I don't ever wanna have a daughter

Throughout the course of my life, I've only had two true fears: Heights and escalators. And they scare the shit out of me. My fear of heights stems back to the days where I would follow my dad to football practice every morning ("Oh god, here he goes talking about football again" - it'll be brief, bear with me). Even at a young age, whenever I was at practice, I had to have some form of a role. That was the rule - if you wanted to be around, you had to contribute. In my case, the "role" that was bestowed upon me was to film practice. Because of Division III funds, it was beyond the budget to hire a permanent camera guy, so they had to make due with the coach's 12-year old son. I can remember they'd get this giant gizmo, commonly known as a boom truck, and they'd launch me pretty high up in the air so I could get a good overview of the field. Now most of you construction gurus are familiar with this machinery, but for those of you who aren't, basically, if you've ever seen someone at considerable heights working on a telephone pole standing in what appears to be an oversized bucket -that's a boom truck. And I would always cry to my dad and say "Please, don't make me go up there. I'll do anything else but that!" No matter how much I begged for a different job, he still preached Set of Three that he still preaches to me today at the age of 21: "Don't whine, Don't complain, Don't make excuses." His philosophy was a little different from what Mott refers to as the Set of Three (See I told you I'd find a way to get you into the blog).

I knew there was no way of getting out of it, so it did it anyway. But I am still to this day terrified of heights. Want another example? Here's one that the "U Crew" can relate to and anyone else that is familiar with the Washington Bridge that merges the East and West Bank. If I am by myself, I will always walk on the inside part of that bridge - Always. It could be 85 degrees outside, and there could be hundreds of people walking on both of the outdoor sides of that bridge - All of them peering through the window and wondering to themselves:

"Why is that idiot walking in the indoor tunnel on such a beautiful day?"

It's because the mere sight of overlooking that river one hundred feet below makes my heart stop. The solitary humiliation of walking inside by yourself is nothing compared to the nauseous feeling I get when I look over that railing. If I am with people, I might walk outside, but I won't get within 15 feet of that railing - Hell no.

In case you were wondering, no, that is not a typo. I am equally, if not more, afraid of escalators than I am of heights. And it all dates back to one single incident during my younger years. When I was in grade school, I used to be on a travelling basketball team. In between games, we would usually kill time by going to the nearest mall. I believe we were in Grand Forks at the time, but I got on the escalator first, and my buddy Willie got on the next set of escalator steps behind me (Side note: What-up Dub, don't be a stranger, we gotta hang out more). Anyways, I have no idea how this happened, but somehow Willie's jeans got snagged and the escalator and absolutely tore them to shreds. His right pant leg had a tear from his ankle all the way up to his mid-thigh, and he had to walk around the mall like that for the rest of the day.

Even though this was a freak accident that had the odds of probably one out of ten million, I still and forever will be very cautious about getting onto an escalator. I often find the nearest stairway just to avoid them. But if that isn't possible, this is usually my procedure for making the transition from ground level to moving metal steps. The first thing I do is put my hands in both of my pockets and pull up on my pants like I'm walking through standing water. I then take my first step with very careful timing and precision. I cannot be rushed. It's kind of like double-dutch jump rope in the sense where you just gotta feel it. I have to be in a rhythm and sometimes it can take roughly 3-5 seconds for me to get on. This generally ends up being a problem with the person immediately behind me who's knee-jerk reaction is to throw up their hands and flash body language universally known as "WTF!" I may look certifiably insane to many people around me, but I refuse to take any chances. I'm scared to death of the escalator eating my pants.

I think this is officially the longest I've ever rambled on without focusing on the main topic. But you gotta understand that all of this is progressive, and what I am getting at is that I used to have only 2 real fears in life, but I've most recently added a knew one. I've always said to myself I want three children (I don't know why - I just think that's a good number) with at least one of them being a different gender. My thought process was 3 of the same thing would drive me nuts either way, and it would also contribute to a balance household. My mom often jokes with 3 other guys in the family, she has no allies, so that would at least alleviate that element of the equation. But the more and more I think about it, I've come to the realization that I don't think I ever wanna have a daughter. And this is stemming from a multitude of reasons.

Most specifically, because of the person I am, and because of the nature that young adult male's mind works. Whenver I see an attractive girl of my age, it's almost inevitable that at least one impure thought is going to cross my mind. I'm trying to shed away this mindset, but it's not that easy. And I know for a fact that there many guys out there much worse than me. If someone had the same thoughts about my daughter, as I do at the age of 21, I would definitely set a new standard for Meltdown Nitro Mode.

