When The World Ends

I’m sitting here on a Tuesday afternoon trying to “get all caught up on the blog” as most married women my age say, meanwhile uploading their bi-monthly barrage of infant photos and backcountry crusades in Kanab from last summer. 

That’s fine.  I enjoy pics of a two-year old sitting next to a campfire roasting his first marshmallow, go ahead, post 27 more of the same shot.     

For full effect, download “We Didn’t Start The Fire” by Billy Joel, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. By the way, if there is anyone out there that knows every single word to “We Didn’t Start The Fire” I will give you $20 to prove it to me.  Go ahead, make my day. 

If you’ve been a loyal, dedicated reader of this random piece of work for longer than a year, you may remember the last time I raised an unanswered question; wondering what was the main reason why any of us blog, and why you’re even reading this blog in the first place.  I still haven’t figured out why you continue to devour my posts.  Am I that funny?  Are these words really putting a smile across your face?  Does my blog give you some sort of motivation to be a better person?

I can’t imagine so.  My last two posts were about Cougar Moms and Facebook Executions, those aren’t inspiring at all. 

On another random side note, and this being for future reference, if any of you readers out there are looking to franchise a cupcake store, I would suggest not naming it “Muffintops”.  I’m no business or marketing major, but I can see that being a giant catastrophe that would anger a large demographic of stay-at-home Moms. 

But going back to the original question, why do I blog?  Do I do it for me, for some kind of literary gratification that evolves every post I publish, thus causing a decent influx of comments and Facebook likes?  Do I do it for you so your day might be that much brighter after you read inspiring posts about my former mission companion, next-door neighbor, or old college roommate?

Originally I started doing this blogging thing in order to find common ground with a girl I was hoping to potentially date in the future.  My reasoning was that if she would find my posts to be witty, poignant, and well-worded, then she might find me more of an attractive catch.  (Yes, most men’s logical reasoning makes no sense, I know.)  But as you may remember that relationship ended in an awkward text message debacle and it has just been me and the blog ever since. 

But as the years have now passed, and the rest of the social media world has graduated to a more lethargic way of thinking with Pinterest and FourSquare, blogging has now been given the reputation for being the Grandfather of all Internet communication.  Heck, two of my ambassadors made fun of me today for actually being a dedicated blogger, saying it was outdated and old-fashioned.

Alissa Carlson: “I hate blogging! I’m only doing it for my Humanities class and I think it’s stupid!”

Five-year old me: “No YOU’RE stupid!”

She’s really not, I just get a bit defensive at times. 

Do you want to know the truth as to why I pull out a solid 700-word piece every three days, aside from my mental motivation to make you like me just an ounce more because of the sarcastic metaphor I used mocking schizophrenic girlfriends? Do you want to know what is the real reason I constantly keep writing pieces about the most random topics possible; topics ranging from marathons to Costco?

I do it for my kids.  

This is the part where you give a sour look at your monitor, turn your head to the side at a 45-degree angle, and look up to the ceiling asking yourself, ‘Does Brock have any kids that I don’t know about?’ ‘Is there something that he hasn’t told us yet?’ ‘Is Muffintops really such a bad name for a cupcake store?’

Yes, it’s a terrible name for a cupcake store. 

You see, I haven’t met my kids.  Not yet, anyway.  And for all I know whenever they decide to show up I’m going to turn into a gigantic hypocrite by giving all of you a ridiculous slew of pictures my wife took of them when they decided to smother macaroni and cheese all over their face and smile for the camera.  Yes, I will be that kind of a Father. 

But my kids are my motivation for writing this blog, because I want them to know who I am.  I want them to know what my life was like growing up in St. George, and that other place that shall not be named.  I want them to read the stories about how hilariously amusing my life is, and maybe put a smile on their face whenever they decide to pull out the old, “Book of Brock.”  I want my kids to know about the life that their Dad lived. And what a great life it has been thus far.

Sooner or later the world is going to come to an end.  And let’s face it, the fact that Zombies STILL haven’t gone out of style is an early indication that one day a pandemic virus will turn the world into flesh-eating monsters.  But whenever that happens, and civilization is transformed into a real-life set of “The Walking Dead”, I hope and pray that somewhere these stories get bound and packaged so that my posterity can get a sore stomach laughing at the tales I had to tell. 

That’s a good enough reason, isn’t it?