The Great Cheeseburger Incident of 2010

Over the past few months I have noticed a very subtle change in my lunches that my lovely wife packs for me to take to work. At first it was just adding a nonfat yogurt but then, later, my chips were replaced by an apple and later, after a month or so, my cookies were replaced by a nonfat pudding cup. Finally my white sandwich bread was switched with some kind of conglomerate of nuts and twigs mixed into what appeared to be bread dough. I think my wife is trying to relay a message to me but I’m not sure what it is.

Slather some peanut-butter and jelly on this bread and we're in business!

Shortly after my delicious lunch was replaced with a less than tasty substitute my darling wife tried to sneak “healthy alternatives” into my meals. Instead of bacon or sausage, a tasteless patty made of an unknown substance showed up on my plate. It was greasy like a sausage but had no flavor and was spongy like I had taken a bite out of a Nerf football. I cannot believe this sort of thing was approved by the FDA.

Did someone drop this on the ground and forget to wash it off?

One fine evening I sat down to dinner and found that the butter for my rolls had been replaced with butter flavored spray. What is the point of this? I had to spray my roll 37 times and it still did not resemble anything like butter. Finally I resorted to taking the cap off and pouring the yellow substance on my roll but this only resulted in a soggy mash of dough.

I can believe it isn't butter.  What I can't believe is why anyone would buy this.

The straw the broke the camel's back was the Great Cheeseburger Incident of 2010. As my family settled down for the evening I fired up the grill and prepared to grill up some burgers. My sweet wife handed me the meat that she had already formed into delicious over sized patties. This was very nice of her as she is afraid to handle raw meat apparently believing that salmonella will kill you instantly upon contact. This should have been my first clue that something was a rye.

I'll take mine with small fries.  Don't want to get fat.

As I prepared my cheeseburger with all the fixings and condiments a little drool was forming on the corner of my mouth. I picked up what was easily a half-pound of cheeseburger I took a huge bite and… now let me pause here for a moment and remind my audience that cheeseburgers are the greatest food ever made, as I have talked about before. I believe that God had the Israelites in the Old Testament sacrifice bulls so that the priests would have the meat to make cheeseburgers.

"Who wants cheese on their burger?"

Anyway, back to the story. As I bit into my cheeseburger I immediately noticed that either my taste buds had died or there was something horribly wrong with my burger. It tasted like someone had replaced my beef with feet. I quickly opened my mouth, allowed the atrocity to plop onto the plate in front of me and then turned my gaze upon my wife. “It’s extra lean buffalo meat!” she tried to explain.

Excuse me, what's inside that burger sir?

I stood up, extended my index finger towards my wife, looked up towards the heavens and exclaimed, “Blasphemer!” half expecting the woman on the opposite side of the table to be turned into a pillar of salt. In unison both my boys emptied the contents of their mouths onto the table.

"Blasphemer!"

After I instructed the mother of my children on the essential components of a perfect cheeseburger, none of which includes extra lean anything let along buffalo, I tried to dispose of the left over "burger" by putting it in my dog's bowl.  He sniffed it, whimpered and walked away.  I love that dog.  I am quite certain that the woman that lives under my roof now understands that there are many things that I can let slide... tampering with my cheeseburger is not one of them.

By the way... I'm still not sure what she was trying to tell me.  I'm sure it will come to me soon.

A Trip to the Market

At the age of seven a boy’s interest in candy has really kicked into full speed. The scrumptiousness of milk chocolate is quite difficult to resist at that age and apparently at any age for women as my wife has repeatedly informed me. Chocolate for my wife is placed high of her revised Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs nestled between Esteem and Self-Actualization. I once tried to explain to her that chocolate was a want and not a need. All I remember is a flurry of tears and “You just don’t understand” statements.

More women need to come with a warning attached to them.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon when my brother and I received our one dollar allowances from our parents. A wise child would quickly take this money and put it in their piggy bank so they could purchase a really nice toy after several months of saving. I, on the other hand, was not a wise child and was bound and determined to spend every last cent on candy. The two kids from across the street (a kindergartner and a 2nd grader), along with my brother and I (3rd and 1st graders respectively), decided we were going to obtain and then eat candy.

Must... have!

We had two choices. The first choice was a three mile bicycle trip to the AM/PM, purchase candy and ride safely back. The second choice, brought up by my brother, was to go to a local market called YJ’s Foods that was located directly across the interstate from our houses. The idea was to strategically cross the interstate by foot, purchase the candy, and safely return back home before any parent knew what we had done. We did what any responsible children would do and set off across the interstate.

