A Father's Love

Someday, this story will be an After-School Special, or perhaps the centerpiece of a Hallmark Movie of the Week:

It was the night before my son's birthday, and I sat down with him on his bed to give him "the talk."

"Son," I said.  "Tomorrow you will be ten years old.  Double digits.  And I'm going to tell you something that I've been waiting to share with you for your whole life."

His eyes got wide.  "Yeah, dad?"

"There's something you don't know about me," I said.

"What's that?" he whispered.

"I'm not who you think I am."

"Who..." he gulped.  "Who are you?"

I took his hand, tenderly.  "I'm actually a space alien, and I've been fattening you up to eat you, and now that you're ten you're finally tender and delicious enough.  So tonight, while you sleep, I'm going to come in here and carve you up and eat you."

And then I raised up his arm and bit him.

"DAAAAAAD!" 

I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.  And he punched me, which usually I object to, but I figure that's probably a reasonable response to such a discussion.

Then about five minutes later I came back, with a carving knife, and I yelled "Dinnertime!"

"DAAAAAAD!"

And he would have punched me, but I got away.

Then I came in, one last time, and I said "hey, we forgot to pray tonight." 

"We did pray!" he insisted.

"Well, let's pray again, just in case," I said.  "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food!"

"DAAAAAAAAD!  You're wilding me up!  If I'm bouncing off the walls it's your fault!"

"Don't bounce off the walls," I cautioned.  "That would be bad."

"It's your fault!" he insisted.

"Yeah, but it'll make you all stringy and tough."

"DAAAAAAD!"

Now that, friends, is comedy.

It's A-MAZING!

Let's talk about awesome, shall we?  And is anybody more awesome than me, as patriarch of my small but loyal clan?  Nay, no one is.  And how, you ask, do I display my awesomeness?

I take my family to a haunted corn maze.

Okay, it's not technically haunted, or at least, it wasn't haunted while we were there.  It's only haunted after 7 PM, and we were there at about 1:30.  We'd driven down to Salt Lake City on our thrice-annual trip to purchase six hundred pounds of meat and the world's largest box of Goldfish crackers at Costco, and while we were there, we decided to take a mini-vacation to a haunted cornfield located North of Salt Lake City.  And not just that: there was a corn maze and a hay ride!  Yee-haw!

I knew the day was going to be charmed when we found a parking space right in front of the entrance, despite the fact that there were hundreds of people there.  Cool!

Okay, I'll admit that the circa-1960's helicopter giving rides made me afraid, and I may have used Angela's motion sickness as an excuse to skip out on crashing to my death in a fiery ball of fiery death, but other than that, the whole thing was just good, wholeseome fun.

The corn maze had four entrances, and spanned about 10 acres, which is a really good size for a corn maze.  And it had a big long list of rules, things like "no running" and "no going off the path" and "no swearing" and all sorts of other rules that are designed to make the whole thing less fun.

If Angela hadn't been watching me, I'd have violated those rules like they were going out of style.

I grabbed a map and, all together, we forged off into the corn maze.  It took about six seconds to remind me of why I never take my family anywhere.

"Hey, dad," one of them said.  "How come you have the map?  You don't even know right from left."

"I'm okay," I insisted.  "We just turn right up here."

So we wandered around a little while, and the heckling got worse and worse from behind me.

"This is like watching a mule with a spinning wheel," one of them guffawed.  "Nobody knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it!"

"Remember the time he drove all around town to go to a Chinese restaurant next to our hotel?" Victoria asked.  "Think this is like that?"

I swear, I was looking for a tractor to lead them under!

About six hours later, we finally came back out of the maze, their taunts and jeers notwithstanding.  And I was never, ever, lost!  There was just a lot of maze to go look at.

Just as we were getting ready to go back into the maze, Angela's feet started to hurt too much to go on.  But there was still one more maze to go!  And you know what they say: once you've started a corn maze, you've got to, uh, finish it.

So anyways, me and the bobbsey twins go to the last maze.  And this one has something special about it: six million bees.  And thankfully, no Angela to make me follow all the rules.  Yar!  Let's swear and run and swear and stray off the path and swear!

And let's also avoid the six million bees, okay?

When we get into the maze, the heckling starts again: "hey, dad, how do you know where we are without a GPS?"

It's horrible, so I do the only thing a dad really can: I prank them.

