Daddy Talk: Confused and Concerned

Last year I bought a small safe to keep my gun locked up. It's a Stack-On PDS 500 digital safe with a keyed bypass. I mention the keyed bypass because it was a selling point. In case the battery of the keypad dies, you can grab your handy key and unlock it. Lucky for me, in case that ever happens and I really need to get my gun I found out that all I need is a paperclip to get it opened.

You have to do a little work, I mean you have to open up the paperclip. Other than that, slide the small side of the paperclip and twist. And just like that it's open. I found about it from an article in Wired. It happens that a number of those safes are vulnerable and it's been blamed as contributing to the death of one child. The obvious thing is that I stop using it, no question of that.

The confusing and concerning thing is when I tried to ring the bell and let everybody I knew who was involved with this product how bad a danger it was. I purchased it from Amazon.com and thought it would be a good idea to let them know what was going on. It took 20 minutes to explain what was occurring with the safe and how easy it was to open. At first what occurred was that the representative was very sorry for what was happening and offered a refund. I went into how dangerous it was that the safe was meant to store guns and could be opened with paperclip. They apologized profusely and passed on my information to their safety group and that was it. The product is still listed on Amazon's site and is still being sold. No warnings, no nothing. The best that I could do was post a video as review it as 1 star to warn everybody else.

I then called Stack-On directly and was sent a form letter via email. I don't understand what's going on with these people. You get some little kid's finger tips cut off because parents are folding up their kids in the strollers and companies go out of business. This company has a product meant to keep firearms locked up and you can beat it with a paperclip. Why aren't they all over trying to get this fixed. The Wired article said that they let Stack-On know months ago and only came out with the report because they wouldn't respond. Thank God they did because it would have never occurred to me that me being responsible by locking up my firearms would be deadly to my son.

Call me Milo

When deciding on a name for our little boy, we thought about a lot of things. We wanted a name that wasn't common but wasn't weird. We wanted a name that was simple but had meaning for us -- Milo is a variation of the S.O.'s father and grandfather's name. I wanted a name that he didn't have to constantly spell out for people or correct their pronunciation (as I did with my maiden name).

I thought we did a pretty good job meeting those criteria, so imagine my surprise when twice in the past week, someone asked about the pronunciation of Milo. The first time it happened, I thought it was just a fluke. The girl at VillaKids asked, "Is it Meelo [she pronounced it with a long e] or Milo [with a long i]?"

The second time it happened, it was an older lady I've known for a while but have only corresponded with by email for several months. She's only seen Milo's name in print. "Are you pronouncing Meelo or Milo?" she asked when I saw her over the weekend.

Imagine my surprise when I realized that Milo's name wasn't as cut and dried as I'd thought.

For the record, it is Milo with a long i.

My maternal grandmother was Nina, pronounced with a long i rather than a long e. So I should have known that some people might look at his name and think "Meelo."

Tell me, have I doomed my little boy to a life of correcting the pronunciation of his name?

Sometimes I just call him "Cutie Pie."