GEEK BEAT: Family is to stomach as I am to ninja

So after getting through the brunt of winter in, natural day-to-day ninja wounds aside, generally good health, I woke up Tuesday morning sick as a dog. Not just any dog mind you, some kind of magical dog that barks vomit. If the word vomit offends you, please feel free to replace it with face-soup.

Anyway, after a full morning of being sick at both ends, with all the near-misses, close calls and false alarms that go along with that, I started to think long and hard about my stomach and everything attached to it.

This naturally led me to think about families.

When you think about it, families are a lot like gastro-intestinal systems.

Everybody has one. They are complicated. Everybody thinks theirs produces more embarrassing stuff than anybody else’s but really, everyone’s is pretty much the same.

The consistency may vary from person to person, but that’s about it.

I was going to have the column be a collection of true stories from growing up in my family, but I decided that either no one would believe me or – much more likely – no one would care.

With my family, you had to be there. I could tell you about the time my little brother got his head stuck in a bridge, but you really had to be there and see his tears rolling down is face then plummeting hundreds of feet to the Snake River below to truly appreciate the humor.

Or I could tell you about the time my father shocked himself with the electric dog collar (in his defense, he did do it on purpose), but without knowing him, the subtleties would be lost.

So instead of boring you guys with tales of how my sister sat on a hornets’ nest or the time my other sister tried to shave the bumps off her tongue with a lint shaver, I’m going to give anyone out there who’s still a bit embarrassed or ashamed of their families a few tips.

Go to the zoo: If you think your family is boring or embarrassing, the zoo is wonderful place to see how great you really have it. One look at how the Big Cat family or the Primate family, life with the Shinneys or the Johnsons doesn’t seem so bad.

Face it, no matter how boring your family is, the Big Cats’ lives are more boring. The highlight of a lion’s day is when some jerk kids starts flicking pennies at him. He just sits there hoping those parents will be the one to finally make do on their promise to throw the kid in with him.

Is that the highlight of your Father’s Day? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

And the Primates, talk about embarrassing. Monkeys and apes are the one animal group that really should wear pants, maybe even more so than some humans.

Of course, if your family really does spend all day swinging around a cage naked, throwing natural ammunition at each other, then just disregard what I said. You have my condolences.

Eat fiber: Fiber should always be an important part of a healthy diet, but it should be especially focused on before any family get-togethers.

The extra pushers in your diet will provide you with a convenient excuse to take a break for your loved ones and have some alone time to listen to your iPod or do a Sudoku or whatever you please.

Go to your friend’s for a holiday: This is not to avoid your family, mind you, it’s just a chance to see that the grass is just as crazy on the other side.

Plus, you’ll get to see your friend get mortified when their family does anything embarrassing. They’ll run around chasing their little cousin who isn’t wearing pants, and you can smile to yourself and know that somewhere, wherever your family is, one of your little cousins is running around the dinner table bottomless too.

Finally, get married: Marriage is great for many reasons, but one of the biggest is the perfect excuse not to go to family things. If you prefer to lie, just say you’re doing something with the spouse’s family. If you’re a more honest person, just say, “We (‘we’ is the crucial word here, never under any circumstances say ‘I’) think it’s time we started our own family traditions.”

That’s pretty much all I’ve got for you. The only last piece of advice is when you’re making fun of your family, leave your mother out of it. Hasn’t that sweet woman put up with enough for your sake?

I know mine has.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a senior in computer science and looks forward to using the psychological warfare that he learned from his parents on his own kids. Comments and embarrassing family stories can be sent to him a steveshinney@cc.usu.edu.