Why does Hawaii have an interstate?

Their house backed up to the freeway so all we had to do was stack firewood against the fence to create a makeshift stairway to get our stubby little bodies over. It was particularly difficult for our friend Kelly as he was almost as wide as he was tall. We decided the three of us would just get behind him and shove him over. This really must have looked odd to the motorists passing by on the interstate as they saw a six year old fat kid flop over the wall like a sack of rice.

With all that "muscle" you would think he could have pulled himself over the fence.

As we all stood at the edge of the precipice we waited for my brother to start the charge. As my brother yelled all four of us ran across the two lanes of traffic to the median and paused to regroup. I looked over and noticed Kelly was on his hands and knees trying to catch his breath as if he had just finished an Ironman triathlon. Pulling Kelly up to his feet my brother yelled again and we ran across the other two lanes of the freeway.

Kelly would have died halfway across this one.

As soon as I crossed over I turned my head only to see Kelly trip and fall. To this day I have still never seen anyone bounce quite like that before. He came to a stop just five feet from the side of the road with a look of terror on his face as if someone had just informed him the person in front of him in line had just purchased the last bear claw. Accompanied by the sound of tires screeching and horns blasting Kelly made it to his feet and somehow managed to make it across.

The look of someone who is about to be hit by a car.

Once we arrived at YJ’s Foods we purchased our candy and wisely decided to take the long way back home as the color had not yet returned to Kelly’s face, not to mention he was still shaking and talking to himself. Our family moved four months later and Kelly never spoke of the incident as long as we lived there. Today I imagine his hefty body lying on a couch trying to explain to a psychologist how he was almost ran over by a 78 Dodge in a desperate attempt to obtain a Whatchamacallit bar.

My parents found out about the freeway crossing incident when my brother and I were reminiscing about it in high school. Apparently the statute of limitations on leading an expedition across the interstate to get candy had not yet run out. Who would have thought spankings would still sting a little at age 16.

The Tan That Was No More

I am a recovering sun worshiper. There was a time when spring rolled around that I would layout without any sunscreen so that I could get my first burn of the season over with and lay the solid foundation for a beautiful tan. I would at times use suntan lotion with an SPF of 4, yes I said 4, so I wouldn’t get too red. A minor burn was a small price to pay for a gorgeous tan.

Remember to hydrate after you are in the sun.

Once I had my base tan down it was very easy to get a great tan for the summer as I have quite a bit of Spanish blood in my pedigree which yields nice skin for tanning. My friends and I would get together to compare tans. I would always win. I was quite proud of my tanness. That’s when I was reminded of the old biblical saying, “Pride comes before the fall.”

I say I am a recovering sun worshiper because in the fall of 2003 I had a mole that started to tingle and itch. I took a trip to the dermatologist who unfortunately informed me that I had a melanoma… skin cancer… The big C. Of course I, being a sun worshiper at the time, had no knowledge about melanomas so when the doctor asked me to make an appointment in the next day or two to come in and get it removed I told him I was booked up for two weeks. I scheduled an appointment 17 days out.

This woman has a nice tan.

Once I arrived home I figured I should look on the internet and find out what this melanoma thing I had was… because if you want to know about serious life and death issues you turn to the internet. I was dialing the phone number to the doctor’s office three minutes later with a look of terror on my face like an old woman who just discovered the corner market is out of Depends. I was so flustered I misdialed and couldn’t figure out why my doctor’s receptionist spoke Russian.

Who knew you could die from being in the sun!  They really should tell people.

The next day I was in the doctor’s office getting my finger operated on. They took a huge chunk out of my pinkie finger and then sewed me back up. I didn’t have enough flesh left on that finger to allow it to bend for months so I looked very pompous when I drank anything as my pinkie stuck out. It actually looked like someone had sewn my finger back on. It was quite disgusting. I love it.

SPF 100?  This stuff will make you whiter.

I often tell my wife that I want to participate in the Cancer Survivor walks. I just imagine a woman who had an entire breast removed or a man who had a wife die of cancer asks me what I had I can say, “I had an itchy mole. They gave me a local on my pinkie… it was rough. I have a… *cough*… scar.” My wife doesn’t think it is a good idea. I think they must have a ranking system on those walks; breast cancer and other life threatening cancers in the front followed by cancers that you probably gave to yourself, like lung cancer, and then skin cancer and people who thought they had cancer once in the back.

