The Half Eaten Burrito

My wife and I have four boys. They are all old enough to know better, but none of them are old enough to actually take responsibility for it. Life here is a series of drama's. The sock basket was one of my favorites. After washing, drying and folding laundry for 13 1/2 hours on our day off, we would usually give up when we had nothing but socks left. There they were, a huge pile of clean socks, but our minds were so fried from sorting t-shirts and boxer shorts that the socks usually just ended up in one of the laundry baskets. Every morning the drama would start.

"Mom, I need socks."
"Mom, do I have any clean socks?"
Then my favorite question would appear. "Where is the sock basket?"

When the sock basket became a standard term, I determined that the boys would start doing their own laundry from now on. Well, one of these years that will happen, really.

Taxi service. Two of the boys have started driving but only have their permits. Of course, when they got their permits, they had many more errands that needed to be run, under the ruse of being able to be behind the wheel. My wife assured me that this was necessary in order to make them be better drivers. So, after many white knuckle rides and near misses, I can now sit in the passenger seat of the car without gripping the dash so hard that it leaves marks. We do know that revenge will be sweet, when in a couple weeks they will both have their actual licenses, and they will soon tire of running to the store for milk, hamburger, and toilet paper.

That brings up another household drama. Toilet paper. Sure, with 6 people in the house, you are going to go through a lot, but there seems to be a a problem with notifying those that need to know (the parents with the jobs and checkbook) that the last sheet of paper out of the 96 roll package of super soft charmin has been used. Enough said.

Money. Of course there is the money drama. Money for school lunch, money for gum, money for pop, money for the movies, and of course, money for Taco Bell. What would we do without this Mexican extravaganza? This is a favorite place of 2 of the boys, but it cannot be called "fast food". I have never seen anyone special order a 99 cent burrito, but believe me it can be done. The most amazing thing is that I always know if there has been a trip to Taco Bell. The way I can tell is the half eaten burrito in the door of the refrigerator. One of the boys, for some odd reason, no matter how many burritos they get, cannot quite finish them all. There is always that 49 1/2 cents worth of burrito waiting to be thrown away a week later. I am convinced that if they were starving, and had not eaten for a week, and a Taco Bell burrito was offered, it would be eaten ravenously until half consumed. They would then stop and proclaim "I'm full. I think I'll save this for later."

I think I will start putting these half eaten bean creations in the freezer and bring them out at Thanksgiving. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces!

We Need More Boxes

We moved recently. Not a big move, just 10 blocks away. Well, it seems that every move is a big move, since you have to pack everything if you move 2 blocks or 2000 miles. With that said, I discovered one thing about life. Boxes.

When we first decided to move, I made a trip to the local grocery store and looked for boxes. You have to have boxes. Boxes hold everything you own. It all goes in a box. Unfortunately, due to everyone wanting to save Mother Earth, we all recycle. All the boxes that held the ketchup, cheerios and toilet paper all go to the crusher and get transformed into a nice tidy bale, so we can make something like computer paper out of it. We buy this paper because it is "Environmentally Friendly" and print off endless things that we have found on the internet. After we accumulate a pile of this wasted paper, THEN we throw it away.

Lets try the liquor store. No, that comes later, after you move. What I wanted was boxes. Not just any old box, but a box that is strong enough to hold a dozen expensive bottles of aged bourbon. That will be perfect to carry all my coffee mugs in. Luckily, they have saved boxes and allow me to take three. After getting home I try to decide which coffee mugs won't get to make the move, due to the lack of space in only three boxes.

Eventually, I visit every retail store, pharmacy, hospital (the hazardous material boxes get used for the kid's things) and anywhere I see cardboard. During my visits I discover one amazing thing. The Meaning of Life. That's right, I found it. The meaning of life is BOXES! Everything comes in boxes. Food, clothing, every single necessity. Our houses are really big boxes, cars are kind of box shaped and are essentially a container to hold us. The family dog lives in a box. We put our car in a box. Eventually, we end up in a box. Yes, at the final call, all our friends and relatives gather in a church and look at a big wooden box that is our final resting place.

Sigh....

Well, I would love to write more about this topic, really I would, but of course, we are still unpacking our boxes.

