To the readers of this rag, be warned — It’s Super Bowl weekend in America, and more crucially, a fractured circadian rhythm leading to intense sleep-deprivation and a reduced chocolate intake are the source for this rant.

Having survived what has been a winter that can best be described as bi-polar, in all its meanings, I have come to the conclusion that Mother Nature is an abusive parent. I think she is either a raging alcoholic who was jilted by a lover at a young age or she is going through some kind of menopause, given the extremes in heat and cold we have experienced recently.

So this begs the question, is Mother Nature an abusive parent because of us and our bad behavior over the centuries letting animals crap in streams and rampant pollution we have emitted through nuclear waste and McDonald’s Happy Meals that were made with industrial grease and oils?

Or are we rebelling against our mother, after she has acted like an obsessive tiger mom who has imposed strict guidelines, with occasional beatings and earthquakes and floods, as well as curfews meant to keep us on the straight and narrow so we could get into that Ivy League college that she could brag about to her friends over tea? Are we humans rebelling against mommy, sort of like running away to San Francisco, living in a filthy commune, getting tattoos and smoking opium?

Given how old nature is, probably a few billion years old at least, it’s hard to say, we can’t find her birth certificate anywhere in the filing cabinet, and given that she is well past her peak, maybe we should stick Mother Nature in the garage instead of a proper nursing home? You know, between the car and the water heater tank at the back wall, where the spider webs and snow tires are? It certainly would be cheaper than a nursing home, and I could invest the difference in ski vacations and dividend-paying stocks.

So, now that you have wandered away from the computer because you are disgusted by the supposition above, I ask this question: What does this theme of abusive parenting have to do with this episode of Stanko & Tibor, the 21st century’s answer to the question “why haven’t the secret police banished this cartooning buffoon to Devil’s Island?”

I couldn’t really answer that given I am wildly sleep-deprived as of late, and sadly, I can’t convince my wife to buy the industrial chocolate chip cookies I need like heroin.

So keep warm, wear a hat and mitts, drink plenty of fluids (distilled or not), and give mom a bear hug.

CIA Director J. Edgar Druker