What’s eating me



My wife and mother-in-law made chili the other night. It was perfect timing, too. The weather was cold and I had been working outside all day. It just flat hit the spot.

But while I was eating, I noticed my wife and all three kids putting tons of crackers in their bowls. I’m sure they’ve always done that, although what made me notice it now I don’t know.

Seeing my wife eat something quirky didn’t surprise me any. When we first started dating I remember her dipping a French fry in mayonnaise. And I’m afraid that it’s rubbed off on my son. One day he and I were eating barbecue and he started dipping his Funyuns in barbecue sauce. The little weirdo.

Me? I’m a one-cracker-at-a-time kind of guy. I like Saltines with my chili just like any other guy, but every other bite or so I want to taste just the chili by itself. Of course, that’s not to say that I don’t have a couple of odd eating habits myself.

For instance, I’ve already mentioned my hamburger fetish. I can’t stand when I order a burger and the vegetables are underneath the meat. Since the beginning of time people have understood that the meat goes on bottom when you make a hamburger. Why it’s changed in the last few years is beyond me, but when I get it served like that I have to take it all apart and fix it.

Another weird thing I’ve noticed myself doing lately is color coordinating my M&M’s or Skittles. The greens go with the greens, the reds with reds, etc. I always make the colors come out even before I start eating one from each stack, and I don’t like to mix them up.

The same goes with food on my plate. I don’t mind if the mashed potatoes and some kind of meat touch each other, but every other food group is off limits. The corn can’t sneak over to the green beans, the bread or roll can’t touch the broccoli, and I prefer to have a whole separate plate altogether for the salad.

It’s a little different, I know. But if you think that is bad, my wife knows a girl who wraps her tamales with a piece of bread covered with mayonnaise before eating them. That’s one of the worse things I’ve ever heard of. I even made her swear she wasn’t making that story up.

And it gets crazier than that. I heard some famous guy- can’t remember who he was- say in a radio interview the other day that he’s never had a condiment. He’s never tasted mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, salt or pepper (other than when a restaurant cooks with it). Salad dressing is included, also.

Can you imagine never tasting ketchup? That’s crazy. And without mustard, how the Hell does he eat a corny dog? As far as salt goes, I wouldn’t know what food without salt even tastes like. I pour it on everything that isn’t sweet.

Now, mayonnaise I could do without I think. I like a little Miracle Whip every now and then on a ham sandwich, but I don’t have to have it.

My wife, however, is a different story. Where else would she dip her fries?

New year, new jeans



So my wife wanted to go out for New Year’s Eve. She wanted to go to a country music concert at a big dance hall in Bryan. So far, we’re 0-2 on things I like to do.

First of all, I can’t stand going out on New Year’s Eve. It’s too dangerous, if nothing else. Every idiot who hasn’t drank a beer all year long wants to go get drunk that night. Then most of them get in a car and drive.

Secondly, I hate concerts. We went to go see Kevin Fowler sing. Now, we’ve already seen Kevin Fowler once before. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan. In fact, I’ve got most of his songs on my iPod already. That’s why I don’t understand the decision to pay money to see him sing the same songs that I already have… again.

But, my wife works hard and hardly ever asks me to do anything, so I agreed to go. “I’m going to need a new pair of jeans for the concert, because all of mine are work jeans,” I told her. “Next time you are in Bryan, pick me up a pair.” And I should have known better.

We’ve been through this before. I like my jeans to be a little faded, while she likes them to be the nerdiest blue that they make.

And sure enough, the two pair that she came back with were too blue. One pair, bless her heart, were evidently made for a 13 year old skinny kid. They were a couple of inches from even fitting too tightly.

The second pair were so blue that they looked dirty. And way too tight all the way down the legs. “Lora, these are horrible,” I complained.

“They are in style,” she said.

“So is wearing your phone on a little hip holster. You don’t see me doing that, do you?” But I wrestled the jeans on and went on my way.

Once we got to the dance hall, I went to order us a couple of drinks. And I don’t know why, but the price of beer gets me every time in these places. I ordered three beers, gave the lady a $10 bill, and she had the nerve to give me a dollar back. Three dollars per beer. I’m sorry, but the last time I had a beer that was worth three dollars I had just unloaded 150 bales of hay in a stuffy barn. Ironically, beer was about $1.25 a bottle back then.

The only other complaint I had about the night- and it’s really more of an observation rather than a complaint- is that I can’t get used to seeing cameras in a bar. Nowadays, folks break out the camera phones, take pictures, and put them on Facebook or Twitter within seconds. People walk around posing all night long.

