Today’s Overprotected Kids Are Tomorrow’s Nightmare Employees

Maybe they’ll be able to take their parents to work.

Have you ever been to a tee-ball game? Scooping out your own eyeballs with a plastic spoon by the end of whatever they’re calling the first inning will cross your mind more than once. There are no strikes and no outs, and the only cheer is, “Don’t worry about it, buddy!” It doesn’t matter if it’s dark or raining, or that locusts are descending upon the field, no one is going anywhere until every single kid stands at that tee and gets a hit.

As Temps Rise, Philly’s Dress Code Plummets

Outlandish heatwave fashion in Center City.

It’s nice to see women of all shapes and sizes looking feminine and put-together in summer dresses. Wasn’t it a glorious day when we ditched summer-weight suits, as if there really is such a thing, and decided that we could get pedicures and go pantyhose-free whenever we wanted? What’s easier than a great dress? Add your favorite sandals and some jewelry, and you’re good to go anywhere—work, happy hour, Target.

All Penn Staters Should Still Be Disappointed in Joe Paterno

I’m not letting the coach off the hook.

While it may appear that people get away with a hell of a lot, they don’t—not cardinals, or priests, or football coaches, or self-canonized institutions. Something biblically ominous converged over our humble little Commonwealth as the Lynn and Sandusky verdicts unfolded. It’s like the Eye in the Sky is putting down an Almighty Foot for the world to be reminded that, verdicts aside, the scope of human justice is paltry when it comes to certain sins.

The Lies Philly Landlords Tell

I swear a guinea pig never lived here!

Attention Philadelphia landlords: If you want to charge $1,500 a month for rent, your property shouldn’t smell like guinea pigs. I’m not expecting MTV Cribs, with a swim-up bar or carriage house for my mother, but is it too much to ask for no masking tape over light switches? And don’t advertise it as three bedrooms when you’ve turned one bedroom into a makeshift closet by putting plywood over the window, and billed the basement as “nice enough to double as a bedroom” when I, who am five-foot-three on a big hair day, can’t stand up straight in it. Call me a coddler, but my six-foot-tall teenager won’t be as comfortable down there as the guinea pig was.

Fat Betty Was Mad Men’s Most Genius Idea

And five other takeaways from season five.

Just when I was getting used to having that dreamy, complex bastard, Don Draper, back in my life, he’s gone again. I confess that when Mad Men finally returned, I was underwhelmed. It seemed slow; we had to put so many pieces back together after so long. It was like seeing your very best friends from high school 20 years later, then realizing that, once you got through the “Oh. My. God.” hello's and hugfest, you didn’t have much to say to each other anymore because too much time had passed. Reworking the connections is taxing, and who needs that with a TV show?

Cape May Bows to Smoking Canadians

Tossing butts on beaches remains a practice in Cape May thanks to the city council’s pandering to tobacco-crazy Canadians.

In February, Cape May’s city council voted down a smoking ban on its beaches. So, good news: You can’t take the Jersey out of Jersey, not even in haughty Cape May. At least through the summer of 2012, you’re free to light up and use the beach as your personal ashtray.

Ed Rendell Should Retire the Word “Wuss”

And all derivations thereof.

Ed Rendell has pushed the word “wuss” way beyond its limits. He said it on the radio in 2010, got a reaction, and now he can’t stop himself. It appears that he wrote a book just so he can keep saying “wuss,” looking for a reaction every time.

Father Judge Kids Should Be Glad They’re Not in a Washing Machine

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad parents.

My kids are annoyed because my birthday is the week before Mother’s Day. Surely I had nothing but time in utero, so I spent it getting a jump on irritating my future children before I was even born. While I’m the first to call out Mother’s Day for the card-peddling “holiday” that it is, those two gigantic heads were no picnic to push out, so I expect them to partake in Mother’s Day consumerism on my behalf for the rest of their lives. I can’t help when I was born.

Lessons Learned From John Edwards

I was so very wrong about the shamed politician.

I never see famous people. Wait. I’m lying. I saw JP II when he was here in 1979. I was 11, and my grandmother took me to his mass on the Parkway. He got near us, and church-lady Beatlemania broke out all around me. Then, when I was a teenager, my mother made me get Frankie Avalon’s autograph at the Italian Market Festival. He was really excited. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had no idea who he was, so I hugged him and said I was a big fan. There was also Alice Cooper in the Cleveland Marriott. He was serenely eating an omelet and reading the paper, not in full make-up.