Victoria, being a pre-teen know-it-all, is walking about ten feet ahead of us and running her mouth about how lost we are, so I grab William and we just stop.  I hear her motor-mouth still blabbing as she goes ahead, and then suddenly, it all goes silent.

"Dad?" I hear from somewhere up ahead.  "Dad?  William? Where are you guys?  Dad?"

Then there's little feet running (breaking a rule!) and she comes tearing around the corner, tears almost in her eyes.  "You really scared me!"

Good times.  We forge on ahead, and it's William's turn to start up.

"That would never work on me," he says.  "You'd never get me with that trick.  I'm too smart for it.  Too clever.  I'm like a ninja!  You can't fool me with such things.  I have...oonagi!"

That goes on, for like five minutes, so I grab Victoria and we step aside.  And sure enough, he almost immediatley turns around.  "I knew you'd do that!  Give it up, old man.  I'm too much for you!  Too clever!  You're finished!  Done!  A has-been!  A never-was!"

He's keeping up this prattle as we walk, and I slow down, ever so slightly, so he and his sister both get up ahead of me.  And they take a turn up ahead, like they've been doing, and I just keep going straight (remember, I have the map).

Victoria, to her credit, sees me do it and circles around to come back to me.  Mr. Ninja Never Surprised, though, is so caught up in his victory rhapsody that he keeps going, until he realizes he's alone.

"Ha, ha."  He says as he backtracks.  "You guys know that trick won't work on me.  You're just waiting right back..."

Silence.

"Dad?"  Now there's a note of concern.  "Very funny.  Come out, dad.  Dad?  Dad?  Daaaaad!"  Now he's running around, wailing, full of concern and very worried that he's alone in the corn maze.

Victoria then runs off, I'm not sure why, and I hear this conversation and realize that she's very, very evil.

"Vic!"  He gasps gratfully.  "Where's dad?"

"I don't know," she says.  "I haven't seen him!"

"DAAAAAAAAAAAD!" he yells.  "WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!?"

And at that point I bust out laughing, and he finds me, and then proceeds to punch me with his little fists angrily, tears in his eyes.

But I didn't have to hear any more of that "I'm so ninja" crap.

As we made our way out, it's possible that I got lost, and swore, and then cut through a bunch of the part of the corn field that you're not supposed to go through, but I'd never admit that.

Because pranks are fun, Victoria decided to go prank her mother, who was sitting on a bench listening to music.  Vic snuck up behind her, and then jumped on her, but her mother never even flinched.

"How did you do that?"  Vic asked.

"I saw your shadow," Angela responded.

Now that, my friends, is some mad ninja skillz.  We were all in awe.  But I still stepped on the heel of her shoe, because I have mad prank skillz.

Once the maze fun was done, we headed over to the hayride.  Is it really a hayride without hay?  Before we started, one dude yelled out the rules, but nobody but me could hear it.

"What did he say?" Angela yells as the tractor starts rolling off into the pumpkin patch.

"He said that tops are not allowed in the pumpkin patch," I said.  "And that you should treat me better.  Really, that's what he said!"

Angela just rolled her eyes at me, but the offended woman next to her was hilarious.  Listen, lady, I been married to her for twenty years - if she can't handle that, well, it's time to just hang it all up.

Once you get out to the pumpkin patch, a bunch of slackjawed yokels gunning for tips stand around with cutters and try to get you to slip them a buck before they cut the pumpkin off the vine, like skycaps at the airport.  None of that for me - I pulled out my keys and sawed the pumpkins off WITH MY BARE HANDS!

It was like I was Arnold Swartzenegger and Edward Scissorhands all rolled into one, without the angst or the mistresses.  Or the muscles.  Or the money. 

(Or the looks, I'm told).

Plus, I got pumpkin barbs all in my hands, but I couldn't admit that because I'd already been savagely abused in the whole maze thing, but that hurt for like three days.

We returned, our pumpkins held proudly aloft (well, not really, but you get the imagery), and then when the tractor returned to the parking lot it was about ten feet from the van, which just underlined my awesome awesomeness.

So yes, I am the greatest father in the history of fatherhood!

(Author's note: it's possible that the entire idea of the pumpkin patch, corn maze, and hayride was from Angela, who found out about it and arranged the whole thing, and packed for us.  But it is true that I drove, and I was also instrumental in waking up, and I did make the hotel reservations.  And it's definintely true that I wrote this, so I'm just going to take full credit for it.)