I often wonder what it would be like if I had a younger sister. I'd more than likely re-define the concept of "overprotective." I don't envy my friends with younger sisters who take a lot of abuse for it, and this is the one form of comedy that I'm not quick to join in on. Aside from Benoit shots and the "C" word, I don't take offense to a whole lot of things. If you start talking politics, I automatically tune you out. If you put down my religion, I shrug my shoulders and ignore you because I know you're an idiot. But I would not put up with someone making jokes about my sister whatsoever. That's one situation in life for me where the gloves would come off. I do think however that it would be quite humorous for a young lad to come over to the Kostich household and introduce himself to my dad and say that he was taking his daughter out on a date tonight. That would be something else because "Hogan Knows Best" doesn't have nothing on him. He would put the fear of God in that kid - it kind of reminds me of the new country song that goes "Ya'll go out and have some fun. I'll see you when you get back, probably be here all night......still cleanin this here gun."

The biggest thing that gets me about this particular topic, is that in my eyes, young girls in the present era have absolutely zero role models. There I said - I've drawn the line pick your side. Sitting here right now I can't think of one single celebrity that can serve as a positive example. The one person that I'm kind of the fringe with is somebody like Angelina Jolie who's partaken in many humanitarian endeavors such as promoting adoption and what not, but then again, there's the satanistic side of her who's confessed to cutting herself many times throughout her life. A little hard to put her on the same pedestal as Mother Theresa. I shudder at the thought of my daughter one day looking up to the nuts and sluts that fill pages of US Weekly - Britney, Lindsay, Paris and the list goes on and on. As much as I like to subscribe to the philosophy that there's a lot of good apples out there, but we just don't hear about them, I'm convinced that they're non-existent.

At least in the case of younger boys, there's a great deal of professional athletes that can serve as a model. I can look a Peyton Manning, or a Kevin Garnett, or a LaDanian Tomlinson, and notice all of the qualities that make these guys innately good people. Athletes have an influence over young boys that is almost unparalleled, and when used in a positive manner it can be so powerful. But then you look at female athletics and I don't see a whole lot of women who young girls aspire to be like. And that brings up a whole separate issue that I think most girls are generally swayed away from athletics because of the thought that you have to undertake masculine qualities in order to be successful in sport. This isn't completely true, but it's not altogether false.

So when you're not interested in athletes and you're not interested in the movie/music stars of today, who do young girls look up to? Answer: They turn their tv's on to the MTV Hills and let the girls of this show serve as their guide and compass. Now the Northstar crew, you know I love all of you, but I'm starting to develop a permanent scar right above my ear from all the head-scratching I've done in an attempt to figure out why not just one of you - but all of you systemically got together and decided that each of you should put down "x" amount of dollars (I forget the figure, but I'm sure it was significant) to rent out a private little area in a downtown nightclub so you could take selfies with something called LC. And the guys are the ones who surprise me the most - especially the one that once told me (who by the way I'm trying, but I still don't know how to link your blog): "The biggest tools on the face of the Earth hang out at Spin." My favorite part of the story was looking at the photos afterwards and noticing that in terms of attractiveness - just out of all the girls in that album, I wouldn't rank her in the top five. So guys from that perspective, I don't see the appeal there either.

I don't watch the show - I'm not familiar with the characters or the premise. But my finals are officially over, and I had to watch a couple of the episodes (which by the way are all available on mtv.com) to see what the fuss was about. Here is the breakdown of Hills: LC is a college-age girl that works with her bimbo friends at the Teen Vogue headquarters. All of the girls on this show come from affluent families with living conditions that are unrealistic for the average college student. It's very Breck High School like. The conversations that take place on this show consist of exaggerated dialogue and drama that most rational people would deem un-watchable. Although Miss LC has a pretty high-profile internship, from the 2 episodes that I watched the show makes no reference to any schooling that she has while maintaining what one would think to be a highly competitive job. So apparently, she's the LeBron James of the fashion industry in the sense that she got drafted out of high school and went straight into the pros.

Now again, with all do respect, this show is without a doubt primarily geared towards young adults from the ages of 12-17. But then again, I guess so is professional wrestling (there I took a shot at myself, I'm an equal opportunity ripper). But unlike my form of entertainment, they'll actually come out admit that it's a work, while the latter will dub it "reality television." You're out of your mind if you think everything on this show is transpiring in the actual way that their lives progress. From the camera angles, to the facial expressions, to the odds of just happening to be in the right place at the right time - it's all a work. And they call wrestling "fake."

The ironic part of this whole ordeal is that these girls have no concept of what "reality" actually is. Meanwhile, the rest of us outside the realm of "Laguna Land," are up to our eyebrows in college tuition debt, we're drinkin cheap liquor because we can't afford anything better, we don't go to fancy clubs unless there's a birthday because then we get free cover, and the majority of us are generally worried out about how we can maintain the cost-of-living during college and still work towards achieving our career goals. In comparison, LC's greatest stress is derived from fine-tuning the meticulous details and color schemes of an outfit that nobody cares about or even notices for that matter. The show portrays her character as someone who personifies effortless perfection, but truth be told, she is far from it. She works in a job that contributes absolutely nothing to society - she has zero talent, and has no idea what it's like to truly earn something. And somebody like LC is gonna be a role model for my little girl someday, give me a freaking break. God help us - everybody stop having daughters! Mothers and fathers of young girls, how do you possibly handle it? Those of you who can mold them into good people are nothing short of amazing.