Tag: family

Precious Cargo

Oklahoma City National Memorial at night. All lit up. Remembering those who were lost.

The day that the Murrah Building was bombed, I was in Kansas City.

I was staying at either the Hyatt Regency Crown Center or at the Westin Crown Center. They were the same. One was darker than the other, but they were the same. The hotels were linked by a pedestrian bridge that intersected a Hallmark building. Hallmark being a big deal in Kansas City.

You could walk by and watch the artists making Shoebox Cards–the funny cards–through a big window. Sometimes there’d be nobody at the desks. I guess they were on break.

When I went by that window, I was pushing a stroller that was full of a big fat baby Baby Bear. He was my traveling companion that first year of his life. He went from Boston at 10 weeks to Palm Springs at 10 months. There were two trips to Kansas City in between and maybe one after. There were likely six or eight other cities, too.

I took a new job when he was in my belly. I started on April Fools’ Day and he was born in the heat of August. My first foray into business travel with an infant was to Copley Place–I think it was a Marriott. There was some kind of pedestrian walkway there, too. My best mother-in-law ever joined me on that trip. She’d watch the Baby Bear when I was at the conference. I would ply her with the breakfast that I’d walk back from the Au Bon Pain–this was the olden days when their French roast was brewed strong and sweet, they had real cream and their bagels did not insult my New York MIL. We tried room service the first day and it was costly and crappy. Fresh coffee and bagels on the other hand, need I say more?

My assistant was in charge of shipping my breast pump. It was the size and weight of a significant car battery. My company paid the FedEx back and forth. It was cheap for all the work I was doing. Seriously. I carried the stroller on the plane. It came in handy when Grandma pushed him as she strolled downtown Boston.

We met my Bestest in Cambridge. We took the Green Line and transferred at one point to some old trolley car. We carried the stroller up the stairs of the old fashioned car, having to pause once or twice for an outburst of giggles or maybe it was hysterical cackles. This wasn’t the subway she knew in Manhattan and environs. It also bore no resemblance to the D.C. version of train that I knew. My Bestest was happy that we were city people and were up for the misadventure. My favorite part of the evening was strolling among the shops after dinner and finding the red telescope that The Big Guy wanted. MIL asked me if she could buy it for him for Christmas. I still have it.

By the time I arrived in KC, I had done a few solo gigs. My job took me to nice hotels and I’d find a sitter via the concierge. I bet I didn’t tip her well enough–but I also bet I mentally excused myself since I couldn’t expense this big expense. I’d go to sessions, give some presentations and build business during the day. I’d usually skip the socials. I didn’t need a glass of wine. Baby Bear was hungry. And I was mostly exhausted.

Did I tell you what a great traveler he was? People would see me get on the plane with a laptop on one shoulder and a fat baby and bright blue diaper bag on the other. Usually their faces would fall. Especially when they saw me edge toward their seat. The Bear didn’t cry. He didn’t fuss. He’d have his meal and read books with me, except when he was making friends with the person in the seat behind us. My neck muscles elongated like a ballerina’s as I looked over my shoulder at him and his newest friend(s).

The day there was “weather” in Dallas and we were diverted to San Antonio, we sat on the tarmac for three hours. After the first hour, the flight attendants let us all loose. They brought out those little bottles filled with fire water and dug out the remaining cold burritos to keep us happy. Other passengers were shocked that there was a baby on this hell-flight. Frankly, he was having a great time. Better than the ansty adults who entertained themselves by passing him around.

But on that day in April, we were in Kansas City. I didn’t know anything about big federal buildings and the regional fed hubs. That morning, I ordered room service and put on the TV. I didn’t have anyplace to be. I held Baby Bear close to me and sobbed. And sobbed. Downtown Kansas City was uneasy. There are plenty of federal buildings and nobody knew if their would be more attacks.

I put the sweet Bear in his stroller and we walked from one of the hotels, across the link and past the Hallmark artists and through the mall to the other hotel. I don’t know if we started or ended at the W-hotel or the H-hotel. But we went back and forth more than once. We stopped and looked through the glass wall surrounding the bridge. We saw very very wide and very very empty roads below us. I wasn’t scared, but I thought about it. Being scared, that is.

