendy's and sit with her every Wednesday?"

And my heart sank, sank to the bottom of the world, then a bit lower. I had let my child down, not because I had an emergency or an unavoidable conflict, but just because I spaced out.

I do have lunch with Quinn each Wednesday, and it's kind of a big deal because she doesn't see me much in the evening (I work nights) and she's still young and foolish enough to want me around.

I forgot to show up for lunch once before, and she responded by sharing with me the horrific story of the emotional pain I caused, while trying to make me feel better about it.

Quinn: "I sat alone at the parents' table and waited for you."

Me: "I'm so sorry, baby."

Quinn: "Oh, daddy, it's OK. I thought you would show up eventually, and I kept trying to look for you, but it was hard with the tears and the sobbing and the heartache. Is it true you can die of heartache?"

Me: "Quinn, I will never forget again, I promise."

Quinn: "Don't even worry about it. I didn't get in the lunch line because I knew you were bringing me a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke, the culinary highlight of my week, so I had no food."

Me: "I swear, as God is my witness, you'll never go hungry again."

Quinn: "Oh, daddy, I was just worried that you had been hit by a bus or carried off by aliens, because I figured nothing less than a life-threatening accident or abduction would keep you away from our lunch date. Once I knew you were safe, that's all that mattered. I wasn't even that hungry. The teacher fed me some pieces of ham left over from her lunch, so I was fine. I mean, I had scraps. Are scraps good for you, daddy?"

This time, I e-mailed her teacher to see how upset Quinn had been and was told she got sad for a few minutes, ate a hot dog and got over it.

I tried to make up for my error by stopping at Hardee's, buying Quinn her belated kids meal and waiting at her day care until the bus from school pulled up.

"What are you doing here, daddy?" she asked, and I told her I felt so bad about forgetting our date that I wanted to bring her a special snack and spend a few minutes with her while she ate it.

She was mildly glad to see me, accepted my apology, enjoyed the food and genuinely didn't seem too put out that I had failed to show up for lunch.

Her acceptance left me feeling a lot worse than I had the first time I missed our date, when she cried and carried on.

Because this time, the second time, she wasn't surprised that I hadn't kept my word.

I now believe proprietors should be able to allow any type of behavior they want in their businesses, as long as it's adequately advertised.

If you want to operate a business called "Pete's House of Beating You With a Stick," it's fine. I support your right to take $9 from folks, query their stick preference (Oak, ash, pine or maple? Log, switch, branch or root?) and beat the snot out of them. As long as the signs explain the deal and the customer understands what's up, I'm down.

See, I was recently forced to start smoking cigars because I had become, except for my personality, perfect. I was that ex-drinking, ex-cigarette chain-smoking, ex-drug user who just stands around in glowing good health, harshing everybody's mellow. I actually said things at parties like, "I better hit the sack, I've got a big run in the morning," and people were glad, because it meant I was leaving.

So I took up cigars.

Last Friday in Columbia, my wife Angela and I were out and about, and I suggested we stop in at a bar where she could get an adult beverage and I could enjoy a quiet stogie. We saw a sign for a cigar bar and popped in.

The joint was nice, but very quiet for 9 p.m. on Friday. I saw why when I went to light up and the bartender said, "Sir, you can't smoke that here."

Me: "Where can I smoke?"

Bartender: "Nowhere in the city limits of Columbia."

Me: "But this is a freakin' cigar bar. The sign says so."

Bartender: "Yeah, we haven't had the heart to change the sign since they outlawed it."

The new law in Columbia says nonsmokers' right to be free of secondhand smoke in public trumps smokers' right to smoke, in every case.

And even if I open a bar called Smokey Smokenstein's House o' Tar and Resin, staff it entirely with black-lunged puffers and post huge signs saying: "Warning - smokewise, this place makes hell look like Pooh's Hundred-Acre Wood," it's not legal to smoke there.

But why can't smokers have one place? One public bar and restaurant, well-posted, where they can do their thing?

THERE IS NO INCREASED COST TO PROVIDE HEALTH CARE FOR SMOKERS. ACCEPT IT.

The most comprehensive study on the subject, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997, concluded that quitting smoking raises health care costs 7 percent for men and 4 percent for women because nonsmokers live longer, breaking hips, achieving delirium and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

So why do you care if we smoke in our one little place? Why do you need to control us so badly?

One's freedom extends only to the point where it impedes another's freedom.

A cigar bar is a reasonable way to sell legal products to customers who want to consume them. Proper signage at such establishments warns prospective employees and passers-by who might be bothered by smoke to stay out.

A cigar bar does not infringe on anyone's rights. The people who want to ban cigar bars do.

If it were up to me, I'd send those folks to "Pete's House of Beating You With a Stick," and I'm such a sport, I'd even pony up the $9.

I've always thought a two-parent household gives kids the best chance of succeeding, but those of us who labor under the yoke of the traditional family structure understand its big drawback: The spouse gets an equal say in decisions, even when she fails to grasp the brilliance of your extraordinary parenting concepts.