I could just get a fake tan like these two gentlemen.  No one would ever know.

I miss my tan. Of course I am not as white as my wife. I often wear sunglasses around her not necessarily for the sun, but the glare off her skin. I actually thought she was wearing white nylons one time… she wasn’t. Now that I say that, guess which one of us will not have age spots, wrinkles and skin cancer. Yep. My wife.

In a few years I will need to start bathing in this stuff.

In a recent development I have discovered this creamy substance called sunscreen. Apparently you rub it on your body and it keeps you white.  As I type this out with my pasty white fingers I remember how blessed I am that they only had to take a hunk out of my finger and it did not spread to the rest of my body. This story could have ended so much different. God is good. 

The First Diaper Change

It was about seven hours, if I remember right, after the birth of our first child when my beautiful wife noticed that our new bundle of joy had made his first little poopie. She had just underwent a Caesarean section so she was in no shape to change the little poopie so I took my new son and places him on the hospital’s changing table. My cute little baby boy looked up at me with only one eye open like poopie little pirate.

Yarrr!  Change me diaper!

As I unfastened the sides of the miniature diaper… Now let me pause for a moment. The people who call what babies do when they are born “poopie” are liars. Poopie is a cute word that implies tiny cute poops but what comes out of a newborn baby is nothing like what the name alludes to. The medical field calls it meconium. It is a thick, black tar-like substance that is clingier than a lonely guy at a singles bar. Anyway… back to the story.

Are you sure you don't want to give me your number?   My mom says I'm a real catch.

As I unfastened the sides of the diaper I quickly noticed that my baby’s diaper looked like BP had been there first. What I was looking at was something that was created in the furthest depths of hell and somehow crawled out of my child’s rear-end. It gurgled and I am quite sure I heard it say, “I have come for you.”

Above: Artist's Rendition of what was seen.

At this moment in time I quickly realized that no one has taught me how to change a diaper. I looked over at my wife who apparently had ample enough energy to get the camera and was taking snapshots of the situation at hand, laughing the entire time. She advised me to go get the nurse.

I raced out of the room to the nurse’s station and quickly alerted them there was an emergency in the room. The four nurses sprang into action and with stethoscopes flying they ran down the hall to our room. It was like a scene from ER as they darted into the room one at a time and quickly huddled around my wife who was just lying on the bed smiling and pointing at the baby. The four of them swung around and I saw their eyebrows rise as they took in the whole scene; a panicked father standing next to his naked newborn son who had kicked black snot all over himself. I must admit it wasn’t one of my finest moments.

I have learned that certain equipment is needed for this type of endeavour.

There was quite a bit of eye rolling as three of them left the room. One nurse had mercy on me and stayed to clean up the boy and put a new diaper on him, all the while lecturing me on how “we do not leave a newborn baby alone on the changing table.” She apparently did not understand the full scope of the situation. After she finished cleaning the baby, the changing table, the wall, floor and parts of me she walked out of the room shaking her head.

The only thing worst than an eye roll head shake is a facepalm.

Once the nurse had left I turned to see my wife giggling happily with camera in hand. The poor thing must have been sitting on the morphine button.

By the way, if you are wondering what happened to the pictures of this event… boy… I just don’t know…

My Trip to In-N-Out Burger

My wife is a very caring, thoughtful and loving woman. She is so thoughtful that when it came time for our family vacation she took the time to look online to see if there were any In-N-Out Burgers in the area near our destination (Portland, OR). Let me explain why that is so thoughtful.

I have the best wife ever!

One thing you need to know about me is the fact that I love cheeseburgers. Now, when I say that I love cheeseburgers, I mean that they are the greatest food ever created. I have a theory that the manna that God provided to the Israelites to sustain them for forty years of wandering the desert was in fact cheeseburgers. This may be in part why, by the end of the forty years, none of the original Israelites were alive to enter the Promised Land.

Thank you God for the cheeseburgers!

Secondly, In-N-Out Burger is the greatest burger chain in the United States, and dare I say, the world. So to anyone who loves cheeseburgers In-N-Out Burger is like the mother ship calling you home. This is why it was so thoughtful when my wife took time to look it up for me. Not only did she look it up, but she found one in Salem, OR and another in Olympia, WA.

God bless America!