Mostly, though, I thought about those babies who would never grow up. But I couldn’t think about their parents. I still can’t. I don’t know if I could get myself out if I did. My Baby Bear is a young man. I weep for the parents who never got to know their babies as kids and tweens and teens and young adults.

Fuck Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Bastards.

But I can’t end on that thought. No. They aren’t the story.

I will thank the amazing first responders who walked into that horror. To the people of Oklahoma City who were almost all touched by this tragedy, I’m awed by your resilience. And to the families who lost so much, I am so sorry. Those who you loved so well are still remembered.

And a grateful hug to my Baby Bear. I am counting my blessings through a reprise of tears.

Posted on by docthink 2

Monkey Shines

Trees at the subway. Washington DC

The boy dropped his dad’s hand at the top of the escalator. He was barely a boy, really, more like just-past baby. It was the end of the day and the rush hour throng was thinning. They, the boy and his dad, had just walked the half-mile from school.

School was what they called where he spent his day. The curriculum was directed by the kids. It included many games that they made up, some reading of stories, much playing outside and eating. The boy liked the eating. He liked the other parts, but he liked the eating.

They would cut through the subway on the way home, coming down the escalator on the west side, walking underneath the tracks and out the other side up the escalator. The boy liked to run through the in between tunnel with his dad.

It was early spring so the shadows were long. The boy wore his green zip up fleece. It wasn’t a bright green, more like a pine green. The cap that he wore over his titian hair was a contrasting blue. This blue was between light blue and aqua blue. More blue than green and more bright and vibrant than light. His cap was also fleecy, but baseball style. It sat on his head with the bill a bit to the left, not centered over his nose.

His nose had the mark of a run-in with a tree. A few days before, he was running–he ran a lot–and forgot to look where he was going. A tree reminded him of where he was. You could still see where the tree stopped him, but the wound was covered with a brown scab on his otherwise smooth, porcelain skin.

He took off down the sidewalk. He ran past the double metal fence that created an unnecessary walkway that only kids used. He didn’t use it today. He ran around it. He didn’t see that the cherry trees lining the walkway were starting to bud. He buzzed past the low evergreen shrubs. They weren’t low to him, though. He couldn’t see above them. Maybe that’s why he missed the cherries behind them.

He ran toward the street, but there was no worry that he would run out into it. He was going to his tree. His dad lengthened his step and reached the tree just as the boy was climbing one of the low branches. The old tree trunk was almost split, so the boy didn’t have to struggle to find his place in it’s arms. This was an apple tree–maybe crabapple–so it was behind the cherry trees in blooming. He perched himself in the tree, about four and a half feet above the ground.

“Daddy, I’m Hans the monkey. And this is my Hans tree.”

Nobody knew where the name Hans came from. There were no monkeys named Hans in his books or in his songs or in his movies. None of his friends or relatives had the name Hans. But there he was, Hans the Monkey, nesting in the tree.

He was close to face level with his dad, as his dad sidled up under the tree and placed his face near his. They shared some nonsense and then his dad started to walk up the rise to the street.

“Come on, Hans.”

The little monkey scampered down the tree and grabbed his dad’s hand. They walked the rest of the way home.

Nobody ever asked who Hans was. That would break the spell.

Posted on by docthink 0

I Swear

An F-bomb

My favorite video from the past few weeks was former Presidente de Mexico, Vicente Fox, dropping the F-bomb on Fox Business News in relation to a proposed construction project.

He was responding to a question by the reporter and did not intend to be misunderstood. He spoke clearly and deliberately. He began by pausing dramatically before hissing out the “f”-sound. He emphasized the harsh middle K sound and then punctuated the ending of the word with a guttural G from the back of his throat.  [He used the gerund form of the F-word.] His enunciation was excellent.

Language fascinates me. I can barely speak my native tongue, and to hear others glibly communicate in more than one language puts me in awe. I notice this especially when non-native English speakers use colloquialisms, and, especially, when they curse.

