Daddy's Little Girl

Tonight marks the another of those life moments that must come, but I am just not sure how I feel about it.  I always knew it would arrive.  I have joked about how I would handle it and the day is finally here.  My daughter just left for the Prom.

Alex & Kirsten sitting too close together even back then

Kirsten is a freshman, so she is not old enough to have her own prom, but she is dating a junior.  I like her boyfriend.  He's a good kid.  When we moved to Lincoln in 1998 so I could go back to school, I quickly became friends with Jayson Ferguson.  His wife and mine got along and our kids all seemed to like each other so we hung out together A LOT.  We spent a little over 3 years together in college before moving away, but have always kept in touch.  Now, a little over 10 years later, Kirsten and I are living in the same town as the Ferguson's once again.  Alex and Kirsten hit it off immediately and have been inseparable ever since.  I don't know how they will survive when we move back to Mt. Vernon at the end of this month.

Good kid or not, he is dating my daughter.  There are two problems with this.  First, my daughter is old enough to be dating.  Second, she IS dating.  No teenage boy truly understands what is going through a father's mind every time he walks out the door with our little girl.  He will understand one day, but for now I think I have done a pretty good job of making sure that Alex is scared of me.  We get along.  I like him and I believe that he likes me, but he knows that I could kill him without much thought or remorse.

Right after I graduated high school, I was headed to a girl's house to take her out for the first time.  When I arrived at her house, her mother invited me in to wait while my date finished getting ready.  Her father was sitting at the kitchen table glaring at me and cleaning one of the several guns he had spread about the room.  While her mother made small talk, the father just kept staring at me.  After several attempts at trying to get him to talk, I reached for the 16 gauge shotgun in front of me and began to clean it.  I guess none of her previous suitors had reacted in such a way, because he smiled and we got along fine from then on.  Unfortunately for Alex, I know that trick and it does not work on me.

Ready to take on the town

Alex is not Kirsten's first boyfriend.  Although, he is the first one I have let leave the house with her.  Her first boyfriend was too quiet.  I couldn't get the kid to talk.  When he did speak, he called me "SIR," which was a point in his favor, but he rarely said anything.  Her next one I was not a fan of.  The first time I met him he never acknowledged me standing there.  He spoke to Kirsten and ignored me.  Not a good first impression, Skippy.  He did the same the next time I saw him.  Do parents not teach their kids basic manners any more?

So, now she has been dating the same boy for over six months.  I am pleased that I am familiar with the boy that she is dating, but I cannot help but keep in mind that the longer a couple are together the more familiar they get with each other.  I am happy that she is dating a respectful, young man, but still wary of the mind of the average teenage boy.  I am not saying he has bad intentions, but I know how the male mind works, especially the adolescent male mind.

Need lots of pictures to make the parents happy

Regardless of where I stand on the dating life of my teenage daughter, she is growing up.  Her going to her first prom was a reminder of that fact.  In fact, today was a series of firsts reminding me all day.  Kirsten has not really worn high heels before, so today, her and I walked around the parking lot of our apartment so she could practice.  I have never walked in heels, so I could not offer any pointers, but I could observe to see if her walk looked natural.  She did not want to look stupid on heels.  She has noticed that at other dances, you can easily spot the girls that are not used to heels.  She wanted to look like a heels master.  Kirsten also decided that she wanted to wear fake lashes tonight.  After a couple of attempts at putting them on, she came and asked for my help.  Yes, I put my daughter's lashes on for her dance.  I did not get them straight on the first few attempts, but I figured it out and they look good.  I am secure enough in my masculinity that I can be proud of how well I put on fake lashes.   

So now I am at home alone hoping that they are having a good time, but not too good of a time.  I can't help but worry.  I love my daughter and it is wonderful to get to watch her grow into a young woman.  She has a good head on her shoulders and has a strong sense of values, but a father still worries.  I just want the best for her. 

He Lived to See Adulthood

My son turns 19 years old today and that means I am getting old, but this post is not about me.  This post is about him regardless of how he may feel about it.  I generally do not ask my kids permission to do things.  My daughter says that is why I am not allowed to go to her school: EVER!!!

Christian turned three about two months after I started dating his mother.  In the beginning, we did not get along.  Christian had never had to share his mother before and he did not like me invading his space.  I honestly cannot say that I was much of a fan of him either.  Sometimes he drew blood protecting his territory.  I would sit down next to his mother and he would scratch me.

He also had a problem with controlling his saliva.  He drooled so much his shirt was always soaked.  He puked several times a day and destroyed every room he walked into.  The relationship between him and myself was becoming a major issue, but it changed in one night.

Lower right

Christina had to go to work and I was going to be left with him alone for the first time.  To be quite honest, I was not looking forward to it and Christian was not at all happy to see his mother leave.  We watched her drive off and looked at each other with disdain.  As we were heading back to the house, I noticed that our aluminum can bag was overflowing.  Aluminum was the one thing I would recycle.  Once the bag would fill, I would crush all the cans and put them into another bag until it was full and then take that bag in to cash it out.  It takes a long time to crush a trash bag full of cans, so I had found a faster and much more entertaining way to crush them.  I would use the lawn mower.

I would dump the cans in the grass and ride over them again and again until they were all flat.  I know it sounds juvenile, but I enjoyed it and they were my cans.  I can do it however I want.  So, I grabbed the bag to dump it in the yard and it immediately ripped spilling the cans all over the stairs.  I started throwing the cans in the middle of the yard to get them away from the house so they could be more easily reached with the riding mower.  Christian came and started throwing the cans around as well.  He did not know why we were doing it, but he was having great fun throwing cans around the yard.

Once they were all over the front yard I got the lawn mower out.  Christian wanted to ride on it also, so I lifted him up onto my lap.  He had never sat in my lap before.  He immediately grabbed the steering wheel so he could drive and I let him.  Once he figured it out he steered all the way from the barn to the cans.  He had the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen.  The drool pool was building quickly because his mouth was wide open.

Since we had a big, wide-open yard there was little danger of him running into things, so  I put the mower in a low gear and hopped off, letting him have complete control of the machine.  Now, he was the coolest person on earth.  I instructed him to drive around the yard crushing the cans while I picked them up.  He was more than happy to comply.  He was having a blast being a big man.

Christmas was always fun

It took about half an hour to get all the cans crushed and picked up.  I told him to drive the mower back to the barn, but had to meet him there because he did not know how to make it stop.  He held his head high as we walked back to the house.  We went inside, ate ice cream and then kicked a football around the yard.  After that, we were buddies.  When his mother came home that night our differences were gone.

Mr Character at the bottom

Christian still had a talent for testing my limits, but we liked each other after that.  Part of the thrill of our relationship was me letting him do things no one else would.  We rode four-wheelers, played with snakes, blew stuff up and rolled in mud.  We would dress up in crazy outfits to pick his mother up from work.  We would butt each other in the head until someone gave up.  It was usually me; that boy had a head of granite.  When he got a little bit older, we liked to get dropped off miles away from home and then have to figure out how to get back without a vehicle.

