Pizza Delivery

 Several years ago, my eldest and I were picking up the house and having a conversation about video games. He wanted us to buy him a new Nintendo Switch game and I told him that he would need to save up some of his money.

With genuine confusion he retorted, “You don’t need money, you just hand that plastic card to the checkout person and they give you what you want.” This led to an impromptu discussion of capitalism and our nation's banking infrastructure.

I explained that the card was tied to an account with a finite amount of money in it. When the balance of that account drops below the cost of what you are buying, the clerk will no longer hand you what you want and the entire transaction becomes a misdemeanor at best.

As comprehension dawned on his face, he exclaimed “Once you are out of money, you can’t buy anymore stuff!” I briefly contemplated entering into a more in depth discussion concerning revolving lines of credit and title loans but realized that, despite my best intentions, the conversation would somehow devolve into me explaining why people walk funny if they are unable to make good on their financial obligations to the mob .

He inquired as to how one goes about refilling the account tied to the card and I told him that he would need to get a job and earn a paycheck. That paycheck could then be electronically deposited in his bank account (or cashed at any reputable liquor store). He was immediately onboard with the concept and asked if we could find him a job that very afternoon.

While his passion for immediate gainful employment was commendable, I told him that there were Federal child labor laws that precluded individuals in his demographic from officially entering the workforce. Dejected, he conceded that he would just have to save his allowance / birthday money to get the game. 

While this conversation was taking place, my wife was upstairs arranging for a couple of pizzas to be delivered for dinner. So, with this exchange fresh in his mind, my son responded to our doorbell by looking through the sidelites to identify our visitor.

On this particular occasion, our delivery driver was a woman in a baseball cap who also happened to be a “little person.” It is important to note that while we had already completed many of the talks about unique physical traits (most notably when my son was 5 and loudly inquired about whether or not the man with a prosthetic leg had “not been paying attention” when his factory equipment fell off) we had not yet covered dwarfism.

Devoid of this information, the logical conclusion my son came to was as follows:

1. Pizza delivery was a job and jobs generated revenue and revenue assisted in the procurement of video games.

2. The individual standing at our door with our pizza was shorter than he was which must mean that they were younger than he was.

3. My father is filthy liar because clearly there is a veritable army of 3rd graders with W2s and folding money. This lucky kid probably had an investment portfolio. 

With the level of volume one can only reach while in the throes of righteous indignation, he turned from the door and pointed accusingly at me before announcing, “You told me that kids can’t work but there is a little boy at our front door right now working for the pizza place! I bet he has all the video games he wants because his dad didn’t lie to him to keep him from being happy!!”

Looking up from my wallet where I was searching for cash to tip the driver, I realized that the individual my son had repeatedly referred to as a “little boy” was, in fact, a grown woman with a rare genetic condition. Furthermore, due to both his volume and proximity to the door, I knew she had heard every word.

My priority at that moment was to stop the bleeding. I furiously pantomimed for my son to lower his volume and move away from the door which only caused him to loudly exclaim, “Why do you keep telling me to be quiet!? I am pretty sure he knows he is a little boy! It’s not a secret!”

I could only assume that by now the pizza lady had opened the lid of our entree and was just seconds away from forcefully depositing the entirety of her post nasal drip onto it.

The more furiously I gesticulated for his silence the louder and more frequently the term “little boy” escaped his lips. Finally, I managed to divert him into the den by making some vague promise of asking the “young man” about a lateral-transfer initiative or apprenticeship.

Finally alone, I realized that all of my options were bad. I could breezily open the door and feign ignorance that my son’s rant had taken place. While initially tempting, I ultimately decided that this course of action would only serve to insult this woman’s intelligence after my son had already insulted her appearance.

I also weighed the idea of apologizing profusely and attempting to salvage the situation by reassuring her that she did not look like a little boy at all and that it was very clear she was a grown woman with a strong work ethic. I ultimately decided that this would either be construed as disingenuous flirtation or I would awkwardly utter a mildly-prosecutable phrase like, "I’ve always liked young boys holding food”

I reopened my wallet and added several large bills to the $5 I had originally selected before answering the door. The look on her face was indicative of a woman whose vision-board never consisted of weekend pizza delivery, much less being repeatedly identified as a pre-pubescent boy whilst doing so.