Now I learned to curse, as my children after me, from my mother. One day, when The Big Guy was seven, he was standing with her on the back deck as they observed the dog taking a crap. She casually remarked to him, “Boy, that dog sure does shit a lot.” I think she was impressed with that specific movement’s volume. The Big Guy knew that “shit” was a word not used by or around his other grandmother and most nice old people–especially old people at school. My mother followed with, “I guess all that shit is good for the lawn.” [We never had a dog growing up, so she didn’t have a good reference. She was just a city girl making farmer conversation.] I’m not sure if The Big Guy was more shocked or more impressed.

I didn’t, however, learn the F-word from her. I really didn’t have much exposure to it until I got to college. I was a quick learner, though, and immediately incorporated it into my cursing repertoire. I may have been a bit too facile in my adoption, but so be it.

It’s impressive to hear different accents and different English proficiencies deliver the F-bomb. A friend from a Spanish-speaking Caribbean island brilliantly described the potential of having her folks and her in-laws in town together at Christmas using FML, not the acronym but the words. Perfection.

A colleague with only a hint of her first twenty years in Moscow frequently asks about the meaning of English slang, but she definitely knows when something is Eff’d-up. I know this because she expresses it with the perfect lowering of her voice a half-octave because she means it.

Maybe it doesn’t really count when Irish friends use it. You’ll hear more feck than the short-U sound, but the longer they live in the States, the less feck you hear. I always delight in hearing a well delivered F-U from the Irish.

When I hear French or French Canadian use of the American F-word, mon Dieu! So bon! [Yes, I did that on purpose.] There is a speed or an acceleration of this short short word that isn’t heard with other non-US speakers. I have heard it usually as an insult, or accompanied by a frustrated throw of something to the ground.

I must say that I have never, and I mean never ever, heard the F-word misused by anyone. Ever. Not everyone uses it, but if they do, they do it right.

Maybe you just can’t get it wrong.

Posted on by docthink 1

The Result of a Fundamental Disagreement

Nobody loves your kid like you do.

No. Bod. Dee. So

  • Don’t expect people to want to kiss their snot encased visage. You might be able to look beyond it. Others see green–literally. Don’t put your kid’s face expectantly in mine.
  • Don’t be angry when someone begs off from listening to your child play their musical instrument. Even if they are objectively good (which isn’t that likely) your guests may not want their conviviality interrupted. Even if it is Mozart that is being attempted played. Even at your house. Unless you invited us to a recital, and we had the chance to beg off in advance. No fair bundling your concert with a traditional family get-together, unless you don’t care if we aren’t paying attention and downing shots in the other room.
  • Multiply the negativity above by about one-thousand if the sharing entails a video and people are asked to stop everything, shush, and watch. Shush!
  • An exception is if you are passing around your iPhone with a < 30 second video of something that is funny or is an at-the-buzzer game winning 3-point shot. But only twenty-nine seconds or less. Get to the punchline. Don’t say, “Oh wait, you gotta see this, too.”
  • You want to bring your extraordinarily precocious and mature child you to that adults only event? Don’t ask if it’s okay to bring her or him if “No” will piss you off. That’s not really a choice. You don’t get credit for asking if all you will accept is validation of your parental desire.
  • Movies, let’s go there. Unless it’s a kids’ movie, get a damn babysitter. Their stage whispered cute comments are not what I paid for. Also, they’re only cute to you. See first line in this post.
  • At a sporting event, you bring your children. That’s cool. Other people are not as aware of your kids and their needs as you are. This is especially true in crowds. Your kids are short. They are unusual features of a crowd. They are frequently not seen. I’m not saying stay home, I’m just saying it is what it is. You have to be careful for them, not the strangers. It’s on you if they are jostled or hear curse words. These people left their kids for a reason. They’re off duty.

Let me be clear. I really like your kids. I will make goo-goo faces at them on the subway just to elicit a toothless grin. The drunken old man walk of a toddler really tickles me. I like to sit next to the parent on the plane with the screaming kid to reassure them that not everyone hates them at that moment. Been there.

I watch and like your posts with your adorbs kids on Facebook all the time. I even share some of them. And, it is a known, that I am bonkers for my kids.

But, bottom line, nobody loves your kids like you do.* You shouldn’t be disappointed, mad or rage-quit because of this true fact.

* [Except maybe grandparents. Okay, got me there. This post also applies to them.]

Posted on by docthink 0

Moshi Moshi

old fashioned rotary phone with the reciever off the hook.