I grew up in a beer joint, and I’m telling you if you would have pulled out a camera and started snapping pictures back when I was a kid your fingers would have been broken off. Bars don’t have windows for a reason, folks.

But all in all I guess it was a good night. We got home safe, none of the bubbas got rowdy and fought each other, and I woke up the next morning without a terrible headache… just no circulation in my legs from the tight jeans.

Answer to a burning question



Know what I’ve been doing a lot of so far this winter? Sitting by the fire, just staring at it and thinking. Know what I’ve been thinking about? I’ve been wondering why I like to sit and stare at a fire and think so much. I don’t know why, but a fire just mesmerizes me for some reason.

And we don’t even need a fire, really. My wife and mother-in-law keep the temperature gauge in my house set on Hell most of the time, so it’s not like the fire is keeping us warm on a cold night. And if we were using it for heat, nothing but the front living room would get any use out of it.

I went to a few Christmas parties this year, and had a good time at all of them. But by far my best time was standing outside with a buddy at one of the parties, drinking a couple of beers and cooking sausage on an open flame in a fire pit that he made on the ground. There’s just nothing like a fire.

But I can’t figure out what, exactly, it is. Maybe it goes back to the caveman days, and building a fire symbolizes that you are a man. Hell I don’t know.

Growing up I read a lot of Louis L’Amour westerns. He used to say that traveling cowboys would build a fire whether they used it to cook with or not, or whether it was cold outside or not. They used a fire to keep them company. To fight off the loneliness, like a friend.

I promise you, that isn’t the case with me. I live with a wife, three kids, and a mother-in-law. I’ve got my family, my wife’s family, and my wife’s friends stopping by my house every three minutes whether I want them to or not. So trust me, I ain’t lonely.

Speaking of my wife, she hates my fires. Oh she says she doesn’t, but whenever she walks in the house I can see the look of hatred on her face when she looks at the fireplace. “I don’t exactly hate the fires,” she says. “It just gets kind of smoky in here sometimes. And the whole house smells like burning wood.”

Please. I’ve been married to the woman for 12 years- I know the look of hatred when I see it. And anyway, why wouldn’t you want your house to smell like burning wood. After some of the smells that those three kids have created over the past 11 years, you’d think burning wood would be a treat to her.

And whatever it is about loving fires, it must be hereditary because my son loves them too. He can’t get enough of that fireplace, just like me. One of my favorite things is when I let him build the fire, and see the pride he has in his eyes when the flames are a foot tall.

We kneel down, right in front of the fireplace, and watch log after log burn. Sometimes he even puts his head on my shoulder, but I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it.

It’s one of the few things that both of us really enjoy together. He’s too young to love poker and watch a whole football game all the way through, and I’m too old to sit through one of these t.v. shows he watches or play games with him on the computer. But we can sit and watch a fire all day long, just me and him.

Come to think of it, maybe I just realized why I like fires so much.

I’m in hot water (finally)

Okay, I think it’s well documented that I’m not one of those handy-around-the-house kind of guys. I don’t like fixing things when they break. My first line of defense is to usually just ignore whatever is wrong for as long as I can. If that doesn’t work, I try to act like I don’t have the time to fix it because of work or something, so I have to pay someone else to do it.

But every so often the excuses don’t work, and I end up having to actually work on something around the house. That happened this past weekend- and as usual, it wasn’t pretty.

One night last week I stepped out of the shower and heard water shooting from the hot water heater. My first thought was to try and nurse it until after the holidays, but when I opened the closet door it was pretty clear that wasn’t going to happen. It was like I had a car wash in my closet.

I learned a couple of things about myself the next evening. First, I learned that I don’t like cold showers. Secondly, I learned that I might have a future in opera. You know the ones that sing so high pitched that they can make glass shatter? Well, turns out I can do that whenever I step underneath cold water.

And trust me folks- if you think Christmas is tight around your house, try replacing one of these bad boys a week before the big day. Luckily, I had a little help. Not paying for it help, but taking the old one out and replacing it help. I woke up Saturday morning, and my brother-in-law had showed up to lend me a hand.

Now keep in mind that Friday night my wife and I attended a Christmas party, a very, very fun Christmas party. And, well, let’s just say I partook in the festivities rather abundantly. So I wasn’t really feeling my best Saturday morning.

Well, it turns out that replacing it wasn’t going as smooth as it should (things like that never do). I guess I might have fallen out of the Christmas spirit a little throughout the day. You know the old cusswords that your uncles and grandfather taught you to say? Well, those weren’t good enough for me Saturday. I actually invented a couple of them on my own.

