ROB KRIDER

Lately, I have found there is an oddness about me. As I get older, I seem to be growing hair out of strange places on my body. Places where I don’t see any reason to grow long strands of hair. Places like my back and unfortunately, my ears. Yes, I know this isn’t a sexy […]

My wife has done a great job raising our kids. She birthed them, nurtured them, changed diapers, read to them, made school lunches with the crusts cut off, did thousands of flashcards, and was somehow able to get both of our kids all the way through high school. What did I contribute? I built train […]

My youngest offspring—my only daughter, my little girl, the apple of my eye—turned 18 recently. This means I’m old. I can’t run around and act like a kid if my own kid isn’t a kid anymore and is actually an adult. I only have myself to blame for this situation because years ago, when my […]

While my daughter stared intently at her phone as she was sitting in class one day at public school, she finally looked up for the first time in four years and learned something. Was it the quadratic formula? No, she never looks up from her phone in math class. What got her to pull away […]

Shamefully, I’ll admit it. I’m on roids. No, not steroids. I don’t have arms that look like legs or currently hold a MLB home run record. When I say I’m on roids, I mean I am literally on roids, like I am sitting on a hemorrhoid right this second. I have no formal training on […]

I’ve been married for 20 years, in a row, to the same woman. I give credit to my two-decade-long marital success to one single thing: Keeping Mrs. Krider happy. Just like the saying goes, happy wife, happy life. I do what I can to keep my wife smiling. Now, even though it is my priority […]

The day our son left for college, we felt very proud that he had moved on to the next stage in his existence. His whole life was ahead of him. He could accomplish anything. We were excited for him, and we were also excited to have a new empty room in the house. Five seconds […]

I know what I’m about to write won’t be new information to most people. However, I have recently learned that not all of society is hip to the following fact: Most cars need this thing called gasoline to get from Point A to Point B. That is correct, it turns out filling your car with […]

I recently survived the process of building a new home. When I say I built a home, I don’t mean I stood on a ladder and smashed my thumb with a hammer while hanging drywall. What I did was much more difficult than that. I sat in an air-conditioned office next to my wife and […]

Life is all about choices. Coke or Pepsi? Ford or Chevy? Beatles or The Stones? In most situations these types of choices are personal preferences and are usually harmless (unless you have Type 2 diabetes, in which both Coke and Pepsi are clearly the wrong choice). Now, there are other choices in life that aren’t […]

I’ve always been a do-it-yourself type of guy. House needs a new garbage disposal? No problem. I can crawl under the sink and bang my head against the counter while using obscenities just as good as any professional plumber. I learned all of my do-it-yourself handyman skills growing up around my dad who coincidentally also […]

Some stuff I just don’t care about. I don’t mean to be an apathetic person, it’s just that there are some things I don’t have a strong opinion about, therefore I don’t concern myself with whatever it is. Oftentimes I’m so indifferent to an issue that I’d prefer not to even have a conversation about […]