Thursday, March 1, 2007

Gwinnett Stay at home dad discovers hip hop, jehovah's witnesses and non-conformity

Desperate to receive attention from outsiders and afford my child close proximity to other people her height I recently googled "at home parent groups Gwinnett." My plan was to locate a group of people who, like me, spend much of their waking hours contemplating the real nutritional value of Gerber Graduate Veggie Puffs and reading Pat the Bunny. Again.

And again.

My search led me to a new feature on the innerwebs descriptively called meetup.com. Specifically it's geared toward allowing like-minded people to get together based on personal interest. I guess it makes coffee klatches easier to organize. Other groups you might expect are poker groups, Scrabble tournaments, book clubs, and mall walkers.

But wait. That's not all.

A search for my local area brought up groups that would never have dawned on me in a million years including all of but certainly not limited to:

Atlanta Anarchists;
The Atlanta Lord of the Rings Meetup Group; and
The Atlanta Surf Posse;

Ok, before I move on, let me just touch on these three clubs. Are there really any anarchists out there over the age of sixteen? And if so, should they be assembling with other anarchists, the majority of whom are either under the age of sixteen or reporting monthly to a parole officer?

And you Lord of the Rings people . . . I just don't get your fascination with hobbits and whatnot. Something tells me if I pulled up to park outside one of your meeting places, I'd see at least three cars, all of which would don the Frodo Failed: Bush has the Ring bumpersticker. Each of the owners of those vehicles would think he was somehow quirky and unique.

That Atlanta Surf Posse? I'm sorry but have any of you people looked at a map recently? Dude, I'm sure you're little group is gnarly and all but, there's no ocean in the A-T-L. It's time to find a job and eventually some living space outside of your parents' basement.

For your self-righteous , carnal or otherwise shallow enjoyment, here are a few others you might want to click on:

Atlanta Vampire and Non-Conformists Meetup (this group boasts 249 members!):
The Atlanta Goth Meetup Group; (hmm, let me guess. 249 members?
The Cumming Work at Home Moms Meetup Group (sounds naughty but Cumming is actually the name of a nearby city)
The Atlanta Hip Hop and Graffiti Group (What's next? The Atlanta Country Music and Meth-making Group?)

For the more spiritually minded there's the Jehovah's Witnesses Meetups and for those with sore knuckles who don't mind ostracism from the local Kingdom Hall there's the Ex-Jehovah's Witness Meetups.

Sigh.

As you can imagine the list continues with other religious groups, gold digger groups and people I thought only existed on episodes of CSI. While I wasn't able to find a group strictly for at-home fathers, I'll probably either continue the search or start one myself. In the meantime if anyone out there knows of other guys who've mastered the arts of simultaneously emailing and spoonfeeding, let me know.

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