For the next three weeks I salivated every time I thought of that delicious double-doubswe… sorry, my finger slipped from the drool. Finally the day came. On the third day of our vacation I woke up to a beautiful partly cloudy day and decided to skip breakfast, so I would have more room for cheeseburgers, loaded up the family and drove three hours to the nearest In-N-Out Burger which happened to be in Olympia, WA. Don’t judge me. A man has to have a good cheeseburger!

Anyway, back to the story. When we finally arrived in Olympia and I pulled out my Blackberry to find the restaurants in the area and almost dropped it because I was so hungry. Oddly enough I could not find any In-N-Out Burgers in the area. Frustrated I called the In-N-Out corporate office, don’t ask me how I have that number on my phone, and asked where the nearest restaurant was. Two states away!

Why God why?!?

I slowly hung up the phone and turned to my beautiful wife, who I could hardly see now because apparently my body was now eating my eyeballs for sustenance and calmly asked her where she got the idea that there was an In-N-Out Burger in Olympia. She turned to me with a worried look and said that there was a map on the website that had stars over those cities.

Hey look!  There's also an In-N-Out Burger in Boise and Sacramento.

Even in my now half starved state I started to put the pieces together. Stars on the map. Salem is the capital of Oregon. Olympia is the capital of Washington. Stars on a map mean a capital city! Yes, she had mistaken the star marked capitals of Oregon and Washington as locations for In-N-Out Burgers.

Kaaaaaaaaaaahn!

For the next two days of our vacation the only words my wife could get out of me were, “Stars on map” and “capital city” as I laughed and talked to myself in the corner of my hotel room.  When I regained my ability to make a coherent sentence I told my lovely wife that she could make it up to me by flying down to California to get me a cheeseburger. As I watch her reading her magazine I don't think she took me serious.

My Air Conditioner Condition: Finale

There is moment in certain people’s lives when they see a miracle from God Himself and it changes their lives forever. For Moses it was the burning bush. For Saul it was the road to Emmaus. For me it was my living room for today I bought a new air conditioner. And when I say “I”… I mean “my wife.”  She is stronger than she looks.

My wife and I going to a Super Bowl party.  She is like a pack mule that one.

As I was wondering what all the extra parts were for after the installation I decided to turn the unit on. Immediately the cool air blew over my face I saw a bright light come from behind the air conditioner. Then a white dove descended down from heaven and landed on the air conditioner unit with an olive branch grasped delicately in its mouth and I heard a voice from heaven say, “It is good.”

Needless to say I was quite suprised.

I stood there in awe while the cool gentle wind blew through my hair (back hair of course… I’m bald) amazed at the wonder sign I had been shown. It seems like I have been waiting for months for this unit and finally it's here. It truly is a glorious occasion.

Of course I am not as excited as Hillary is.

Of course my wife tells a different story. She says the sun setting in the window behind the air conditioner blinded me when I opened the faux wood blinds and apparently while I was blinded my St. Bernard came up to investigate the cool breeze and had a small weed stuck to the drool on his face. This is the moment my wife walked in, saw the unit was on and said, “Does it feel good?”

Thats a good story honey.

Likely story! As if anyone is going to believe her story.

My Air Conditioner Condition: Day 5

As I arrived home yesterday from a hard days work, with my back still sore from lifting the giant air conditioner unit into the car earlier, my wife informed me that she decided not to take it to the repair man. She then explained to me that she only wanted me to load it up just in case she wanted to take it while I was at work. This was about the time my youngest child walked by and stripped over my jaw that had hit the ground.

My jaw dropped like the first time I saw uncle Lenard in his swim trunks.

There are many things I have learned over the years of being married. One of the more important bits of information is that woman have this things called “Woman Logic.” At first, to a man, this logic does not seem like logic at all. But to women it makes perfect sense.

Logic is a tricky thing to master.

To a man, one would only load up a large piece of machinery, for an example an air conditioner, if said piece of machinery was to go somewhere for an explicit reason. There is a purpose for the action.  That's logic. The machinery would never be moved unless there was a specific purpose for the movement. Action: Get off couch and stop watching the game. Reason: There is a fire… on the couch.  See?  Logic!

Ok, I'm just kidding.  I wouldn't move for that.

To a woman there does not have to be a need in order to move the large heavy object. The woman knows that she will be out and about during the day and there could be a chance where she gets lost and ends up at an air conditioner repair store so the woman feels the need to be prepared for just such an occasion.  It does not matter that there may only be a one in four hundred chance that she will be anywhere near the repair shop.  This is why the average women has more shoes than England has dentists... just in case.