Our adventures did not stop as he got older.  We always found ways to get in trouble together.  One summer, we broke into a neighbor’s house and decorated it for Christmas, tree and all.  While living in Lincoln, we got into a neighbor’s apartment to steal all their light bulbs (including the one in the refrigerator).  We once got into a fight at a club and we have played mind games with people on the streets of Chicago, Cleveland, San Juan and Kansas City. 

Closest thing he had ever seen to a stripper.  He got the money in the thong part right.

I raised him well.  The boy has no shame and is willing to pull any stunt that can be thought up.  He now plays lead guitar in a Christian death metal band and lives for the crowd.  I miss him.  We used to have a lot of fun together and I am sure we will still get into our share of mischief together, just not as often.

I am moving back to Mount Vernon in a couple of weeks and look forward to us hanging out again.  Other people may not want to be around us at the time, but we will enjoy ourselves.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTIAN.
I love you.

Look Out, World...I'm Back!

When I first started this blog seven months ago, I listed things about myself so my potential future readers could get to know me.  One of the items on that list stated that it has taken me 14 years to get my Bachelor’s degree.  That statement back in October was more speculative than fact, although a week from now, it will be true.  I am very proud to say that I will be a college graduate in one more week.

I never meant for it to take this long.  When I got out of high school, I went to college like most people do.  However, I hadn’t really given it a lot of thought.  I went to college because that is what you are supposed to do after high school.  I withdrew from my classes in the middle of my third semester at Rend Lake College.  I really didn’t want to be there.

I was excited to go to college at first.  I was finally out of high school and it was time to venture into adulthood, but the vision quickly fizzled when I got to RLC.  It took about a month for me to come to the conclusion that nothing had really changed.  I felt like I was still in high school.  College was supposed to be bigger and better, but the only things different were the increased commute time and number of students on campus.  The classes weren’t even harder.  What was the point?  DISCLAIMER:  I want to make it clear that I am not bashing Rend Lake College or any community college.  They have their place, but I expected so much more than what I experienced.

I definitely could have made better choices, but I was 19 and wanted to get on with my life.  I quit school, moved out of my parents house and ventured north to be with the girl I was dating at the time.  We were together for about another year before I moved back to my home town.

Fast forward about ten years and I had reached a point in my life where I knew it was time to get serious.  I was a year into my second marriage, had two kids, had become a Christian and decided I wanted to go into ministry.  The spring semester of 1998 I started classes at Lincoln Christian College (now Lincoln Christian University).  College was a whole different experience this time.

We moved into Married Student Housing and I hit the campus full-time.  This time I wanted to be there and instead of barely making it through my classes, I was on the Dean’s List.  I loved it.  It was difficult to balance the family with school and definitely challenging to find time to sleep, but I pushed through.  With the exception of one semester of part-time studies, I went full-time for three and a half years.

The summer before my senior year I accepted a job as minister at a church in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The plan was to incorporate this job into my internship and finish my schooling through distance learning.  It may have delayed my degree by a semester or two, but I would be working in my field already.  A small delay would not be an issue.  However, things did not work out that way.

Due to a variety of issues, we were only on the island for seven months.  I will tell that story in a future blog.  None of my schooling had been started yet and we came back to the States.  After bouncing around for months of not being able to find decent work and living with my grandmother, we decided to go back to Lincoln.  We were there one semester before I was kicked out (another story I will tell in a future blog).

Seven years later I start taking classes through distance learning.  Just a class or two per semester.  I even took two classes that were on campus.  Once a week I would drive three hours for a class and then drive three hours home.  I was accumulating more credits, but it was a tediously slow process.  Finally, last November, I started full-time again.  I decided I need to get this finished and finally have it behind me.  I even doubled up on classes to get it done faster.  I took 24 hours this semester; it has been rough.

I have a few more papers due in the next week, but nothing I am worried about.  Last night I turned in a rough draft for a major assignment.  It has had me stressed for the last month, but was the last big assignment.  I have to fix it for the final paper, but the bulk of the work is done.  As soon as I hit the send button to my professor last night, I felt a huge weight fall off my shoulders.

I have opted to skip the ceremony (en absentia - LATIN: see how smart I am now) and just have my degree mailed to me, but I am attending a graduation banquet tomorrow night.  I am not interested in sitting in a stuffy room for hours after spending money for a black robe I will only wear once, but the opportunity for free food cannot be turned down.

I will finally have that piece of paper.  I started at Lincoln in the spring of 1998, so it only took me 13 ½ years, unless you want to count when I first started at Rend Lake, then it makes 21 years.  I will, at long last, be able to say I am a college graduate.  I do welcome any congratulations, but would more appreciate prayers.  I am starting my Master’s Degree next semester and would love to complete it before I retire.

That Which Doesn't Kill You...Makes You Realize How Old You Are

Last night was horrible and I got less than two hours sleep.  My right shoulder has been bothering me for the last few days and after being ignored, it decided to try to kill me.  I slept for about thirty minutes and then awoke feeling an intense pain when I tried to roll over.  I couldn’t adjust my blankets, move my pillows, or even sit up without almost crying.  I tried to just find a comfortable position and ignore it, but nothing seemed to work.

Every now and then it flares up, but it goes away within a couple of weeks.  Several years ago, it got pretty bad and I mentioned it to my chiropractor.  After an examination, he told me I had tendonitis.  He even showed me where the swelling was.  It hurt to the touch and that was just what he did to fix it, he touched it, a lot.  I laid back on the table as he dug his fingers deep into my flesh.  It was one of the worst pains I have ever felt.  I honestly did not know he was only using his fingers.  I thought he had some kind of sharp tool.  I knew he had not actually cut into me, but it felt like it.  It was horrible torture and I left feeling much worse than when I had gotten there, but it got better within a few days.  Whatever he did fixed it, but I do not care to ever go through that again.

As I was laying on the floor thinking about how I need this pain to stop without having to face any type of ancient Chinese torture, I reflected on why my shoulder was hurting in the first place.  It started on Sunday night.

Sunday afternoon, I was at home working on my biblical research paper proposal when my phone rang.  Jayson Ferguson called to ask what I was doing.  I told him I had to finish my proposal, so I was unavailable.  He suggested whenever I finished we should all go to the state park in Shelbyville.  I only had about an hour’s worth of work left so I agreed.  Two hours later, Kirsten and I were in Shelbyville with the Ferguson’s.

Notice how steep this is

While the adults talked and enjoyed each other’s company, our kids were running up and rolling down this insanely steep hill in the park.  The Lake Shelbyville spillway is located there and we were at the bottom.  The road wraps around to the top and there is a huge hill in between.  This is one of those hills where you have to lean way back in order to walk down and it is steep enough your feet will slip out from under you without good footing. 

