Hello, and welcome to Meanopause!  I know I’m probably supposed to introduce myself and let you know why it is that I’ve asked you to step away from Words With Friends and photos of bacon to grant me a moment of your already richly divided attention, but there’s just no time for that now.  Wordpress won’t let me finish setting this up unless I post something first, and I’m  worried that the picture of me in a hoodie with my ears out in France really did upload as my background image, even though I hit “cancel” about thirty-five times.

So let’s get right to the point: I have now been on not just one, but two honeymoons in my five+ decades of life, and I think that mine is the type of wisdom that can only improve the lives of the many who have yet to embark upon their first.  So, before anyone else can make the same tragic mistake, I’m dedicating this first blog to the most important honeymoon lesson I could impart: whatever you do, and where ever you go, do not–I repeat, do NOT–try to bring back KinderSurpriseEggs as souvenirs from the duty-free section of a foreign airport.

That’s right: the KinderSurpriseEgg, the delicious chocolate shell egg with a surprise inside (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder_Surprise)  that has been delighting children since 1973, is pretty much the most dangerous item you could ever attempt to slip past the eagle eyes of Kenny, the Pittsburgh Airport’s TSA troll.  Bad enough you potentially (but mysteriously) endangered all of Squirrel HIll with your reckless purchasing of Parisian sausage (bought when you were already in line at the gift-shop counter and frantic about how lame and un-France-like your very last-minute souvenirs were turning out to be [and what says France more unequivocally than phallic-shaped pig guts wrapped in cloth?], but then you go and try to sneak in a box of chocolate death?

Because KinderSurpriseEggs are CHOKING HAZARDS, you moron.

And unlike other choking hazards that somehow make their way through airport security every day (like, say, buttons, maybe, or paperclips or earrings or bottlecaps or even fucking euros, for that matter), KinderSurpriseEggs have the power to kill a child just by being brought into this country.

Even if you don’t plan to give them to children!

Even if you were just planning to give them to your 44-year-old brother in St. Louis at Christmas time, to remind him of that one epic game you invented in your twenties that also involved a flyswatter, or maybe to your teenaged children or to your new husband’s adult children (who, oh wow, you suddenly realize, are now your very own step-children) or even if you were just thinking you might keep them for yourself, in your house, in case you someday are not only craving a delicious treat, but are possessed of a sudden urge to make small toys by snapping parts together (it could happen.  In fact, if the picture I’m afraid loaded did indeed load, you can see that there are elves in my not-too-distant genetic past).

So don’t do it.  Just don’t do it.  Put this on your honeymoon “Don’t” list, right after the part about “don’t leave your new wife twenty yards from a bear in order to go impress the wildlife guide with your knowledge of science” (the most important thing I learned from my first honeymoon).  You can thank me later, as can your new husband (who won’t be able to blame you for the two-hour traffic jam you’ll get stuck in after listening to Kenny the TSA Troll’s half-hour choking-hazard lecture), as well as, of course, the parents of the twenty million children you won’t kill with your reckless souvenir-bringing-backedness.

You’re welcome.

edit: Okay, here’s my elf picture (and no, I am NOT the crazy guy with the teeth, except emotionally):