I apologized profusely before handing her all of the cash in our house and taking the boxes from her. I glanced down to reassure myself that the Covid-era tamper-seal was intact before wishing her a wonderful evening.

My wife descended the stairs bragging that she had cashed in all of her reward points on the app the get the pizzas for “practically nothing.” I had to tell her that not only had I handed the delivery driver the last of our liquid assets, but that we would probably need to make a sizable donation to skeletal dysplasia research if we ever wished to utilize their delivery service again. To this day, I will not have pizza delivered to our house from that establishment.

Roblox

 If you have children, the internet and the need for ten consecutive uninterrupted minutes to yourself; there is a good chance that you are familiar with Roblox. For the uninitiated, Roblox is an online gaming platform launched in 2004 with the sole purpose of separating parents from their money. The graphics are robust enough to support discernable customization while remaining blocky enough to allow most games to run on anything above a TI-36 graphing calculator.

The first step is to create a platform-wide avatar which follows you throughout the various gaming experiences. The default version of this avatar is referred to as a “bacon hair” and is a dead giveaway for being a “noob.” From there you can customize your character to your heart (and wallet’s) content.

Since the game concepts and design are essentially crowd-sourced, they vary wildly in content, function and quality. Roblox also bills itself as a “free” gaming experience but this is misleading at best. 

Most experiences require you to spend in-game currency called “Robux” to produce an outcome other than instantaneous failure and community ridicule.

The purchase of “Robux” is a process whereby you hand a corporation the legal tender of a sovereign nation and they, in turn, issue you a platform-wide digital currency you can use for “game enhancements.” The current exchange rate is $1 US Dollar = 100 Robux and- I cannot stress this enough- you will never see that money again. It cannot be refunded, exchanged, refurbished, transferred to another account or used to fund international terrorism. It is the equivalent of an online money-laundering machine where nothing comes out the other side.

Speaking of laundry, there is literally a game called “Laundry Simulator” whereby you walk around with a basket and gather dirty clothes to be laundered. As you progress, you are able to purchase larger and more efficient washing machines and, if you are fortunate, you might come across some “golden underwear” for bonus points. I was made aware of this game’s existence one Saturday when telling my kids to put up their actual laundry. 

They asked for five more minutes so that they could get the “upgraded laundry basket” in the game and I could not help but feel like the moment was some sort of cosmic joke. As if that title was not insulting enough, there are multiple “Room Cleaning Simulators” your child can play in lieu of cleaning their actual room. 

The themes are not limited to household chores. My daughter was visibly distraught one evening and, upon cross-examination, we discovered the source of her distress was the unrelenting pressure of managing a fictitious Roblox pizza restaurant during lunch rush. With an incredulous look on her face, she declared, “You know this is my busy time!!” I feared that after a few more days she would need to utilize the pretend employee assistance program.

For the more discerning gamer, there is an impressive selection of “pooping simulators” Some bill themselves as community pursuits (Pooping with Friends and its unironically-named sequel Pooping with Friends 2) while other offerings simply position the player’s avatar over the toilet and one is expected to tap the screen in order to produce larger excrement. As with all titles, spending Robux “enhances” your gaming experience which, in this case, would be something akin to IBS.

Disturbingly, all of my children really enjoyed the game where they ran a private prison complex. The goal was to generate revenue while keeping “inmate satisfaction” at a high level to prevent riots and a subsequent PR disaster. I was discouraged to discover that the inmate satisfaction rating was tied to the number of snack machines per capita rather than a reduction in the recidivism rate.

While I do not wish to disparage anyone who has dedicated their career to “excellence in the incarceration arts”, but who gets home after a long day and unwinds by tossing the mattresses in Cell Block C?

I cannot wait for:

• Black Market Human Organ Tycoon 

• Ultimate IRS Audit

• Chronic Childhood Anemia Simulator

• Verizon Signal Hide and Seek

• Weaponized Anthrax Role-Play

• Health Insurance Billing Obby

• Witness for the Prosecution Avatar 

• Survive the PTO Creeper

• 5 Nights at Fairfield Inn (Mattress-Stain Expansion Pass)

• Legislative Deadlock Mini-Games

• Septic Tank Water Polo

• College Benefactor Tower Defense

We're All Going to Die!