We were enjoying watching them roll down the hill and making fun of them because they were doing it wrong.  As they rolled they would slowly turn and end up sideways on the hill so they weren’t rolling down anymore.  They would then have to readjust and start again.  I told them to cross their ankles so their legs would not cause them to turn.  Alex, Kirsten’s boyfriend, challenged me to show them.  At 39 years old, I do not feel the need nor any desire to roll myself down a hill at breakneck speeds.  Despite my reasonable protests, those obnoxious teenagers started to make fun of me.

Now, I do not succumb to peer pressure and was not about to get covered in grass and be itching for the rest of the evening, but I did have a point to prove.  I challenged Alex to a race down the hill on foot.  I tried to make it clear to him that this 17 year old boy was about to get beaten by a 39 year old man.  He would be shamed for thinking his youth was so wonderful.

I chose the steepest part of the hill to run down to display how fearless I was.  After looking at the hill for a moment, we took off.  I immediately took the lead.  Although I knew how steep the angle was before we started, I totally underestimated how quickly I would achieve an unstoppable speed.  It quickly grew very scary, but I was winning and intended to keep it that way.  As I felt the muscles in my legs start to knot, I suddenly started thinking about my grandmother.

When I was in junior high, we had a large plastic barrel my brothers and I loved to play with.  It was the size of a 55-gallon drum, but it was thick plastic.  Our favorite thing to do with it was take it to the top of the hill in our back yard, crawl inside it and roll down.  It was wonderful fun and we would be so dizzy when we got out we could hardly see or walk.  One day, my grandmother came home and saw us enjoying the fun of the barrel.  After watching for a while, she said she wanted to try it.  As much as I wanted to see that, it scared me a little.  What if we broke her?  However, my dad was there as well and didn’t seem to have a problem with it, so we helped her into the barrel.

Grandma was not as small or limber as us and had to get down on her knees, lean forward, sit back on her feet and then slowly shuffle into the barrel.  She didn’t even fit all the way inside and her head stuck out the end, but she said she was ready so we pushed her down the hill.  I will never forget seeing her hair bobbing up and down and she rolled to the bottom.  Once she came to a stop, we had to help her out of the barrel the same way we helped her in.  She was very dizzy and stumbled around for a while.  She said it was fun, but did not opt for another turn.  It is one of my favorite memories of her.

My mind snapped back to reality as I approached the halfway point of the hill.  This section straightens out for about fifteen feet before dropping off again.  I was grateful for this section, because I had reached a speed where I did not know if I could stop and was going to use this opportunity to slow down a little before taking on the next section.  Unfortunately, my muscles had already grown accustomed to stepping down to maintain balance and the first step onto the flat ground jarred my knee.  As much as that really hurt, my momentum was way too much to slow down and I went airborne off the next drop off.

For perspective on the size of this hill, notice the small spots that are actually Taylor and Kirsten.

With a new wince of pain and an impacting of my spine, I was amazed that I had landed on my feet.  As much as I wanted to win, my new goal was to just stay upright so I wouldn’t break anything.  However, it didn’t look like that was going to happen.  My velocity had dramatically increased to a radically uncontrollable level.  As the trembling in my calves reached a level where I swear I could hear the vibrations, I actually reached the bottom of the hill.  It took about forty feet to come to a stop and when I looked back I saw that I had at least a seventy-five foot lead.  This old man had beaten a teenager and was not going to let him forget it.  However, since my lungs were still on fire, I couldn’t talk to rub it in his face.

Since this was the close of the day, I crawled to the car and celebrated in my mind.  I got into the driver’s seat and discovered I could barely lift my arms.  I sat there puzzled as to why my arms would be hurting.  My legs were obvious, but my arms did not make sense.  As I recalled the death race down the hill, I remembered how fast I was going and how tense I was.  I was moving at such a rate, I had my fists clenched and my arm muscles were very tense.  They were moving so fast back and forth while being tensed, I think I pulled something.  Later they felt better, but were sore like I had experienced a strong workout.  However, by bedtime my shoulder had started to throb.

While my arms have gotten less and less sore as the days went on, my shoulder has intensified.  The pain is tolerable if I just let it rest by my side, but it must be supported.  Letting it hang seems to be a problem.  It is also not happy to move forward or backwards, and strongly protests at the mere thought of  being lifted.

However, as a man, it is my responsibility to deal with it until it either heals or falls off.  What else am I supposed to do?  With my 40th birthday a few months away, I am not giving any doctor an opportunity to put on his latex gloves.  My preacher once sunk a hatchet in his shin bone while on a mission trip.  In true male fashion, he pulled it out, wrapped the wound in duct tape and kept working.  I have never seen him in shorts, but as far as I know he still has both legs.  Therefore, I will ride it out.  What's the worst that could happen?


As with most experiences, I have learned something from all of this:  It takes significantly longer to type with one hand.

Biblical Mistranslation and Special Interest Groups

I was driving home with a friend after last week’s rain and she noticed a beautiful rainbow over the trees to the east.  It was probably the brightest one I have ever seen.  I pulled the van off the road to admire it before it faded away.  It was amazing.    

After watching the rainbow for a while she commented that she really didn’t understand how rainbows hang in the sky like that.  I felt obliged to explain it to her and started to give her the history of rainbows.  I explained that they were a product of the U.S. military and why they were invented in 1947.  She abruptly cut me off.  She exclaimed that although she may not know how they work, she knew they have been around for  thousands of years.  She gently reminded me that it was in the Bible that God created rainbows after the Flood to show the world that he would never destroy the earth by flood again.

She was referring to Genesis 9:13 which reads in the New International Version, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”  I couldn’t blame her.  It is a common, although misguided thought.  The translators of the NIV made a mistake.  If we look at the King James Version, it reads, “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.”  The King James translates the Hebrew word קשת correctly.  Unfortunately, there has been a misconception of what a bow is.  The word has evolved and has not been used in this manner for several centuries.

The word bow according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary when used as a verb means “to cease from competition or resistance.”  You can check the definition here.  While this word is now only used as a verb, at one time it was used as a noun.  When used as a noun, it meant a “cessation of substance” or “area of lower density.”

Therefore, when Genesis says that God created a bow, it referred to an area of less or no rain in the midst of rain.  A rainbow and a rain bow are not the same thing.  While a rainbow is the colorful arc caused after a rain by the refraction and reflection of the sun’s rays in raindrops, spray, or mist, a rain bow is a place in the middle of a storm where there is no rain.  When you are driving in the rain and it stops for a moment and then starts again, that was a bow in the rain, or a rain bow.  It is the same as when you can see it raining across the street, but it is not raining where you are.  This is a rain bow.  Now that we have that cleared up, let’s get back to the origin of rainbows like the one we were looking at last week.