Nothing was fitting, or working, or holding tight. The guy at the hardware store finally just kept my credit card in his wallet to save time. I have to be the only guy you know that started off with no hot water, and ended up with no water at all.

And when I finally did get the water heater in, the water wouldn’t come out of the kitchen sink. By then my brother-in-law had left, but luckily my neighbor saw me wandering around in the alley talking to myself and came to help. Before long he had the problem figured out, and my family and I were taking hot showers again.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this- since we are a few days away from Christmas, I’m very grateful for good family and good neighbors.

Oh, and hot water.

Prince Dreamy?



My wife told me about a dream that she had the other night. She dreamed that she was dating the Prince, and they were at a water park with one of her coworkers. At the end of the date they jumped on a motorcycle and rode off into the sunset.

“Let me get this straight,” I teased her. “You dreamed you were dating Prince William, and all y’all did was go to a water park? I’m not buying that one.”

“Well, not exactly,” she said. “It wasn’t Prince William. It was the dad, Prince Charles.”

The only word I could come up with was “eeww.” He’s old, has terrible teeth, and by most accounts is a jerk. Why in the heck would she dream about him?

But hey, I know that dreams are sometimes weird. I’ve had a few dreams myself over the years that didn’t make much sense.

I remember one Easter morning when I was eight or nine years old and I had a dream that I saw hundreds and hundreds of rabbits in our back yard. It was so real that I swear I could reach out and grab one of those rabbits. And the disappointment when I woke up was staggering.

Years later I dreamed that Don Johnson (from Miami Vice) and I had a shoot-out with a couple of bad guys on the East side of town here. I can still remember that dream as if it happened last night- from the cool clothes and shoes without socks, to the guns used, right down to the guys we were trying to take down.

The last vivid dream I can recall came about five years ago. It involved Katie Couric (back when she was still fun and bubbly), a Sexy Santa outfit, and the Wall Street Journal. Of course, telling you about it would be stupid because it’s too cold for me to sleep outside.

Anyway, I got to thinking about my wife’s dream. I knew there were websites dedicated to interpreting them, so I took a stab at finding out what this one could mean. Kind of wish I hadn’t now.

The website I found had this to say about her episode:

To see a prince in your dream signifies your association with honor and prestige. You will be recognized for some task. Alternatively, it indicates your desires for romance. Perhaps you are waiting for your Prince Charming.

Uh oh. Although I am one romantic devil, I’m not exactly Prince Charming. In fact, you want to know the only thing I have in common with Prince Charles?

Big ears.



Like the column? Hate the column? Have a new idea for a column? Contact Shannon at news@robconews.com or shannonscasta.blogspot.com and leave a comment.

Rent-A-Kid



It just occurred to me this week that I’d better start saving up for Christmas presents. I didn’t realize that December 25 was so close until all the pages from Toys-R-Us catalogs started showing up in my sock drawer, on the bathroom mirror, and in my pants pockets.

I can’t find anyone to bring me my phone when it rings, but let a toy commercial come on t.v. and my living room resembles Gattiland with all the kids that pop up.

In fact, the holidays have snuck up on me so fast that I don’t think I have the money put back to buy much, so I’ve devised a plan to make the kids pay for their own presents. You know, like men do for Father’s Day, birthdays and Christmas.

What I’ll do, I’ve decided, is start a kid renting service. Listen, you might not think so, but a kid or two comes in pretty handy from time to time. I think I might make a little change here. Enough to get them a toy or two at least, and maybe even make a little profit when it’s all said and done.

Tell me what you think:

Rent-A-Kid.

All kids are current on their shots, and in great shape due to playing sports. We have three models to choose from, so take your pick and enjoy.

Rheagan- Eleven year old female. Pretty as a picture, and eats like a bird. Great for light duty house cleaning, babysitting, and spelling of words (sixth-grade limit, please).

Need a top-notch tattle-tale? This is the one for you! Send Rheagan along with your spouse or teenage child, and get a full report upon return. Also great if you have excess money in the budget that you need to get rid of. Just take this little angel to the mall and watch her go!

Renters of this model may want to wait until at least 10 a.m. to pick up. She’s not a morning person.

The going rate is $10 per hour Monday-Friday, or $15 per hour on weekends.

Trevor- Nine year old male. Great chick magnet for teenaged boy to have. Whether you are at the big game, church, or just hanging around town, take Trevor with you and watch the girls melt (only works if you are young enough not to be the father).