Tastes Like Chicken

The other night I got home at midnight from work. I was hungry so I went to the fridge and pulled out some leftover fried chicken. I was savoring each tasty piece. It was absolutely delicious. After I finished I got ready for bed, since it was so late. I promptly brushed my teeth and my mouth was filled with a fresh minty flavor. I crawled into bed, with only the memory of the meal I just had. Gone was the flavor of the fried chicken.

So, it made me wonder. Why mint flavored toothpaste? Why not chicken? I would much rather eat some fried chicken than have a piece of mint gum. Or roast beef, or even apple pie. Imagine going to brush your teeth and having the taste of warm homemade apple pie. At some point someone decided that mint was the flavor of fresh breath. It was probably someone that really liked mint and did just what I am suggesting. They used their favorite flavor to make a product to clean your teeth. What if that person had really liked fish? Imagine what the toothpaste industry would be like now. “Hmmm…..my teeth feel so clean, and my breath smells like salmon.”

Lets take this a step further. Candles and air fresheners. That clean smell of Lysol. What is that smell? I personally don’t care for it, but when I smell it I assume the room is clean. It is simply a signal to tell me that someone was cleaning house earlier in the day. It’s kind of like the smell of natural gas. Natural gas has no smell. That horrible odor is added to it just to protect you so you know when there is a leak.

So what would you rather smell? That clean hospital smell, or the scent of beef stew. I would opt for the beef stew any day. Nothing is better than coming home and taking in the aroma of cooking food. Sure, there are candles that smell like cookies now and pumpkin pie, but why not Thanksgiving Dinner candles. Or even Movie Theater Popcorn air fresheners? I think there is a whole untapped market here. Pick up a can of deodorizing spray, and suddenly the room smells like a fresh pot of coffee.

Cologne ,perfume and deodorant! I haven’t even mentioned that yet. You could get ready for work in the morning, leave with the taste of pepperoni pizza in your mouth, your underarms smelling like lasagna, and the fresh scent of maple syrup all over your body. Believe me, you’d be the most talked about person at the office.

Pollution

I was driving home the other day from work, a cloudy February day, listening to the radio. An “Air Quality Alert” had been issued for the day. People with breathing problems were supposed to beware, and they advised against any strenuous activities. I looked at the cars next to me as the traffic slowed to a crawl, and saw a good portion of my fellow commuters enjoying an after work cigarette. I wondered if they had heard about the alert. It would probably be a good idea for them to cut back one or two cigarettes today. I would hate to think that any heavy smoker would have trouble enjoying his lifetime habit because of the dirty air around us that day. I considered trying to take shorter breaths, to inhale less of the exhaust fumes as we passed by downtown Minneapolis, and frantically searched under my seat with one free hand for a 3M face mask that I always keep on hand for emergencies such as this.

As I drove I thought back to my childhood. Gone were the days of a heavy gray haze casting an eerie look on the tall buildings, creating awe in the mind of a small child as they passed by looking out the back window of their parents car. Now that we have been told that the haze is bad for us, we can all work ourselves into a frenzy over one more hazard in life.

I recall one of the highlights of my childhood was going with a friend and his dad in the back of his pickup, loaded with bags of trash. The pickup would travel down a small bumpy road, tossing the bags and us around in the back as we giggled and tried to hang on. You could see the black cloud rising over the hill as you approached the awesome spectacle. We would pull up to a huge pit dug in the ground. We started tossing the bags into the man made crater and looked around at the old refrigerators, furniture, and the piles of tires that were burning, creating the huge black cloud. Yes, this was the City Dump in the early 1970’s. No regulations, no rules to speak of, and plenty of carcinogens and refrigerant in the air. As we finished, I remember taking a deep breath to take in the odor of trash and burning rubber. We pulled away, once again riding in the back of the pickup, our journey completed and a childhood memory created.

As I thought of this and slowly navigated the lanes of heavy traffic, I was brought back to reality as I heard something hit my car. I looked just in time to see a chunk of soot skipping across the cars. I reached back and grabbed my spare tank of emergency oxygen and put the mask on. I cranked it up and thought how lucky we are living today.