It’s over. I killed the landline.

It was pretty much a waste of budget since nobody has used it in years. We kept the account for Internet–a sluggish DSL service that we never bothered to upgrade because of my absolute HATE for Comcast and because FIOS isn’t an option in our part of Ward 5.

But even after we switched to grown-up Internet, I kept the landline. I said it was because I was being lazy. It was really because I was being sappy.

This was the phone number we had when we we were first married. I put my office number on the invitations to the Spouse’s surprise party and reminded our guests that it would be extraordinarily bad for them to leave a message on our answering machine at home. Only one person did. I don’t think we know them anymore.

This was the line that the Spouse used to tell his Mom that we were going to have a baby. He was instructed to pass the phone over to me. She told me that she didn’t believe him and that she needed to hear it directly from me. Then she whooped.

This was the line that traveled with us from our first house to our current house that delivered more than one conversation with teachers–and more than one conversation with the principal. I dreaded the phone ringing at six o’clock.

This was the line that The Big Guy proudly broadcast his armpit fart version of the ABCs as I sat on the side of the bed in my room on the 33rd floor in a Chicago hotel. The Other Parent had to assist. I pictured the receiver being held inches from his skinny ribs as he went all the way through to X-Y-Z. I don’t remember if that was the call when The Big Guy complained that the Other Parent kept messing up the lunches, but that happened, too. I tucked my boys in via that line every night I was on the road.

This was the line that was attached to the answering machine to which my Sibling delivered a remarkable screed that could be a totally different post except I don’t want to go there. Suffice it to say that I am sorry I wasn’t the first person to hear that message, and I am most sorry that was a very bad turn for us.

This was the line that I would pick up and answer questions about my music preferences, give my opinion of local politicians, take a CDC vaccination survey, test messages with the PR firm for the electric company, and, my favorite, spend time with a stranger talking whiskey. She asked, “When was the last time you drank whiskey?” and I truthfully responded, “about five minutes ago.” The next twenty minutes were hysterical as I asked her to repeat the five choices on the Likert scale almost every time.

A landline is very quaint. It is from a time before we all had our own personal communications devices. It was a shared resource. It created obligations. If I answered the phone I was duty-bound to “take a message.” I had to make sure that it was passed on. My children have never taken a message.

This landline stopped being of any import probably nine or ten years ago. It didn’t bring the news of my parents’ deaths. It didn’t keep me in touch with The Spouse when I was in the hospital. It didn’t participate when someone made the call from the police department. Nobody left messages on it anymore–especially since robocalls don’t count.

I’ve had the same cell number for about fifteen years. I think that everyone who needs to get me has that new number. And now, the old one is gone.

I dialed the old number. I am not sure why. A lady that I didn’t know answered.

The number you have dialed, 2-0-2-2-6-9-3-0-6-5 has been disconnected. No further information is available.

Goodbye.

Posted on by docthink 0

Wedded Abyss

FLOTUS and POTUS looking fly.

I hear that The Spouse and I look amazingly happy on Facebook. One friend asked me, “How could two people be so ‘lovey-dovey’?”

And I’m all like, “So you think I’m gonna to post pictures of us fighting?”

That would be the most vainglorious of selfies. Imagine me: eyes bulging, spit flying from angry lips, hair akimbo’d by angry electrical pulses emitting from my head? And The Spouse with a sneer, egging on my insane wrath with an infuriating indifference.

Yeah, let me just whip out the camera for that one.

Seriously, that day I yelled The Spouse out of the house? I’m running barefoot down the porch steps after the jeep, hurling profanity as it drives away leaving me standing in the middle of the street with no target for my denigration but plenty of fuel to continue the tirade.

Nope. No camera for that one either. And, let me tell you, if someone else filmed it, I sure as hell would not post it, tag us and type #LOL with a smiley emoji.

So, I can’t tell you if two people can have a sustained level of the “lovey-dovies.”
You never know what actually goes on between two people. We’ve had friends who shocked us all when they announced their divorce. Contrast that with me and The Spouse whose friends have likely been waiting on our announcement–all bets off for decades now.

