Brigadier General George Barkington III

Earlier this evening, I was sitting at my desk trying to figure out what to write.  This happens once a week.  Every week.  Well, not every week.  Sometimes I actually have an idea of what to say before the deadline.  Sometimes the whole thing is written before Thursday.

A few days ago, Rafal posted to his blog.  It was a good read and you should check it out.  He seems like a different person when he writes than when you talk to him - or rather listen to him - or rather get berated by him on the Facebook.

One thing he talked about was how quiet he noticed a lot of cyclists were during this Trans Iowa thing last weekend.  He said that if they just wanted to look down and be quiet, fine.  But they should know that Rafal's going to blab about any stupid little thing that comes to his mind.

Then I realized, he rides like I blog.  And vice versa, or something.

So I was sitting here looking around for some inspiration.  I thought maybe I should just call somebody and start shooting the breeze.  A story would come to my mind in the process and I could write that down after I got off the phone.

That's when I looked over to the book shelf and saw good ol' Brigadier General George Barkington III.

Brigadier General George Barkington III is a ceramic bust of a highly decorated vet.  Well it's a battery powered clock embedded into the "sculpture."

If you've ever been to Tuesday Morning, you probably know where he came from.  Now all you need to know is why.

Every Christmas, Jill's side of the family does a white elephant sort of gift exchange.  There are 7 brothers and sisters in Jill's family.  The number of siblings in the room determines how loud they are.  The noise level of any room they occupy doubles for every additional sibling.  Really.

noise = 2^(n-1) where n is the number of people.  So it is exactly 32 times louder when they are all there than if it is just 2 of them (which is also loud).

Jill's brothers and sisters exclusively marry "listeners"  so it works out.  When it is just them in a room and no spouses, they are all talking at once.  The volume ever increasing with the belief that if someone can't hear you, louder is the answer.

Generally speaking, they are all extremely competitive.  And not just in one particular discipline.  Everything is a contest.

Including the white elephant gift exchange.  Every year, after the dinner and sitting around for a while, it's time for the 45 minute explanation of the rules of the gift exchange. There are arguments.  Rules are amended and decided upon.

Oh yeah, and there's lots and lots of shouting.

I never bother to pay any attention to the rules.  This certainly seems foolish to Jill's family, because I may miss out on some white elephant windfall due to poor strategy.

Generally - it works like this:  We draw numbers.  Number "1" opens the gift of his choice.  Number "2" can take Number 1's gift or choose from the pile.  Number 3 can choose 1 or 2's or open a new one, and so on.  At the end, Number 1 can basically take any gift.  If somebody steals your gift, you open a different gift.

There might be other rules and limitations, but that's the basic idea.

But the clear winner of Christmas is not the one who ends up with the most coveted gift.  It is the person who brought that gift.

About 2 months before Christmas last year, Jill came home from Tuesday Morning knowing she was going to win this year.  She knows her family and how they'd fight over something as silly as this ceramic dog clock.

It wasn't even fair.

Sadly, Jill was sick on Christmas and unable to see the hilarity.  I called her during the height of the pandemonium so she could at least hear the reaction to Brigadier General George Barkington III.  She was not at all surprised that her family had already named the dog.

"I knew it," was all she said, listening to the cries of "Cheat!"  or "I'm getting that goddamn dog!"

The Dog clock was about the second of the gifts to be opened and it was stolen time and time again.  Side deals were  made.  Alliances were formed and there was double crossing everywhere.  In the end, the coordinated effort of a family of 4 with 3 entries was able to muscle the dog from the others.

An arbitrator was called in to verify that the winners did indeed have a valid claim to the statue.

A pair of brothers who share an apartment ended up with the statue.  I ended up with a case of a variety of beers (Jill wasn't there, remember).

The funniest thing about all of it was the Dog Clock's name.  It was sort of spawned from the melee of voices that make up any gathering of Jill's family.  A clear loud deep voice rose from the crowd to dub it, "Brigadier General George Barkington III"

After we all got done laughing, we knew it was the dog's name.

So how is it that it is sitting over there on the bookshelf?

About two days after Jill bought it, she realized she liked it so much she had to have one for herself.

So we got one too, but even though it is an exact replica of the other one, it somehow feels like a cheap imitation.  It would be the same if we'd wrapped this one and kept the other.

Kind of like buying trophies.  Looks nice on the shelf, but you didn't really win it, did you cheater?


Also - I almost forgot.  In case you're not convinced how cool this statue is, check out the styling ponytail ...