Rainbows were invented by military scientists at the Roswell Army Air Field in Roswell, New Mexico.  The air field had a national security issue in the mid-1940’s that needed to be promptly resolved.  Roswell was the leading manufacturer of experimental aircraft for the military and often tested their new developments late at night when most people would be asleep.  Unfortunately, the unusual lights in the sky were frequently spotted by people who worked late and insomniacs.

Military scientists and engineers brainstormed to come up with a solution.  They needed to prevent civilians from witnessing the test flights and possibly discovering military secrets.  They concluded that building a wall two miles tall around the entire base would not be cost-effective and relocating the civilians within eyesight would take too long.  It was in this brainstorming session that they came up with Project R.A.I.N.B.O.W.

Radio-Active Iridescent Nuclear Bio-Optical Weapon

While not actually a weapon, the idea was to create something bright and beautiful in the sky in the opposite direction of the planes doing their test flights.  This would cause people to be distracted and not notice the planes.  This brilliant concept still works today.  When someone sees a rainbow, they always point it out to other people and those people always look.  Some people even go as far as to make a phone call to tell people to look out their window at the beautiful rainbow.  A bank could get robbed and it would not be noticed if there was a rainbow glowing in the sky in the opposite direction.

After spending millions of dollars, Project R.A.I.N.B.O.W. was almost scrapped after it’s first test run.  On July 9, 1947 the local newspaper Roswell Daily Record reported that a high-altitude weather balloon crashed on a ranch near the airfield.  There was much speculation and many rumors milling around the area about what had actually crashed, but the newspaper story was correct.  It was a weather balloon, but the military did not release the rest of the story.

The weather balloon went down because a test pilot collided with it in mid-air.  He had been temporarily blinded when a bright flash of colors shot up from the ground.  The blinded pilot veered off-course and struck the weather balloon.  The pilot and plane were fine, but the balloon crashed to the earth.  After a few more test runs with similar near disastrous results, the scientists made a few adjustments and re-engineered their new invention to work during the day.  From this point on all test flights were done in broad daylight while people were mesmerized by the pretty colors on the other side of the horizon.

After several years of successful test flights without incident the generals in the Pentagon were looking for a more destructive, military-type use for the rainbows.  They wanted to use them strategically in war situations.  Since the rainbow had no destructive power, the generals decided to use it in the same manner it had been used successfully for the last several years.  It makes a wonderful distraction.  It could be implemented outside an enemy air field keeping enemy pilots from reaching their destination.  It could also be turned on in the middle of a fierce land battle.  Unsuccessful tests were conducted to produce special lenses that could be worn by American soldiers so they would not be distracted by it’s brilliance.

In the mid-50’s, they had their answer.  Computers had become sophisticated enough that scientists installed the rainbows with artificial intelligence.  With an independent intelligence, the rainbows' computers could make split-second decisions on the battlefield to determine the most strategic place to illuminate.  The research laboratory was brimming with excitement as the programmers awaited the results of the field test.

Things did not go the way the generals, engineers, and programmers had planned.   It seemed that the rainbows could not determine the difference between domestic and foreign soldiers.  They distracted every moving thing on the battlefield.  With these disappointing results and the recent dismantling of the Roswell experimental flight program, Washington decided to bury the project.  However, the newly intelligent rainbows were not ready to be put down.  The rainbows' failure on the battlefield was due to the fact that they were now only interested in self-preservation.  They saw every person as an enemy to themselves with no regard for who may be an American.  The rainbows used their new intelligence to formulate a plan to escape from the base and power themselves.

The military launched a full-scale assault against the rainbows to no avail.  Rainbows cannot be destroyed since they are only a refraction of light.  Despite the best efforts of the military the rainbows remained at large and even began to reproduce themselves.  Within weeks there were sightings of rogue rainbows in every state in the country.

Although rainbows could not be destroyed, they did not enjoy being attacked all the time.  Using their computer-speed intelligence they came up with a plan to get back at the people that were trying to destroy them.  Since they had no actual defenses and could not do any damage they decided to retaliate by creating a nuisance that could not be ignored.  Rainbows understood that they were beautiful creations that people loved to stare at.  They decided to make something devoid of color that people would not want to see or experience.  It needed to be something that would make people cringe at the very thought.  The rainbows had their plan and they released their creation onto the world: MIMES!!!

Just as the rainbows had planned, they were soon forgotten about.  Mimes were everywhere.  They infiltrated birthday parties, state carnivals, and public parks.  People could not walk through a park without being imitated by one of these black and white abominations.  Worldwide public outrage prompted a quick response from governments all over the world.  The United States, facing international pressure, lead the way in trying to eradicate the Mime Invasion.

Since mimes are similar in appearance to humans, they could not be killed without protests from various human rights organizations.  Congress passed laws forbidding people from feeding them, housing them, or offering them employment.  Countries around the world quickly followed suit.  France, however, offered mimes asylum and they congregated there by the thousands.


Around the world most mimes died within a few months and their bodies littered the streets.  The smell of decaying mimes was too much for the public to bear.  The same problem was occurring in France despite the special statutes protecting them, because due to the huge numbers of mimes in the country as a result of the protective sanctuary that was offered to them, there was not sufficient mime food to feed them all.  Nevertheless, the smell didn’t seem to bother the French.  In other parts of the world Mime Rights groups were starting to form.  One organization even succeeded in getting mimes established as their own race.

Since mimes are not particularly intelligent, unlike their creators, most just died off, but some of the craftier ones banded together to survive.  A few even became part of paramilitary resistance groups.  In Waco, Texas a mime resistance group formed calling themselves Fighters Against Racial Tension (FART).  They were silent, but deadly.  In their last stand, they held off ATF agents for 50 days before being burned out and gunned down.  This marked the end of guerrilla mime warfare.

Public outrage forced Congress to pursue a new tactic.  Lawmakers knew that the mime scourge still had to be squashed, but it had to be done discreetly.  All laws restricting travel, lodging, and commerce were lifted and the government even provided jobs for every mime.  Call centers were set up all over the country and the mimes were put to work as telemarketers.  The scheme was brilliant.  The government had provided jobs and given them a way to support themselves.  No one could legitimately complain.

The telemarketing jobs offered fantastic compensation, but it was based on commission only.  If the mimes wanted to get paid they had to make sales.  The program would take care of itself.  The mime population has been dropping steadily ever since.  There are very few left today.  The world is possibly one generation away from putting this dark period behind us.

However, if you are one of those bleeding heart types that feels sorry for them, remember this next time you get one of those phone calls and there is no one on the other end.  It may just be a mime trying to feed his family.  When you get that call just say, “I’ll take two,” and then give your credit card information.  You may just save a life.

