Kid Tested. Mother Approved.

The Tortfeezor is, and always has been, for the children.

I work hard at maintaining a relatively clean site because I know I have a pretty broad range of readers. And by broad, I mean painfully conservative. And by range of readers, I mean my wife.

So in a grand gesture of contempt for our first two Constitutional Amendments, my range of readers (wife) insisted I change my title picture from the very cool looking photo of me with a gun, to something, well, considerably lamer.

Any regular visitor to the site can immediately recognize that my blog has some self-image/identity issues when it comes to layout settings, but I really thought that I'd nailed it this time. The gun picture (now the profile pic) kinda summed up my weekly essays. White, preppy kid in a zip-up corded sweater with a menacing scowl weilding a BB gun. It just kinda screams irony.

That irony, however, as it is with much my humor, was sadly lost on her. It is safe to say that she did not marry me for my witty commentary on my life's painfully embarrassing anecdotes.

She obviously married me for my money.

She also knows full well my stance on any kind of censorship. You see, censorship to me is like a straitjacket on the marketplace of ideas. It should be up to the consumer to decide what is and isn't appropriate. It will sort itself out this way anyhow. All this wicked strict Puritanical nonsense bludgeoning into oblivion every non-mainstream idea is why we live in a bland repetative society devoid of any real edge and smitten with its own banality.

To me, scourging the Bill of Rights is like a swift kick to the crotch. Nevertheless, my First Amendment right to freedom of speech and my Second Amendment right to bear arms does not extend to my marriage and consequently, this blog. So I acquiesced. Not out of agreement of the admittedly fascist policies of a domestic dictator, but out of respect for the woman who puts food in my tummy.

So why do I normally restrict the cursing and off-color humor in my essays on this site? Because that's not who I am. I don't like to write those words and phrases. I can make my point employing an alternative vocabulary. I don't particularly like the vulgar written word.

I am anything but edgy. Yet at home, somehow I'm this gauche pariah. Translation: I'm a boy married to a girl who didn't have a brother growing up. She's been shielded from the crass nature of guys. But in the end, in the War of the Roses, you have to pick your battles.