Bikers Beware: An Open Letter to the Fairweather Bike Commuter

Dear Mr/Ms/Mrs I-commute-during-the-warm-season-only-bike-rider,

If you are going to ride on the road, please follow the rules of the road. I applaud your wanting to save money and the planet, but I am saddened by your lack of common sense. This includes your failure to stop at stop signals and instead blow through them, not being aware of the cars around you, and your failure to signal your turns. Also, if you are riding on the sidewalks, please know that the rules of pedestrians apply to you then. Don’t just be on the road and then off the road. Choose one and go with it! Oh, and also please wear a helmet, fool.

The Brown Kid

Please Hang Up and Order (An Open Letter to the Cell Phone Guy/Lady)

Dear Cell Phone Guy/Lady,

Seriously? What is so important that you have to talk on the phone at full volume while you are in line and then whisper your order to me, only to return to your conversation while looking at me like you are annoyed because I am asking you to pay?

HTD (here’s the deal). If you are on the phone, step aside and finish your conversation so that the person/people behind you can order. Or better yet, hang up. It’s simple really. Otherwise, your cell phone conversation looks like a big middle finger in my face.

So here’s what I’m going to do as this continues: While you are having your conversation after you order, I am going to call your order to the barista (as required of me) only I will do it at a slightly louder volume than usual. I will also tell you how much you owe me, only again I will do this at a slightly louder (but still courteous) volume. Yes, I realize that this will annoy you, but really, isn’t this what you are doing to me and others?

So Mr/Mrs/Ms Cell Phone user, I ask this of you. Please hang up and order, or let others after you order first.

thank you,

Your Barista – The Brown Kid

I Will Not Let You Grow Old (An Open Letter to My Friends)

This was inspired by a lady I saw at Starbucks one day. I wanted to share this letter that I wrote with everybody to let you know what kind of friend I can be. I care too much about all my friends to let this happen to them, as I hope you do also. If you know the kind of person being described here, please pass this on to them. enjoy!

2/27/09

Dear Friend,

I won’t let you grow old with you believing that you are younger than you truly are. Talking and dressing like you are 40 going on 20. Eventually, it might become embarassing.

Low rise jeans with muffin tops or Abercrombie fashion on a JC Penny body. Faux hawks at 50 and puka shell chokers choking out the last bit of sense that you might have.

Front butts playing peekaboo out the bottom of camisols and beer guts in a wife beater are never sexy. Both seem to reveal denial and freshly inked tribal tattoos.

Fake tans and highlighted hair make for an interesting contrast. Not intersting like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but more like Michael Jackson and Priscilla Presley.

So it comes to this: I promise as your friend to inform you rather than embarrass you if this happens to you. I would rather inform you than allow you to become red in the face. I would hope that you do the same for me. Let us grow old and move forward rather than trying to deny the inevitable. Growing old is a rite of passage and it is for you and me.

Sincerely, Your Friend,

The Brown Kid

An Open Letter to Youth Workers Everywhere

Dear Youth Worker/Big Brother/Parent/Whoever Reads this,

What is is about awful smelling deodorant and body spray (i.e. Axe Body Spray) that attracts teenage boys to it? Also, what is it about these things make teenage boys think that it makes up for a shower? I walked by some teenagers at Target yesterday and they just reeked! It smelled like butt and Old Spice mixed with cooking oil. gross.

If you are involved with Youth Group or work with the youth in some kind of way, please, I beg of you, please tell them that a couple stripes of deodorant or an Axe bath does not make up for what a shower could do for you.

Thank You,

Ron

Something That’s Been Bouncing Around My Head Lately…

Fly me past the moon

Beyond the stars and galaxies

Is this where Your glory is hiding?

 

Take me to the center of the earth

I’ll turn over every rock, and as the dust settles

I hope to find You standing there.

 

I sing songs to and with others about You

These are good songs about what You’ve done and are continuing to do!

Sometimes, though, these songs feel like plastic flowers that I bought at Goodwill: dusty and fake.

 

My insides are dry and my bones cry out

It’s torturous to sing these songs when I don’t always feel this way

Though I profess love to you, my humanity begs to differ.

 

The problem, I have found, is me.

I know that You exist

We have met on many occasions!

 

In fact, we are quite close You and I

So close that I have promised to die for You

…but I’m still living.

 

But it isn’t the living that You have told me about.

I still go back to drink from water that doesn’t satisfy

I still return and consume the things that don’t fill.

 

My darkness takes me and shreds me apart

I’ve seen the light that will save me

But this loneliness feels so good sometimes!

 

But then when I fall, I find it harder to pick myself back up.

If I find victory, the party is just me and nobody else.

This isn’t fun.

 

Not that Your love needs to be fun!

By no means!

Another trap I’ve fallen into.

 

Bring healing to me! Bring Your love!

I need cleansing! I need to know that You are going to rescue me!

I feel Your touch. I see Your light. I am running to You.

Open Letter to the High Schooler at Starbucks: You Stink.

Dear Highschooler,

As I sit here next to you in Starbucks, you cannot imagine how much I envy you and your life. So much time on your hands and so little to do with it. Really, you think that you are “hella-busy”, but you’re not. And though I could talk you through this part of your life, what I would like to talk about is public hygiene. Specifically your cologne.

You see my friend, cologne is not like water. You don’t literally splash it on. You don’t hold it an inch from your chest and squirt. Instead, cologne should be misted and walked through. Cologne is an intimate scent, not something for anybody within 5-10 feet of you to smell. Please High Schooler, I beg of you, quit making the air so pungent when you walk by. People would rather smell fresh air than your cologne.

One more thing before I leave you. Please understand that Axe body spray is in no way a good thing. In fact, I think it may make your skin break out more than it already has. If you are wearing Axe in an attempt to “grow up” then consider this: nobody over the age of 16 wears Axe because it smells like A$$. In fact, I think that is what they should have called it.

Hoping that our next meeting is more pleasant to my scent of smell,

The Brown Kid