I burned dinner tonight. Not all of it. Part of it.
I remembered the dish in the oven only moments before pandemonium ensued. The smoke detector beeped deafeningly. It’s human voice broadcasted with urgency, “Fire, Fire, Fire.” The dog barked incessantly, increasingly louder and in sync with the smoke detector. The girl covered her ears, screamed and ran from the kitchen. B reacted calmly. He handed me the baby after I removed the offending pan from the oven and set it safely to rest away from any fire. He stood under the battle claxon attempting to silence it.
Once the moment was over and there was once again peace in the house, we gathered along the countertop and stabbed at the half burned chicken with a fork.
“I’m not eating that,” Ash declared.
“Why not?” asked B. “What’s wrong with it?”
Ash stared at her father with shock. “Mommy’s not eating any.” True. I wasn’t going to eat any of the chicken anyway, and now there was really no way I was going to have any.
“I’ll eat it.” He took a bite of the chicken, “Crunchy.”
He took another bite and said, “I don’t think it’s supposed to be that black, and it’s a little drier than I usually like it.”
Ash looked at the chicken again, to me and said, “Are you kidding me?”
B took another bite, making a yummy sound.
I don’t know if it was because she was really hungry or if B just made the chicken look so appetizing that Ash eventually reached for a piece of her own. Two.
Before she could take a bite, B intercepted, “Let me help you.” He then picked up a sharp knife and began to butcher the chicken. “The black runs a deep into this piece,” he said examining it. “But I think I can fix it for you.”
By dinner’s end, all but two pieces of the chicken—did I mention they were chicken nuggets?—had been eaten. Those last two pieces had been decidedly declared, in no uncertain terms, to be sawdust, “and none should be subjected to them.”
The funny thing is, it’s not the first time I’ve set off the smoke detector, and it will not be the last. If you want a really good story, just ask B about Christmas morning 1995.
B has a lot of t-shirts, his attire of choice. Over the years he has owned a variety of them, his favorites becoming shabby and threadbare. Periodically, we go through his dresser to remove the most frayed, decrepit, holey and stained, always accompanied with a chorus of “What’s wrong with that one? I don’t see the problem. I can wear that when I’m working around the house.” My duet sings in reply, “You already have 50 work-around-the-house shirts, and still most of the time you choose to work around the house shirtless.” (That’s a fact, not a complaint.)
Eventually we hold a ceremony to severe the bizarre man/t-shirt attachment, and the shirt is surrendered. And over the next few weeks during the customary mourning period, there will be a tear or two welling up in his eyes and a new “favorite” worn almost everyday. I think he wears the same socks, too, in honor of the fallen.
Just the other day, I saw B rolling–instead of folding–his t shirts to fit all of them into his dresser. I wondered if we needed to light the incense and dust off the ceremonial masks. Surprisingly, no. But, somehow a conversation started about some of our old t-shirts, ones that haven’t been seen or worn in, I guess, years.
Me: “What about Eskimo Joe?”
B: “Don’t have him.”
Me: “Me neither.” (We had matching shirts, a gift from my brother.)
B: “I noticed I got back Superman.” (I had borrowed it from him last summer, but now my belly is too big to wear it well.)
Me: “I take it back in the fall after the baby is born.”
(pause)
Me: “What about Singled Out.”
B: “No, I gave that one away.”
Then suddenly I became very sad. You might remember the MTV game show, Singled Out that featured 50 men and women competing for a date with a contestant of the opposite sex. We watched it when we were first married, and I chewed about 20 packs of Hubba Bubba Bubblegum to get that shirt for B, who, every time he wore it, told people that’s how we met. He won me on a game show. His story always made me giggle.
No more Singled Out. I’m not sure what message he’s sending with that, but I think I’m going to take back Superman now.
Ash said, “Mother’s Day is not just about you, Mommy.”
~~~
Brent wrote me a card on Mother’s Day. It read, “I heard a quote the other day that said you don’t only marry someone because you love them but because you can’t live without them. I can’t live you. I will always be here for you. I may be plopped down on the couch in front of the TV, but I'm here.
~~~
Our neighbor stopped by and he said, “I told my wife the other day that Kat looked like she had gained weight and not just a little. She’s getting big.” He didn’t just blurt that out when he walked onto our back deck; he waited until we told him that we were expecting. And then he said, “Congratulations. But, you look great otherwise.”
(From the 2007 vault.) This one falls under the category of: You never think it will happen to you, but…well, I don’t think I need to finish this sentence.
It’s was late morning here on the eastern side of the country and with a couple of fun client projects sitting on my desk making good progress, I decided to take a short break and go for a Big Gulp–a college habit I just never seemed to break. Ash and I grabbed some loose change from B’s giant jar and hopped into the car headed for 7-11. As we pulled into the parking lot, she started on her chorus of “I want a Slurpee, I want a Blue Slurpee.”
Innocently and unsuspectingly we walked into the near-empty convenience store. The Slurpee machine, positioned just so under the glistening fluorescent spotlights, shot an unblinking come-hither stare from the back wall.
“Ohhhh, there is Blue Slurpee!” sang the girl.
From its rotating chamber the sweet aerated frost gave us a just peek into the magical, mysterious arctic wonderland of Slurpeetown and entranced us.
We picked out the smallest of the cups and domed lids, and in the course of Ash’s cheers, I put the cup to the machine and gently pulled the handle. Nothing happened. I pushed the handle back to the start position and tried again.
Nothing happened. I pushed the handle back to the start.
Ash began the second chorus of the Blue Slurpee song, which is just like the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse. And, ever so determined to satisfy the girl’s desire for the rimy azure substance, I applied a little more pressure and pulled the handle as far as it would go…nothing, nothing and then suddenly the machine rumbled to life. In what can only be described as a blue flash, the machine erupted. All I saw before my eyes was a swirly blue explosion. Blue everywhere. The sheer force of the slurpeeclastic eruption ripped the domed-lidded cup from my hand and spewed icy-cold slush in all directions for several feet consuming all that lay in its path.
A second later when it was all over, the machine stared back at me as it had before, only this time not beckoning but mocking me and the girl, frozen in our tracks, covered from head to toe in Ash’s coveted Wahoo Blue Vanilla.
The Slurpee-machine attendant slowly poked his head from his hiding spot on the other side of the hotdog rotisserie and said, “Uh, here’s a towel. You might, uh, want to wash your face, and when you’re ready, that’ll be $2.50 for the Slurpees.”
A cool and drizzly Wednesday morning. Purple Day at preschool.
I walk into the girl’s room, as cheerfully as possible, flip on the light and announce, “Ash, time to get up.”
“Don’t. I’m sleeping.”
I ignore her and begin to rummage through her drawers for purple clothes.
“Here’s a purple top,” and then turning toward the girl, “Ash, it’s show-n-tell day. Something purple.”
I keep rummaging, “Here’s a purple sock.”
“I don’t want to take that. Can I take a toy?”
B, nearby, “Are you sure? No one else will bring one.”
“No, daddy. I want to take a purple toy.”
The temperature hovered just below freezing, yet it felt as though it were sub zero. And aside from the occasional gust of wind and irregular snow flurry that floated to the barren ground, the night was still. Inside and out, it was quiet, too quiet for my liking. That alone should have been the first and last indication that something was in the mix. Unsuspecting as I was, I peered around the corner into my bedroom, my sanctuary. The darkened room and the television’s soft glow lulled me to a false sense of security. Then, all at once I was taken off guard.