((Plus, for the record, they're all weenies for being so difficult in the corn maze, and I should have ditched them, only I really was lost most of the time and just staring at the map and hoping that it looked like I knew where I was going.))

How not to open Corned Beef

While we were shopping last week, I happened to stroll down the canned meat aisle looking for something to supplement my steady diet of vienna sausages and beef jerky.  I'm trying this diet (think of it as Atkins-like) where carbs are restricted and I can eat all the meat I want.  It's good for me - I like meat.

Lest you call me crazy, I've lost 5-6 pounds since I started eating like this.

So anyways, I'm looking for something to eat when I spy it: a can of Corned Beef. 

Many questions come to mind immediately: do I like corned beef?  What is corned beef?  Does it have corn in it?  Is it cornish?  Why is the tin a non-symmetrical shape?

But what sealed the deal for me was that the tin had a key on it to open it.  You know, like an old timey can, which I thought was awesome.  It didn't matter if I liked corned beef or not - I was gonna buy this and eat it.  Yee-haw!

Angela's deathly ill this week (she may not make it), so I had to make my own dinner tonight, so I went to the pantry and brought out - you guessed it - my corned beef.  Excitedly, I read the directions, which said "punch hole in top of can and twist key clockwise" with a picture and everything.

Punching the hole was no problem, and in seconds I had a ventilated top.

Next I put the key on, and started twisting.  And the stupid key snapped in half.  Right in half!

No problem, I thought.  I grabbed a pair of pliers, and in a second I had ahold of the little metal tab on the side of the can.  In a few seconds, I had...ripped the rest of the tab off the side.

With my loving family laughing and pointing, I had no choice but to grab the can opener and open the can manually.  No problem, right?

WRONG!  I got the first side of the can open, but as I was navigating the angle on the can top, there was a very loud CRACK and POW and the handle of the can opener exploded and sent plast shards everywhere, including into Angela's face (which is not good for your marriage).

The can opener had been destroyed.

I went and fetched a screwdriver, a hammer, and all my best cursewords, because there was no way that I was going to allow this can to beat me.  And five minutes and six thousand swear words later, I had the can of corned beef open, and I plopped it out onto my plate.

"Gross!" said one child.  "It looks like dog food!"

You know what?  It didn't really.  Dog food looks much more appetizing.  Probably tastes better, too.

That stuff was disgusting. 

So to sum up: after one destroyed can opener and a lot of time, I discovered I don't like corned beef, and I still don't know what it is, and I also feel kind of queasy.

I think I'm going to stick to the vienna sausages, whose pop top always works.

Fun with Studying

Let's pretend that you have a daughter who is obsessed with getting good grades, and to whom getting an A- feels like failure.  Now let's pretend that this daughter receives an assignment from a teacher to do the following:

"Go home and take a bunch of sticky notes and write out facts about Mesopotamia on them, and post them in areas all around the house so that wherever you go you are reading key facts about this ancient empire."

Now let's imagine that you're a dad, and you get bored, and you're sitting here looking at sticky  notes posted all over your house (even on the milk and on the toilet!) and so you decide to do the only real logical thing:  you append a bunch of little-known facts to the bottom of the cards.

You know, things like "Ancient Mesopotamains were invaded by the Hittites, the Assyrians, and Gloria Gaynor."  Or "Common medicines were roots, herbs, and Disco Globes."

And of course Emproer Sartan founded the BeeGees.

Here's what happens: your daughter gets mad at you and says that if she gets a bad grade it's your fault.  And you get to laught maniacally and quote old disco songs until she stomps off angrily.

It's all in good fun!

The Scariest Hallowee Decoration...EVER!

Here is this year's Halloween decoration.  I like to call it "Scary Monster in a Coffin."  And lest you laugh - I challenge anybody reading this to do better!

The pictures don't do it very good justice, but here's what it looks like as seen from my yard.  We start with a closed coffin:

So you might notice that it glows quite convincingly, thanks to several layers of Glo-Paint (by Krylon!) and my handy-dandy black light.  The red lights up above are candelabras that flicker quite convincingly.  The Gothic cross is, by the way, my own handiwork.  And you can't hardly even tell that the cross isn't quite straight or centered that well. And even if you could, that'd just make it spookier!