Don't Try This At Home

Last night I came home after a long, exhausting weekend and decided to watch some television before collapsing into my bed.  I knew my mind was weary so I didn’t want anything that would require much attention or brain activity.  I just wanted something entertaining as I fell asleep.  After scanning the channels I found a show getting ready to start and settled in to be entertained.  The show starts and I am met with the following screen.

Well, that was the end of my plan to watch something mind-numbing.  I was mad.  Who do these people think they are?  They can’t tell me what to do in my own home.  They can insist all they want.  If I want to do something in the privacy of my own home I will. 

I believe the entire reason that these guys even have their own show and are good at what they are doing is because they tried it at home.  Then, at some point, they started the video camera.  Eventually, after watching their antics numerous times and showing it to their friends, someone decided to put it on television. 

The only way to get good at something it to try it at home and then keep doing it.  Why is it that the people telling us not to try these things at home are the ones doing it at home?  Why do they get to tell us not to do it when they have been doing it?  Do they think they have the monopoly on doing stupid things because they thought of it first?

This warning screen is not unique to this show.  I have seen similar screens pop up before countless magic shows, stunt programs, and generally any show that depicts young people having fun doing exciting things.  Why can’t we do these things? 

Growing up my mother always warned us to stop doing some of the things we were doing because we might get hurt.  However, we were boys and that was one of the biggest parts of the thrill.  We knew we could get hurt and that was one of the reasons we did it.  Living that close to danger or possible death is one of the necessary parts of becoming a man.

My brother Kyle once knocked the wind out of himself trying to do a back flip out of the barn loft.  My brother Trevor once sunk a knife (on purpose) into Kyle’s foot while playing a game of Chicken.  A week before my 12th birthday I flipped my bike off the top of a picnic table, landing on my head and knocking myself unconscious.  The three of us have all been attacked by wild animals despite the repeated warnings to not get too close.  Trevor, specifically, lost a wrestling match with a full-grown bull while trying to impress a girl.

The antics never stopped just because we got injured.  It was part of being a boy.  My brothers and myself have various scars all over our bodies and tales of good times to go with every one.  We can tell stories of riding underneath a galloping horse (Kyle), riding a couch being drug down the road at 50 mph (Trevor), misjudging a jump from one moving vehicle to another (me), jumping onto moving trains (all of us), being hung by the neck 10 feet off the ground (Kyle), and falling off numerous roofs.  Trevor has broken so many ribs his chest pops when he breathes.

Why did we do these things?  Sometimes it was for science.  When we doused Trevor’s jeans in diesel fuel and lit him on fire, we were curious to see if he could run 300 feet to the creek to put himself out before getting crispy.  How were we to know other than to do an experiment?  He did make it the first two times.  After the third attempt we decided to stop.  It didn’t go as well.  When diesel fumes and flames are shooting over your head, apparently it is difficult to see.  He ran the wrong direction.

Other times it was to get attention.  My mom’s friend, Linda, would get so nervous when we did this stuff that we didn’t have much of a choice.  You can't walk away from the opportunity to make a grown woman cry.  We would hang upside-down off the roof and look in the window to scare her.  Once we had her attention, one of us would scream and throw a jacket in front of the window so she would think we fell.  It was great.

There were a variety of reasons that seemed good at the time, but the main reason was that we were boys looking for a thrill.  Why else would we dare each other to jump off higher and higher parts of the roof?

We didn’t need Travis Pastrana or Johnny Knoxville to show us dangerous stunts and then tell us that we couldn’t do them.  We just did them on our own.  If we would have had a video camera back then, maybe we would have created JACKASS.

Today, my back problems and aching knees remind me of all the fun I had when I was younger.  My mother’s early touches of gray reminded her even sooner.  Last year, when my daughter got on a four-wheeler for the first time, she gunned it before I was able to explain how the brakes work.  She plowed into a tree and was thrown into the air.  As I watched her sail past me, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for my younger days when I bounced better.  No TV show is going to tell me how to raise my kids.

SNOWPOCALYPSE - WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

For the last few days the National Weather Service has been warning us that the largest storm to hit the area since weather started being recorded in 1886 is coming to kill us all.  The forecast was a few days of ice with up to an inch of accumulation and then 12 to 18 inches of snow.  Since history is about to be made and I knew about it ahead of time, I started chronicling the events for future generations.

January 30, 2011

7:28pm        Arrive at Wal-Mart to stock up for the impending doom.  I get everything on my list, but know there is something I haven’t thought of.

January 31, 2011

12:43pm      Right on time, the ice starts falling from the sky and coating everything.

1:30pm        Central A&M (Kirsten’s school) calls it a day and sends the students home.  Ice continues to fall.

6:30pm        Receive text that Central A&M is cancelled for the following day.

6:32pm        The ice storm stops.

February 1, 2011

5:59am        Receive text that LCU (Lincoln Christian University – my school) is closing for the day.

6:03am        It occurs to me that I take online classes so the closure does not really affect me.

11:18am      The ice starts falling again, but much harder and accompanied by 35 m.p.h. gusts of wind.

12:30pm      Receive text telling me not to come to work that day.

4:25:17pm   The power goes out

4:25:19pm   Hear cursing from next apartment and loud exclamation, “NO!!!  I WAS RIGHT AT THE END OF THE LEVEL!!!  I HAVEN’T SAVED IT!!!”

4:26pm        Locate a flashlight and establish martial law in the apartment.  Do not open the fridge or the front door.

5:05pm        Receive text to not go to work the next day.

5:08pm        Without television, decided to watch the storm out the window.

5:12pm        Observed unprepared neighbor trying to chip the ice off his windshield with a hatchet.

5:19pm        Observed neighbor give up and go back inside.

5:26:03pm   Alex (Kirsten’s boyfriend) offers for us to ride out the outage at his house with his parents.

5:26:12pm    I tell Kirsten I am staying to keep the pipes from freezing and the python since his heat lamp was out and he is cold-blooded.

5:26:17pm   Kirsten leaves me alone in the apartment.

5:48pm        Receive text that Central A&M is canceled for next day.

5:54pm        The sun sets and the apartment is in total darkness.

5:56pm        I stub my toe on kitchen table.

6:03pm        I remember the thing I forgot when I was stocking up for this storm: candles.

6:08pm        I speak to my parents in Florida to let them know what is going on.  They tell me about their new shorts and the fish they caught that day.

6:14pm        I decide not to talk to my parents again until June.

6:18pm        The wind picks up and the trees start breaking off.

6:23pm        I step out into the stairwell to converse with the neighbors about the declaration that people are not allowed to leave town.  Road travel has been forbidden.

6:29pm        The neighbors start drawing straws to determine who has to make a cigarette run.

8:09pm        Our python wakes up and comes out of his resting place to seek out heat.  Since the heat lamp is out, I put him in my sweatshirt.

8:12pm        An ungrateful reptile bites me on the nipple.