"Luckily I have my feathers numbered for just such an occasion."

Tomorrow I’m going to load up our 200 pound St. Bernard into her car before I go to work just in case she wants to get him groomed.

He loves going for a drive.

My Air Contitioning Condition: Day 4

The day had arrived for me to finally take out the air conditioner from the window and place it in the trunk of my wife’s Honda Accord as she will be taking it to the repair shop. I planned my pathway by arranging the furniture and opening the front door as my wife opened up the trunk of her vehicle. This, as it would appear, did not make much of a difference.

This tripping hazard sign is FABULOUS!

As soon as I lifted up the unit, that quite possibly weighs as much as a small import car, I quickly found my dog trying desperately to investigate the situation. As I was kicking him away I dropped the cord and stepped on it only adding to the weight of the unit and throwing off my equilibrium. I made it to the front door and down the walkway to the car all the way trying to make a mental note to fix the new dents in the walls. This was particularly disappointing as I just repaired the holes from moving the unit into the house only days before.

I challenge anyone to find where the hole is.

As I stood holding the behemoth I noticed that my wife had opened the trunk but did not clean it out at all. Forced to rest the air conditioning unit on the edge of the trunk, balanced by my leg and one hand, I unloaded the entire trunk with one hand. Thanks honey!

Sure, it fits right there between the Doritos and the farm fresh eggs.

I closed the trunk of the car and returned inside the house. I advised my wife that if the repairman inquires about the condition of the unit she should admit to him she tried to fix it to no avail. As she gave me a blank stare I was forced to remind her that casting blame will not fix the unit. We need to focus on the future, not the past.

My wife is a gentle, delicate rose.

I quickly left for work.

My Air Conditioner Condition: Day 3

I have learned that I no longer fond of my children to sitting on my lap without an air conditioner. They walk up and sit down and immediately any place where there is contact starts get wet. I am hoping it is sweat as apposed to the alternative… wetting of pants. If the air conditioner does not get fixed soon I may end up paying quite a bit for therapy when the boys get older. I can hear it now, “Daddy never held me when I was little. He said I was too sweaty.”

My future children.

In the middle of the night I feel my wife’s leg move over and touch mine and I move away. Then she moves it again to touch mine… and the cycle continues until I am at the edge of the bed and the choice is that I let her heat producing leg touch mine or I lay on the floor with the dog. It wouldn’t be so dreadful but that woman is like a Bunsen burner when she sleeps. The dog was trouble the first night, but he was much better last night.

I don't know why this line never worked for me in college.

Sweat is coming from places I didn’t know could sweat. It is a very uncomfortable situation I must say. There is nothing like getting up for a drink and having your thighs make a squish-squish noise.

I have taken to just wearing shorts around the house as it is much too blistering for a shirt. The only difficulty comes when I sit on the couch all the dog’s hair sticks to my sweaty back and legs. I really need to train the dog not to sleep on the couch when we are gone.

Here is the neighbor boy after he saw me when I got off the couch.

When I walked out to get the mail the neighborhood children ran off crying. According to the police report there was mention of a half shaved Yeti.

My Air Conditioner Condition: Day 2

I can now relate to the Bedouin nomads who wandered the desert of the Arabian Peninsula and even the Tuareg tribes in the vast Sahara desert. I now understand the plight their people through the centuries as they endured in the scorching heat day after day desperately seeking shade and protection from the angry sun.

So far it is no where near as excruciating as the movie.

The heat is more than any one man should ever have to endure. I feel it in my bones. I am like the rich man in the Bible begging Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, for I am tormented by this heat.

This man says my house responsible for hundreds of glaciers melting.

Life without an air conditioner is not a pleasant experience, I have discovered. I recently looked at the thermostat and it read 85 degrees. The heat must have had effected the electronics inside of it for I know it is somewhere above 100 degrees inside my house. As I look across the room I can see the floor is waving due to the intense heat. I think I see a mirage somewhere off in the distance… down the hall.

I found this in my living room.  I hope it isn't my dog.

I have not seen my wife in hours. I believe she may be on the other side of the house, but the heat is preventing me from making the long journey. I pray for her safety and hope she took enough water to make it back to the living room.

I may need to send a camel looking for her down the hall.

We shall be reunited. Just stay alive, honey! I will find you! I will find you! Well… maybe when it gets cooler.