Also good for outside chores, such as sweeping the sidewalk, bringing in firewood, and even mowing the yard. Push mowers only, folks. He isn’t quite tall enough to reach the pedals on a riding mower yet.

Renters of this model must show proof of ability to use Google, in order to answer the gazillion questions per hour that Trevor will ask.

The going rate on Trevor is $10 per hour Monday-Friday, or $15 per hour on the weekend.

ACT NOW and get Rheagan and Trevor both for just $15 per hour Monday-Friday, and $20 per hour on the weekend.

Jenna- Eight year old she-devil, I mean female. Gorgeous curly hair with big blue eyes. Make Jenna mad and see those big eyes actually turn blood red and spin like a slot machine!

Jenna has extraordinary copy-cat skills, and is absolutely fearless in the face of danger. She is our only model that has already had stitches, so she is well battle-tested.

Hard of hearing? Not to worry. This model screams everything she says, so you’ll never lose track of her in a crowd. She’s also an animal lover, and doesn’t mind sharing a snack with the family pet from time to time.

Renters must have plenty of cash (she likes fashion) and never, never look her directly in the eyes (she takes it as a challenge).

The going rate for Jenna is- well, we’ll pay you $10 per hour Monday-Friday, or $15 per hour on the weekend.

Play as long as you can



I had a pretty amazing weekend, and it didn’t have much at all to do with Thanksgiving. Or did it?

Thursday was great. We visited my wife’s family, and everything I put on my plate was tremendous as usual. And also, as usual, I ate way too much.

Friday was spent watching football, eating leftovers, and trying to forget about Thursday night’s game with A&M and Texas. Saturday we cut our Christmas tree before my son and I joined some friends to cut and split some fire wood for the winter.

Sunday? Well, Sunday I got word that this guy I knew died. His name was Jimmy, and he left behind a wife and daughter. He never even got the chance to be a grandfather, and he would have been a good one. We weren’t close or anything but when we saw each other we always shook hands, shared a laugh or two, and asked about each others’ families. So I spent all day Sunday and Monday trying to figure out why I couldn’t get this guy out of my mind. Like I said- we weren’t best friends, I just didn’t expect him to up and die all of a sudden. And this is what I’ve come up with:

Are you familiar with the Chicago Bulls of the ‘90s? They won six NBA championships, and were led by Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time. You can argue that if you want to, but you’d be wrong. Anyway, like any other team or business they wouldn’t have been great with just Jordan. He had a lot of other guys helping him out.

There was Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr and Dennis Rodman (Rodman was the crazy guy with colorful hair). Chances are you’ve heard of them. Then there were the guys that only basketball fans remember- Ron Harper, Horace Grant, Will Perdue, etc. Role players, we call them.

Each of them played roles in the championships and were all part of the team, but when it came down to it they were really just interchangeable parts. The show went on without them when it was time.

Jordan, Pippen, Kerr and Rodman got most of the glory or the heat, depending on their record. They had the responsibility that I’m sure most of the role players would have loved to have.

Well, in my working career I’ve always been a role player. Sure, I’ve aspired to be Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen, and I always figured I’d at least be a Kerr or a Rodman (minus the pink and blue hair). Always figured it was just a matter of time and effort, and being in the right place at the right time.

I even preach “not settling” to my kids. “Always shoot for the stars” I say, “and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer”. I want them to treat the word “because” like it’s a cuss word. “It’s usually followed with an excuse,” I tell them.

I’m telling you all this because I got a job offer that has been playing tug-of-war with my mind. It’s a great job with really good benefits and would allow me to come home every night like normal people. And that’s most important, because I can see that my kids really miss me when I travel- especially my son. The boy wanted to hang with me so bad this weekend that he rode with me to visit my mother in the nursing home. Most nine year olds would have come up with a homework story to get out of that.

The problem is that if I take this job, I’m a role player for life. At least ‘till retirement. Not only would I not be climbing the ladder, there is no ladder to climb. From here on out there will always be someone to say “yes sir” to, and it won’t be me.

And so Sunday, while I was right in the middle of walking around the yard cussing busted Christmas lights and pouting and feeling sorry for myself for taking this job, I swear I could hear Jimmy’s voice in the back of my head. “Who cares if you’re a role player or the star of the team? You’re still in the damn game, ain’t you? Play as long as you can.”

And I guess he’s right. Hell, I’m sure Will Perdue is just as proud of his championship rings as Rodman is of his. And he never had to dye his hair pink.



Like the column? Hate the column? Have an idea for a new column? Contact Shannon at robconews.com or shannonscasta.blogspot.com.