That happened recently when I decided to tell Quinn to get straight F's on every test.

See, we were at our parent-teacher conference, discussing the Quinnster. It was a generally positive meeting because Quinn is a generally good egg.

In fact, the one issue the teacher raised, many folks would consider a plus.

"Quinn puts a lot of pressure on herself," the teacher said. "She takes schoolwork very seriously and gets really upset when she gets confused or misses things on tests."

"I have a simple solution for that," I said.

"What's that, honey?" the wife said, eyes shining with faith in my parenting prowess, or filling with tears at the thought of me sharing my unvetted ideas in public.

"I'll just tell Quinn that for one solid week, I want her to get a zero on every test, quiz and assignment. Then, I'll tell her to see if anybody loves her any less because she's failed. When she realizes we all love her just as much, she'll know she need not fear failure, and she'll be able to work just as hard, but without the anxiety."

Both women stared at me as if I had suggested we marinade Quinn in red wine, grill her up and serve her with a really bold wine, perhaps a cabernet sauvignon.

"I really don't think that's necessary," the teacher said.

Angela added, "What if she didn't get a chance to do something later in life because you told her to do that?"

Me: "What would a poor scholastic week in second grade disqualify her from? I really don't think it's going to come up in the Rhodes Scholarship interview."

Wife: "Seriously, were you raised by wolves? Unusually stupid, drooling, rabid wolves?"

I was talking about the big lessons. I believe there are just a few big lessons Quinn must learn to be happy, and these are some of them:

-- Freedom is in your heart. Freedom can never be granted to you by anyone else, not via the grading process, not via a job, not via money, not via fame and not via approval.

-- Utmost effort in the pursuit of goals is of fundamental importance in our lives, but whether we achieve those goals matters far less.

-- Studying is crucial. Grades, someone else's analysis of how well that studying worked, are not.

-- We will love you no matter what and revere you as long as you are kind and hardworking, and we aim to teach you to revere yourself, which you can only do if you are kind and hardworking.

If I can teach Quinn to earn, and grant herself, A-pluses, neither she nor I will need to worry about the grades other folks hand her.

That lesson having been shared, I don't enjoy sleeping in the wheelbarrow in the backyard, so if she could keep all the grades above a C, she'll be doing her daddy a favor.

By the time the sun rose Friday morning, Carolyn Smith was waiting, the very first person in line to stake a claim on a job.

Smith nabbed her place on the sidewalk at the Middle Tyger Campus of Spartanburg Community College at 7 a.m., knowing the doors would not open for another three hours.

By 7:30, 15 people snaked out behind her. By 8, there were 50. In all, several thousand people were expected to apply for the 500 jobs offered at a soon-to-be-opened Wal-Mart processing center. The crowd, chilled but cheerful, shared camaraderie and tales from the job hunt.

Most hadn't been looking for all that long.

Smith, 45, worked at Machinery Technology until layoffs on Dec. 4. She had been there about 18 months. Before that, she spent a year working for Kohler, where she also fell victim to worker reductions.

"I've never been fired," Smith said. "But it seems like everywhere I work - layoffs."

Unmarried, she has one grown son who's in the Marines and "on his own path." She is collecting unemployment and holding on to hope.

Michelle Bowman was laid off from Drive Automotive Jan. 16. Divorced, she called a family meeting with her children, ages 14, 16 and 19, to impress on them just how tight the family finances are.

"They understood," she said. "They've been real good."

The first person on the scene was actually Matt Wofford, 29, laid off by 84 Lumber two months ago.

"I tried to stay where it was warm," Wofford said, pointing to his car, but when folks started lining up, he claimed his place, about six people back, resigned to the cold.

Married and a father, he called the job market "brutal."

"There's nothing but straight commission sales, which, if nobody's buying ... "

Standing with Wofford were Lucas Earnhart, 20, and James Martin, 23. Both have part-time jobs at Academy Sports and Outdoors. Both now live with their parents.

"I lived on my own, with a roommate, but I got laid off of one part-time job (at Westview-Fairforest Fire Department) and I just couldn't afford it. I just had to move home."

Most of the 15 or 20 people I talked to had been out of work less than six months. They are still getting unemployment benefits, still living in the safety net. That's good news, but if all these people have been laid off in six months, what will it be like half a year from now?

Asked what he would want prospective employers to know about him, Robert Garrett, 36, said, "That I'm a hard worker, a dependable person, that I will be on time ..."

"Give 100 percent," said line buddy Reginald Miller.

"Give 100 percent, give 110 percent ... I'll give them whatever they want. I do not play," Garrett replied.

Leaving, I stopped back by the front of the line to say my goodbyes.

Smith, trim, tidy, full of hope, asked, "Would you hire someone if they were in front of the line? Would that mean something to you, who was the first one in line?"

"Yes, ma'am," I answered honestly, watching her hop from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. "I think it means a lot."