8:19pm        I stub my toe in the bathroom.

8:35pm        Receive text from Kirsten that she is ready to come home.  Apparently, she was just going to visit for a while.

8:37pm        Begin scraping windshield.

8:43pm        Wishing I had a hatchet.

8:56pm        Decided that the 2 foot square section I cleared would have to be enough. Started van.

9:03pm        Finally got maneuvered out of parking lot.

9:04pm        Stopped a half-block from the apartment.  Windshield was frozen again.

9:06pm        Discover that I am stuck in the middle of the road.

9:09pm        Got loose in time to have to clean the windshield again.

9:12pm        Used my memory to guess where I was going since I gave up trying to see.

9:17pm        Retrieved Kirsten and battled our way back home.

9:32pm        Arrive at home after this 30 minute adventure.  (Kirsten was only 4 blocks away.)  I should have just walked.

9:54pm        Power comes back on.

9:56pm        While putting flashlight away I find a box of candles.

After 4 hours and 29 minutes, the power is back on and hope is restored.  I pray that my records serve as a guiding light for future generations as they reflect on this dark period.

February 2, 2011

7:08am        Punxsutawney Phil predicts early spring.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Yesterday was a sad day in the Minor house.  One of our beloved pets died.  We have had him for a little over a year, but this morning Kirsten got up and immediately noticed that his usual spot was empty which reminded her of the previous day’s events.  No more snuggling up to watch a movie together.  No more playing fetch.  No more protection for the house.  He is gone and will be missed. 

Actually, none of those things were ever done.  He rarely even got out of his cage.  Guests to our house begged us not to get him out and only a few were ever brave enough to even touch him.  Our pet’s name was Hitler and he was a tarantula.

R.I.P Hitler

Tarantulas are fairly large spiders to begin with and Hitler was no exception.  He was the same size as my hand.  When he would rear up on his back legs to try to be threatening (it was so cute), he was about 4 inches tall.  He could be quite intimidating when he wanted to be.

Hitler ruled his cage.  Anything that went in there (crickets, frogs, other spiders, hands changing his bedding) didn’t last long, but something changed when we moved here.  We arrived here last November and he hasn’t really eaten since then.  Crickets would be taken down within a matter of minutes before, but these last eight weeks he hasn’t cared that they were in his cage.  He seemed more active at first, but it didn’t last long.  He was a fun and interesting pet and will be missed.

Now we only have one animal.  His name is Dr. Finklerstein (both pets were named by my daughter).  Within 48 hours of getting Dr. Finklerstein home, he bit my son’s wrist and my daughter’s neck.  This pet is much more aggressive than Hitler was, much larger and faster, but more fun to play with.  Dr. Finklerstein is a python.

Dr. Finklerstein & Kirsten

We had a different python years ago named Monty.  Yep, Monty Python.  He was a very docile creature.  He would run loose in the house and liked to hang out in the closet.  Kirsten was about a year old and would drag Monty around the house by his tail and kiss him on the head.  He didn’t seem to care.  Dr. Finklerstein, however, would never tolerate such behavior.  He could be sitting in your lap, enjoying the warmth of the sun and suddenly bite you under the arm because you reached for a soda.  He would then coil back and glare as if to say, “How dare you?  You didn’t ask if you could move.  Try it again.  I dare you.”

As terrifying as that may sound to some people, it is not as bad as you would think.  Pythons are not poisonous and do not have fangs.  They do have teeth at the backs of their jaws for gripping.  They have very small teeth-like things surrounding the rest of their mouth for the same reason.  When he bites, it feels like getting flicked with a finger.  You feel it, but it doesn’t hurt.  My daughter was bitten behind the ear the day after we got him.  If it had been painful, that would have been the last time she would have wanted to play with him.  Painful or not, very few guests want to handle him.

He is not a problem as long as he stays off the keyboard

We have always had unusual animals to play with.  When I was a kid, we would rush to the basement when it flooded to see Harry.  Harry was a large, mud-gray salamander that would appear when the basement got wet enough.  We would play with him for a few hours and then put him back.  We had about a half dozen raccoons over the years and a fox.  We even had a few pet skunks.  When I was in high school, my brother Trevor found a newborn deer in the middle of the road and brought it home.  We named it Bird and raised it in the barn.  When he got old enough to venture out he stuck around for several months.  He would play in the yard with the dogs and came running to the house to eat just like they did.  However, the dogs didn’t care to play with him because when Bird played he would butt them in the head.  When I was much younger we had a Rhode Island Red rooster named Rodney that thought it was a dog.  It would follow us around the yard and sit in our laps.  We also had a beer-guzzling horse for a while and we have had our share of run-of-the-mill dogs and cats.  Our last two dogs were golden labs named SPOON and LLAMA.  We had a cat in my childhood named Sir Jonathon Edwards Vincent von Richenstein III.  We called him THREE for short.

I don’t know why we have had so many unusual pets.  A large part of it was just opportunity.  We lived out in the country, so often we just came across these animals.  The last raccoon I had was one that just wandered up onto my porch and wouldn’t go away,  so we kept it.  Sometimes my dad brought them home.  That was how we got the skunks.  Other times it was to take them off of someone else’s hands.  That was how we got the overly-pampered rooster and our first python.  The beer-guzzling horse was just a horse until someone set their beer down within her grasp and she grabbed it up, threw her head back and sucked it down.  She would actually do that with any drink, but it is more interesting to tell the story with beer.

Now we are trying to decide what type of animal to replace Hitler with.  Kirsten thinks she may want some smaller spiders that she won’t be as scared to let crawl on her.  I am leaning towards a hedgehog.  We haven’t decided yet and will have to do some reading and research, but Kirsten already has it named.  Our new pet will be named PROF CREPES ALMIGHTY or DR. JEWISH.

Red Paint and Vomit: The Joys of Parenting

My daughter, Kirsten, had her 15th birthday this past week and it occurs to me how soon it will be before she is a grown woman and my years of child-rearing will be behind me.  Christian turned 18 almost a year ago and has already moved out so I am just a few years away from being all on my own.  I have been asked by several people what I will do when I am living by myself.  Will I miss having kids in the house?  Will I be lonely?  Is that any kind of life?  It has caused me to reflect on my years of being a parent.

I remember Kirsten’s first smile while playing with her on the floor.  She was 2 months old and she smiled.  I don’t care that it is said they cannot smile at that young of an age.  It was not gas.  She smiled.  I also remember her speaking her first word, “CHOCOLATE!”  It wasn’t pronounced correctly, but it was her first word.  I also remember her giving me the biggest scare in my life when she was 2 years old.

