The Raging Elitist

Category: Dear Elite

Introduction

One of the very few times I ever set foot in the Lupton cabin to the left of number 10 at Augusta National, I met former USGA President Buzz Taylor. I had no idea who he was. My dad had just mixed about a gallon of gin and tonic and was standing slightly behind me…
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Would You Rather

The boys’ idea of domestic bliss is something like a dysfunctional couple that’s alternately fucking and fighting, the cops a regular presence at the front door. Violence is just part of life. You wrestle. You rip out a chunk of your combatant’s hair. You claw your opponent’s flesh. If things swing too far out of…
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A Presence

For most of Sammy’s life, she’s spent the night separated from us by a baby gate. It allows her free rein of the living room, kitchen, and den, and it allows the rest of us to sleep. Sammy wakes at odd hours, and somehow, she manages to be extremely loud while making hardly any noise.…
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The Call

Some jobs beg to be properly completed. For instance, there’s a certain pleasure to the trancelike state you experience washing windows, but the real prize is stepping back and admiring the finished product, your mind as clear and renewed as the freshly cleaned glass. The last thing you want to hear when you’re basking in…
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Plain Sweet Banana

Scotty is a boy of contradictions. He can go silent for long stretches before giving a lengthy description of all his recurring dreams. He can cry for an hour over nothing (he used to do this every time he woke up from an afternoon nap), but he’s the only person I know who spontaneously slaps…
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Now We Are Six

When I was in my mid-twenties coaching the year-round swim team at the rec department, I used to joke that I wanted to have kids but didn’t want to deal with them until they were six. I was coaching swimmers ages five to eighteen, and it was pretty clear to me where the cutoff in…
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Feel Free

COLONOSCOPY. The word itself stirs up butterflies in my stomach and makes my palms sweat. A younger me disbelieved the day would ever come when I would willingly give myself diarrhea and let a stranger snake a camera up my ass, but as of this moment, it seems that’s where my life has been headed…
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Crossword Puzzles

We’re about a half mile from the house before I finally accept that I’d rather be on this Sunday afternoon walk with my family than at the neighborhood party at the boat landing. A little gust of breeze sends live oak leaves tumbling from high above, and the kids are contentedly eyeing the ground between…
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Shame and Embarrassment

Do dogs get embarrassed? Every now and again, on the rare occasion that Sammy has an accident in the house, or perhaps after being caught trying to eat off the kitchen counter, I see something like shame written on her face. Maybe her concern is purely hedonic, but maybe it’s moral. She does seem to…
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Two Walks

Even though calories are Sammy’s great passion in life, the leash is the key to her heart. I believe this, because I used to be the key master, and now I’m not. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s been three years since I took Sammy on a walk by myself. Three years of protecting…
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