Makes me think about the fetishized relationship between Michelle and Barack Obama. People project their ideals of a “good marriage” on the first couple. They’re so in love. They have a great relationship. They have such a great time together. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I expect that sometimes they disagree and may even find the other disagreeable. I bet that more than once someone has been accused by the other of being inconsiderate or even selfish. I would not be surprised if there’s an occasional few hours, or even few days, when iciness surrounds home and hearth, when two people are in the same room and are not together. Somebody may harbor uncharitable thoughts. Someone may even voice them.

Does that make the relationship a bad one? A good one? I don’t know, but it sounds like a real one.

I don’t want a marriage like the Obamas’–or anyone else’s. I have enough trouble with the one I have. The one that’s mine. That’s ours. That’ll do.

Posted on by docthink 0

Ever After?

old fashioned bride and groom cake topper

My parents didn’t go to my Sib’s wedding.  Mom boycotted and Dad wasn’t crossing her pickett line.

I’ve always given Dad a bit of a pass on this, holding Mom more accountable in this ugliness. Because it’s ugly when parents don’t show to a child’s wedding.

The entire scenario had many missteps that played themselves out in the worst ways possible. A secret romance, an inability to tell the secret, and a toxic build up of resentment and expectations and disappointment. I’m not quite sure that there was ever an actual invitation. But everyone knew.

I was assigned the making of the meatballs. I had finals that week and the following week. My Sib asked for a couple hundred of my “famous” meatballs. Really not famous other than it was one of the things I could cook. It was literally the least I could do, so since not much was asked, I made the meatballs.

I was a broke student. I didn’t have any dress clothes that weren’t a costume.  I borrowed my friend’s dress. It was a simple heavy cotton t-shirt fabric with a boat neck and green and pink and yellow stripes. It was as dressy as we could find. It wasn’t my best look. (I never returned the dress. I never wore it again, either. It hung in my closet for years.) I did have some pretty shoes, though.

My boyfriend and I drove the VW Superbeetle into town. I think we went right to the church. We helped a little with the set up. Warming up the meatballs. Setting out some favors. Not much. My Sibs, the one who was getting married and the one that lived at home with her and the parents who were not scheduled to attend, and the bridesmaids did most of the lift.

This is my memory and my story, and I know that I don’t have many of the details. I was busy and self-absorbed and living away. The main story is not mine.

Others can likely remember with more clarity and more particulars and much more flavor. Others experienced their own feelings–their own sadness and incredible joy. But I mostly remember two things.

We sat in the front row, on the bride’s side of the church. It wasn’t our church. I’m not sure it was the groom’s church, but it was a church. I sat in the row with my Other Sib and our respective boyfriends. Nobody else from our family attended. Not one of my father’s eight siblings or their families. Not one of my mother’s six siblings or their families.

My Other Sib and I were pretty sure that Dad would come. We were definite that Mom would remain absent. But Dad wouldn’t let his daughter down. We waited in our seats and our Sib appeared at the back of the church. She had a pretty ring of flowers, a crown, in the curls of her hair. Still no Dad.

She was on the arm of some short old man that we had never seen before. He was spry enough. I guess this stranger was going to give my Sib away. It really should be Dad. I exchanged glances with the Other Sib who was having the same thought.

I guess there had been music the entire time, but I didn’t notice until this weird little guy was walking my Sib down the aisle. I looked beyond them to the door of the church. This is the time when the man who belongs there walks in and takes her arm and does his job and there are tears of joy and relief that all is well.

Instead I was standing there like Princess Buttercup in the Princess Bride. When she believes that she was married and her true love did not come and save her.

CUT TO: BUTTERCUP standing there. Dazed.

BUTTERCUP: “He didn’t come.”

He let my Sib down. He let us all down. He was supposed to come and save our hearts from breaking. Instead they felt trampled, even as my Sib was saying her vows. He didn’t come. There was no Hallmark moment.

But it was still a wedding. A time for dancing and drinking and meatball eating. There was a lot of food in addition to my two-hundred homemade meatballs. There was garter throwing and bouquet tossing (this was the beginning of my streak of 5 catches). And at the end of the night, we helped clean up. 

The Other Sib’s boyfriend was the D.J. for the night. One guest was especially stewed and didn’t want the evening to end. She kept requesting one song again and again in her drunken slur.