When we were attending Lincoln Christian College, we had a small apartment in Married Student Housing.  I was studying in the back bedroom and Kirsten was napping in the living room.  Because she was napping, we had the shades drawn and it was rather dark in the room.  I came out of the bedroom to refill my drink and witnessed the bloodiest site I had ever seen.  Kirsten was sitting up in the center of the couch with her head hanging forward.  Her dress was dripping red.  There was blood all over her face and the couch and many smear marks on the wall.  I screamed and rushed for Kirsten.  As I reached for her, she looked up and smiled at me.  I was instantly dumbfounded, but realized she was still alive and I had not just walked into my own personal slasher flick.  I flipped on the light and then the reality of the situation was visible.  Kirsten had found a bottle of red tempura paint and had been honing her artistic ability all over herself, the wall and the couch.  When my heart rate dropped the following Tuesday, we found a better place to keep the paint.

A year later, when we discovered her exercising her artistic ability on the dining room wall with a Sharpie she adamantly denied it.  We knew she had done it.  She still had ink on her hands and the marker was found in her room.  When asked who did it, she said, “Bubby did.  Spank him.”  I then took Christian in another room and pretended to spank him so she would feel bad and confess the truth.  Christian, then 6 years old, yelled like he was being beaten.  Kirsten just laughed in the next room.  She could be a bit difficult at times.

As difficult as she could be, I had been previously groomed to handle her by her older brother.  Christian had tried his best to break me for years.  Christian had his third birthday about 2 months after I started dating his mother and we have been a part of each other’s lives ever since.  One of his earliest acts of terror was to carve a picture into the vinyl screen of my big screen TV.  I got over it, but did not realize at the time that I would have a new challenge face me each day when I came home from work for the next few months.

One day I came home and found Christian playing in the living room with his castle set.  This castle was fairly large and was the perfect size for playing with all his action figures.  Since it was close to supper time I asked him to help me move it all to the bedroom.  He grabbed some of the men and headed to his room with them.  I tossed the remaining men into the castle and grabbed it to move it.  I felt my leg and chest get wet as water went all over the wall.  He had filled the castle with water to pretend he had a moat.  This was not a bad thing, just unexpected.  I even laughed, but it was going to get more intense.

Later that week, he kept the castle in his room.  I went in when I got off work to see him and he had covered a four foot area all around the castle with whipped cream.  It was all over the carpet.  He knew he couldn’t pour water on the carpet to make a moat, so he used whipped cream and “just pretended.”  The next day, he cracked an egg in his bed, but I don’t remember why.

With Christian there was always a fight with him and his bodily fluids.  He would puke 4 or 5 times a day.  He would come out of the bathroom at McDonald’s to inform me that he was going to throw up, then would do it on the table.  He would wake up in the middle of the night, walk past his bathroom, through the kitchen, into my bedroom, past the master bathroom and wake me up just in time to let me know he was going to puke on my bed.  I tried to train him to just go straight to the bathroom and yell for me.  I WILL come, but it never worked.

When he wasn’t puking on me, he was peeing on everything.  He would get up in the middle of the night to pee, but would not entirely wake up.  He would make it to the toilet, but would pee all over the wall, the back of the toilet, the rug, everything.  If we were staying at another person's house, he would not attempt to find the bathroom.  He might pee in their closet or on their dog bed.  He once peed in my mother’s laundry detergent.  Once, while riding in the car, he woke up and said he had to go, so Christina pulled into a McDonald’s.  Kirsten was asleep and so Christina asked him to go quickly and she would wait in the car.  After a couple of minutes, she looked inside and saw a group of people standing near the entrance.  Fearing the worst she ran in to discover her fears were true.  Christian had only stepped inside the front doors of the restaurant and was peeing on the trashcan in the lobby.

Some of these practices continued when he got a little older.  Although, they took a different shape.  When Christian was in the fifth grade, he and I were playing Mortal Kombat on the Playstation.  He paused the game to say he had to pee.  The fighting rounds in this game only last 90 seconds and there was 2 seconds left when he paused it.  I mentioned that there were only 2 seconds left in the game and asked if we could finish.  He started the game again and peed right there.  His explanation was, “I told you I had to go.”  Also, once while backroading in a Jeep he said to pull over so he could pee.  I immediately pulled to the side and he was already going as he stood up.  He insists he doesn’t know he has to go until it is too late.

He also did not learn how to use a zipper until middle school.  Up until about the 5th grade, he never zipped his backpack.  He would get off the bus at the end of the day and run to the house with his bag flinging papers, books, and pencils in all directions.  We never knew how many things had fallen out before he got off the bus, but he had a semi-valid reason for not having homework every night.

The motto for GOLD’s GYM is: That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.  If this is true, then my children have made me into a very strong man.  If it is not true, then I am just broken and tired.  It has been a long, difficult road, but it has also been a road filled with wonderful joy and triumphant moments.  I love my kids dearly and, of course, will miss them when they are both out of the house.  However, I am also looking forward to not having to worry about anyone else and just taking care of myself.  It was hard for me when Christian moved out and it will be hard when that day comes for Kirsten, but it must come one day.

I once heard a parent’s feelings toward his children put this way: I wouldn’t take a million dollars for either of my kids, but I wouldn’t give you a nickel for another one just like them.

Everything is Bigger in Texas (and Your Thirties)

Christmas is over and all that wonderfully fattening food that everyone stuffs down their throats for six weeks has been hidden away and now it is time to get that weight back off.  People are more than aware of the extra weight that gets put on during the holidays and only a very few are disciplined enough to not succumb to the crazed, borderline diabetes-flirting tendencies that go hand in hand with celebrating the birth of the Savior of the world.  I have overheard scores of conversations at work about the weight that now has to be worked off.  This is definitely the busiest time of year for the entire weight-loss industry.  There is no shortage of ways you can lose weight and there are plenty of supposedly “fun” ways to do it.  Past and current video examples include: Sweatin’ to the Oldies, Hip-Hop Cardio, Stripper Aerobics, Belly Dance Fitness, Cardio Salsa, Official Dirty Dancing Workout and many others.

Myself, like many others, have gained a few (dozen?) pounds over these festive holidays.  However, I may have started a bit earlier.  I noticed a few months ago how tight my jeans were starting to get.  I just haven’t taken any action yet.  However, that changed last night when Facebook informed me I had been tagged in a photo.

Waltonville High School Prom - 1988

This photo was taken in May of 1988 before the four of us went to the Waltonville Prom.  The couple on the right is Jeff Caudle and Stephanie (Allison) Maines.  Jeff was my best friend and dated Stephanie for a couple of years in high school.  Susan Wagner is the girl in pink who agreed to accompany me to the prom.  I still don’t know why she agreed, but was happy she did.  The dork on the left is me, still in shock that a pretty girl would agree to be seen with me.  Jennifer Ann Kabat is not in this picture.  There is no reason to expect that she would be, but she wanted to be mentioned in my next blog.