So as you watch, thinking there's nothing to worry about, suddenly it moves!  You see that strange blur in the upper right corner?  Yeah, that's...

A SKELETAL HAND!

And suddenly the coffin bursts open, and you see that it contains a horrible monster!  But you breathe a sigh of relief as the coffin slams shut again, trapping the monster once more, until it begins to OPEN THE COFFIN AGAIN!

It's pretty rocking.

Now, I'm not going to take full credit for this.  I cut out the coffin, did the artistry, and made the monster, and put sixty-five layers of glow paint on a horned ram demon skull, but I did have somebody else do the motorwork that makes the lid open and closed.  He also made something called a "cam", who I thought was just a quarterback, but it turns out it's also something that makes coffin lids open and closed.

Who knew?

So here's the machinery that makes it all go:

Pretty sweet, huh? 

Who knows what kind of craziness I'll get up to as Halloween goes on? 

I don't want to give it away, but it involves pumpkin spiders and sunken heads...

Believe it...or not

Do you know what separates us from the animals?  Our ability to solve problems.

For instance, let's say that you like to eat peanut butter on your celery.  After you cut the celery in half, and then smear peanut butter on it, you can have up to two dirty knives (one sharp one to cut the celery, and a butter knife for the peanut butter). 

So I solved that problem using a typical human ingenuity: I just tear the celery apart and then dip it right into the peanut butter jar.  See, this is why animals are in zoos instead of people.

Now now, before you judge me, let's just realize a few things about celery: it has no taste at all, it's mostly water, and it's already straight, like a vegetable knife (the cords in it are also just like floss).

Of course, there are some people (ahem: ANGELA) who think this is wrong.  I don't really know why; I think maybe it has something to do with her general apathy towards progress.  But at any rate, this is how she chose to express her displeasure with me at dinner tonight:

"Have you been sticking the celery directly in the peanut butter?"

I mean, how do you respond to this?  So here's what I said:  "No, why do you ask?"

"Because I almost threw away the jar today because I thought it was moldy," she said.  "But then I saw it was hard, and not soft."

"Some mold is hard," I said.  "Like cheese."

"Wrong road, dad," said William.

"This wasn't mold, it was celery," she said.

"Did you notice how nice the swirl design was in the peanut butter?" I said  "You can't get designs like that with a knife.  Wasn't it nice?"

"Wrong road, dad," said William.

"If you're going to do that, could you please make sure you don't leave any celery behind?"

"I don't think I did it," I said.  "It was probably the children."

"Don't drag us into this," Victoria said.  "You're on your own."

"I promise to be more careful in the future," I said.  "Do you know where the celery is?"

But the joke's on her.  I never did admit to biting the celery off of the stalk before I dipped it into the peanut butter, which really is gross.  Not that I did that.

Revenge of Lucas

Although our grandchild might have gone, he left behind a powerful legacy, and not just the 94% that Victoria earned taking care of him.  He also left behind a powerful urge to earn extra credit in some fashion that did not involve handling a howling electronic tether.

It involved the dreaded Empathy Belly.

If you've never seen one of these things, what they do is they take fat suit, fill it up six barbells, then they punch you in solar plexus and put it on you.  Then they tell you that's what pregnancy feels like.

Back in my day, when Angela was pregnant and I said "so what does it feel like?" she just kicked me in groin.  Repeatedly.  With boots on.  Angrily. 

But I got the last laugh: I told the doctors she didn't want any painkillers when our children were born.  Who's laughing now?????

So anyways, they put about sixty five pounds on Victoria, and she of course folds up like an accordian at the laundromat.  So they took out some weight (about 60 pounds), and strapped her up, and away she went. All day the poor girl was waddling around school, huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf at a Piggy Convention, only she had to go to the bathroom a lot, so it was more like Big Bad Wolf with Bladder Problems at a Piggy Convention with Inconvenient Toilets.

On the upside, it got her out of a day of flag football, so the Empathy Belly wasn't all that bad.

She has reiterated her desire not to have children any time soon, but I told her the big payoff was that when you're really pregnant you get to feel the baby kick and move around, like when I used to feel her kick me through Angela's stomach, and then Angela would be all "that hurt!" and I'd be all "but the baby kicked my head so you have to feel sorry for me!" and then the kicking would start again, only this time Angela would join in, and I would wake up about an hour later and the house would be all dark and stuff.