Turn the Page.

Turn the Page.

Turn the Page.

Turn the Page.

That’s the other thing I remember. Turn the Page.

After the sweeping and storing, I kissed my Sibs goodnight, and me and my boyfriend got back into the Beetle and drove back to school.

 

 

Posted on by docthink 0

Food Affairs

dark chocolate squares. yum

I had a boss once who didn’t like food. He had the palette of a 4-year-old.

He’d eat spaghetti with 70s-style Ragu™ sauce that was most likely corn starch, corn syrup solids and red dye no. 2 and yellow dye no. 6. No meat product. No mushrooms. No chunks of anything. Nothing but a red-ish orange coating on well cooked starch.

He’d eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, too. Always creamy peanut butter. Always grape jelly, since preserves or jams had an unpleasant texture–which for him was any texture. It was important to him to be healthy, so he spread the peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread, soft wheat bread. He was proud of himself when he tried quiche. He liked it. We’d joke and call it egg pie. He called himself sophisticated.

The guy took no pleasure out of food. He ate to live.

I was thinking about the relationships we have to food. His relationship would be considered a good one by many. Food had no power over him. It was not imbued with a special meaning. It gave him no reward. It wasn’t a treat. It was fuel.

I sent Baby Bear some chocolates with a request to be his Valentine. I sent it as a gift. I sent it because I love him. I sent some common chocolate and some better chocolate.

The common chocolate is good. It’s a quick hit of sweet and crunch. The chocolate wraps around a cookie wafer. The combination is good. You might hold the candy between your fingers as you bite it, and if you’re slow, it leaves some residue that you lick off. It can incite a smile.

The better chocolate is richer and darker. It has some sweet. It has some layers of bitter, too, like cherry coffee beans. When you bite it there is a satisfying snap. If you let it sit on your tongue it begins to break down. It becomes thick and creamy and swirly. There is a richness, a mouthfeel that helps you remember it after it melts away.

When you share the chocolate with someone–especially the better chocolate–you look at each other and say, “mmmmmm.” You might slightly close your eyes as you savor it.

I love food. I raised my kids to love food. And we love it together. We reward ourselves with a good dinner or maybe even ice cream. It wasn’t so much used as a bribe, but we would use circumstance as a justification to take pleasure in the taste and experience of food. A good report card was an excuse for Momma’s Fried Chicken. And a birthday was a reason to make paella for a table full of his friends. It’s making it sometimes. Or buying it sometimes [this one was REALLY good].

It’s definitely not about volume, but it is about consuming and enjoying. Both at the same time. In some books this is not a healthy relationship with food.

I smell the onions and garlic in a tomatoey sweet homemade sauce. It’s chunky and spicy and full of good fats and hot Italian sausage. The Spouse is making it. We will sit down and eat it. He made it for me. It makes me feel loved. We are living to eat.

I know. I’m doing it wrong, again.

 

Posted on by docthink 0

Cheesey Post

burnt grilled cheese sandwich in a picture wit a nice filter. I didn't make or take this.

It was pretty much guaranteed there’d be Kraft Singles in the deli drawer. Processed cheese product, Pepperidge Farm soft whole wheat bread and butter was my the three ingredient go-to dinner when I didn’t feel like cooking.

Grilled cheese sandwiches. Crunchy on the outside, melted goo on the inside. I would put butter on both sides of the bread so the cheese would be buttery as well.

Balancing the buttered bread as I assembled the sandwiches was the hardest part. (This worked out poorly if I left the butter in the fridge. I usually kept it on the countertop. Except for that time period when the dog was on his butter diet. The other dog, when the kids were young.)

I’d butter two pieces of bread and lay the cheese in, put the bread together, then butter the top. I’d flip the top to the bottom when I put it on the grill and butter the piece that was now on top.

Actually, buttering the sandwich really wasn’t the hardest part. Fact is, I would regularly burn the grilled cheese. The toast would be black and gross on one side. Sometimes both sides, but usually after I burned one side I’d be much more mindful and avoid burning the other. I’d scrape the bad side and serve it burnt side down. Artful presentation can go a long way. They’d still notice, though.