I have Stephanie to thank for this photo.  Apparently, it was uploaded about 18 months ago, but I never saw it until she tagged me in it last night prompting Facebook to inform me of its presence.  After the fleeting moment of nostalgia these old pictures often create, I began to be increasingly aware of my present physical state.  The Brett in that picture was so thin and his hair was so big.  I really don’t miss the big hair, but I do miss the smaller waistline.

When I graduated high school I weighed 155 pounds.  Ten years later, I was very proud of the fact that I still weighed the same.  However, I had no reason to be proud.  I had not really accomplished anything.  I was just lucky to have good genes and a high metabolism.  I had always been thin.  I ate anything and everything that came in front of me.  My mother tells the story of me eating a dead grasshopper out of a windowsill as a small child.  That may be disgusting but it just shows that I have always loved to eat.  My great-grandmother used to marvel at how much of her homemade gravy I could eat.  After every Sunday meal, once we ran out of food, I would just spoon the gravy over bread and keep eating until it was gone.  Needless to say, I have never had healthy eating habits, but it didn’t seem to matter since it had no effect on me.  But one day, it changed.

About the time I turned 30 I was buying some new jeans.  I didn’t buy jeans very often because I always had to go out of town to find my size.  I had very long legs and a small waist size.  That combination is not usually found in Wal-Mart.  Because different brands of jeans have different cuts, it is necessary to try on all pairs before buying.  In the dressing room I was quite frustrated to find that I could not button any of the jeans in my size. The store clerk had the nerve to suggest that maybe I should try a different size.  Why would I do that?  Who wants to wear clothes that aren’t in their size?   I do not know how long this new expansion had been going on, but that was the first time I noticed it.  My weight has fluctuated up and down a bit since then, but I have never gotten back down to that size again.

My past experiences with intentional weight control have been fairly painless.  A few small adjustments to my diet and a little extra physical activity causes the pounds to just fall off.  However, I have to intentionally pursue this.  I lose the weight, but then stop paying attention and find myself back to gasping for breath every time I climb the stairs to my apartment.  Generally, by the time I notice I need to diet I am bigger than I was the last time I needed to.

So, I am at that point again and need to do something.  Unfortunately, it is the middle of winter and too cold to venture outside for extended periods of time without losing body parts, although, that would take off pounds rather quickly.  Whether I wait until spring or tackle this now remains to be seen, but I will get to it.  Lately, I have been too distracted by these new patches of hair I didn’t used to have.

             

Now We're Cookin'

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone again.  I hope you had a wonderful holiday.  I know I did.  We had a smaller gathering this year.  It was my parents, my brother Trevor, my brother Kyle with his family, and Christian, Kirsten and myself.  That’s it, ten people.  It has been a long time since we have had a holiday meal with just us.  I have nothing against my extended family, but it was nice.  I really enjoyed it.

Kirsten and I drove back home to Moweaqua later that night.  My wonderful mother packed us some leftovers to take home which I got into first thing the next morning.  That was when the seriousness of our situation really hit home.  We still do not have a microwave.

If you know me or follow my blog, then you are probably aware that we only moved here a month ago.  Because our last move was into my parents’ fully furnished house, we gave most of our stuff away for that move.  Therefore, when we made this move, we had to locate new stuff.  This isn’t really much of a problem.  We have already acquired a dining room set, dresser drawers, a computer desk and various other things to fill our apartment.  There are some things we don’t have yet.  Our television sits on the floor since we have no entertainment center.  I will get one eventually, but it is not at the top of my priority list.  We also don’t have beds, a couch, or a desk for Kirsten.

The microwave was one of those things that we knew we would eventually get, but could live without in the meantime.  However, it did not take long to rethink this strategy.  We moved here on a Saturday, ate out for lunch, and grabbed a frozen pizza from the local market for supper that evening.  The next day, after church, we needed to put some groceries in the apartment.  I got directions to the nearest Wal-Mart (we needed more than food) and we were on our way.

Once at the store we made a beeline for the grocery section and began hungrily filling our cart.  After about 30 minutes, Kirsten made a profound observation, “How is the shredded cheese going to melt on the burritos?  We don't have a microwave.”  That was a good point.  I hadn’t considered that yet.  Obviously, it couldn’t.  It then occurred to me that we had a problem and not just with the cheese.

After 30 minutes of shopping we had many items in our cart; eggs, milk, frozen burritos, breakfast cereal, lunchmeat, soup, bread, various condiments, Hot Pockets (love them), shredded cheese, etc.  We began to look through our plunder at what foods would be useless to have without the convenience of a microwave.
 
Now before I get started, please note that I do cook.  We do eat vegetables and I am pretty handy with a crock pot, but there are many foods and between-meal snacks that are just designed (or easier) for a microwave.  I had no idea how much we take this appliance for granted until we started digging through the foods in our cart.

Ham & Cheese are best

The first to go back was the burritos and I have missed them.  They are so quick to make and taste so good with the cheese melted over them and topped with sour cream.  They are great for a quick bite or a late-night snack.  But they had to go back in the frozen food aisle, which also meant we didn’t need the cheese or sour cream any longer.  The frozen waffles had to go back as well since we don’t own a toaster either, which now means we have no use for the maple syrup.  I even had to put back my HOT POCKETS.  This was getting ridiculous.

I suddenly began to realize that I would need to modify my shopping list in order to accommodate this change.  I didn’t realize how much of a difference it would make.  I then looked through my list and began crossing things off: NO Easy Mac, NO microwave popcorn, NO pre-made breakfast sandwiches, NO chicken taquitos, NO instant anything.  I could still buy meat, but since I can no longer take advantage of the microwave defrost feature I would now have to employ the antiquated practice of remembering to get it out the night before to thaw so I am not cooking a brick.

After taking back the items that we could not use we refilled the cart with food that could be prepared without a microwave.  We paid for everything, loaded it in the van, and drove home without speaking.  Kirsten was fighting back tears over the loss of her burritos and I wept openly while mourning my Hot Pockets.

Over the next few weeks we began to adjust, but life was never normal.  We made the best of it until Thanksgiving.  That brings us back to where this blog started.  I woke up the morning after Thanksgiving dinner and headed to the fridge to get at those leftovers.  Now, I am willing to eat turkey cold, but dressing and mashed potatoes must be reheated.  The microwave situation had just hit a new urgency.  I refused to live like this any longer.

These ladies really get into the spirit of the day.

I got Kirsten out of bed to inform her we were going into town to find a microwave.  She fearfully reminded me that we could not leave the house because it was Black Friday.  I had forgotten about that, but was willing to risk it.  Four hours later, after fighting with brawling Grandmas and determined soccer moms, we were firing up our new microwave and enjoying Thanksgiving dinner all over again.  We also bought new groceries.  I have my Hot Pockets once again.  Plus, because it was Black Friday, I only paid $54.99 for the microwave. 

Christmas came early this year.