Fact is, burnt isn’t always the same. Sometimes it just burns right at the surface–just the coating of butter. It looks bad but tastes fine. The bread under the crust is soft and the cheese nicely melted and buttered. Sometimes it’s burnt through so the bread is hard and shiny like plastic and you know this because someone at the table knocked on it like a door with a little knuckle to prove it’s lousy. When you bite in, it definitely does not taste fine.

Because of the latter disasters, the kids would not trust that the former could occur. Always twice shy, they began to turn the sandwich over on the plate to see if it was actually burnt. Woe unto me that it was not good. To make it through dinner, I’d take the one that looked most burnt. It was fine. Almost always.

And that’s what I’d do when I did not want to cook dinner.

I think I may have burnt this one as well. It will be better next time. Probably.
<

Posted on by docthink 0

Tasting Sweet, Seeing Green

A Monkees record on a Honey Combs cereal Box. I think I had this one.

When we were little there used to be cool toys in cereal boxes (and in boxes of Cracker Jack, too, when Cracker Jack came in boxes versus bags). The toys in my childhood cereal boxes were like toys kids get in a Happy Meal except they were always plastic. Sometimes you get a stuffed toy in a Happy Meal. Never in a cereal box.Occasionally there would be a record manufactured right into the cereal box. We’d cut it out and try and play it in the red Close N’Play. It always–and I mean every time–was unplayable. But we’d act like we could make out the tune because it was a record, and it was ours.

Usually the prize was inside of the box. The box also housed a highly-sugared, highly-manufactured grain like Cap’n Crunch (I’d pick out the crunch berries if Mom got that kind), Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks (my definite fav) Frosted Flakes or Lucky Charms (of which the commercials were significantly superior to the cereal. Yea, even at those times).

Okay. I admit that I ate all the cereal that I would never buy my own kids. Guilty as charged.

The giveaways in the cereal boxes were featured in the ads during the Saturday morning cartoons. No. Seriously. There used to be a time in which kids didn’t have cartoons on demand. We had to wait until Saturday mornings for our cartoon binges. I’m not making this up.

Anyway, when we’d open a new box of cereal, we’d immediately flip the box over to see the prizes featured on the back. There would always be pictures of the prize inside. Sometimes the prize would have wheels, sometimes the pieces of the prize had to be disengaged from plastic that held all the pieces inside a cellophane bag and sometimes the prize had a rubber band so that you could launch something. To be clear, we never put an eye out. Dad did, more than once, step on a toy wherein it would be embedded in his foot. So it’s not like these prizes were without danger.

We–us three kids–came up with the rules on who got the prize. At first, someone would dig through the box and just grab it. Possession nine-tenths being what it is and whatnot. There was some coming to blows with this method. Grabbing the box. Fighting over the box. Just sneaking the box. Punches and sometimes tears.

We needed something new.

The next method was that when you poured the cereal, if the prize fell into your bowl, you got to keep it. This seemed beautifully random. Except it wasn’t. There was some maneuvering of the box, shaking to one side to unearth the toy and unfair joggling and manipulation. This technique soon came into disuse, likely because of blows being had.

There had to be a better way.

Turns out that their was almost always different toys in each promotion. There would regularly be three color options for the toy. Almost always blue, green and yellow. We used this to create a system that effectively avoided blows. When we got the box, each of us would select a preferred color and whatever color the toy was, whenever it appeared, we knew who it belonged to.

We went one step further and standardized on a selection order–by age. I was in the middle, so I was okay and the youngest was just happy to be in the game.

So for years I thought that my favorite color was green because the Oldest Sib would always always always always select the blue toy. And nobody wanted the yellow toy. So I would select the green and made myself feel good by deciding that it was my favorite color anyway. The Youngest Sib got dibs on the unwanted yellow.

Eighty or ninety or even 100 percent of the time there would be a yellow toy in the cereal box. So the Youngest Sib, despite not making a choice, made out well. And, most importantly, there was no coming to blows anymore.

Cereal boxes do not have good toys anymore. Even though I don’t buy the crap cereal that I grew up on, I still nostalgically look at the boxes. No toys. Those times are over. The other time that is over is the time in which kids would figure out what they decided was fair–without any parental meddling.

And, in case you were wondering my real favorite color is red.

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