 While I am generally in favor of legislative alliteration, President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” has some worrying provisions. In addition to adding trillions to the national debt, it would make drastic cuts to programs like SNAP and Medicare which millions of vulnerable Americans depend on.

This led to an interesting exchange between Republican US Senator Joni Ernst and her constituency at an Iowa town hall meeting she held at 7:30 AM on a Friday. A retired healthcare provider named Karen Franczyk voiced her concern that the bill would cut the main source of revenue for hospitals in rural areas. During the larger discussion on the cuts, another attendee shouted “People are going to die!” to which the senator dismissively retorted, “We are all going to die”.

This led to enough backlash that Senator Ernst quickly posted a sarcastic apology video of her walking through a cemetery while invoking the Easter bunny before ending with an alter call to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. This undoubtedly wrapped up any lingering concerns her constituents had about their ability to access meals and medicine.

While many have angrily categorized her comments and apology as calloused – especially coming from someone who enjoys some of the best tax-payer funded healthcare in the world – I am of the opinion that she has stumbled upon the ultimate response to literally any question.

Will you go to prom with me? I can’t because we are all going to die.

Has the jury reached a verdict? – We have your honor. We’re all going to die.

Mommy can I have a cell phone? Well, I would go ahead and add another line to our family plan, but the activation fee is steep and, oh yes, we are all going to die!!

No matter the subject or context, you can always extricate yourself from an uncomfortable line of inquiry by reminding everyone around you of humanity’s shared, inevitable march toward grim death. It is as if we all chipped in to give existential dread an expense account and .gov email presence.

Senator Ernst is exhibiting what is sometimes known as “lifeboat evangelism” which operates under the assumption that the primary objective of Christian discipleship is to secure the eternity of as many people as possible. Sure, she may have actively played a role in dismantling the only thing standing between impoverished children and life-saving medical treatment, but don’t worry little Timmy, your premature demise will be inconsequential once you hear your name when the roll is called up yonder. I am just glad that Senator Sunshine’s career path did not veer into commercial aviation or pediatric oncology.

The idea that our highest calling as followers of Jesus is to secure the afterlife of those whom we encounter is not a new one (or a difficult one to sell). My issue is that it is impossible to reconcile with the words and actions of Jesus during his earthly ministry. That is not to say that he did not address death or what follows it. He simply didn’t prioritize it over alleviating the suffering that preceded it.

Time and time again- sometimes to the chagrin of his own disciples – he interrupted his perceived priorities to address the anguish and misery of those he encountered. The blind, paralytics, lepers, the disabled and even the servant of a centurion were all recipients of his healing. If his only objective was to secure their future glory, why did he spend so much time alleviating their present misery?

One answer would be that he healed them so that people would believe in him which would lead to his ultimate objective. There are a few problems with that idea, not the least of which is that while faith may produce miracles, miracles do not necessarily produce faith. After all, many of those who actively worked against the earthly ministry of Jesus were present for some his most spectacular interventions.

This would also undermine the profound empathy displayed by Jesus toward the wounded. I do not believe that he viewed them as marketing tools, but as human beings. When asked how to pray, Jesus responded with "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

This would be a curious prayer for someone who believed that his father’s creation and image-bearers were beyond redemption. If there is no disease, poverty, inequality and suffering to be found in Heaven, why do we tolerate (and sometimes legislate) its proliferation on earth?

Senator Ernst's official Facebook account recently posted a photo of her visit to the Washington Nationals baseball stadium. She made the grievous error of posting a photo of herself wearing a batting helmet. The current most popular comment? "Why bother with the helmet? We are all going to die, Joni!"

The Willfully Childless

On June 10th the Southern Baptist Convention, representing the largest group of Protestant Christians in the United States, ratified a statement named, “On Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for Gender, Marriage, and the Family.”

Among the many topics it covered, the most surprising to me was the amount of time they spent addressing procreation. The proclamation sets the stage for what is to come early on:

WHEREAS, God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society, prior to the state, with a divine mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28)

This, and what follows, echoes the mission statement of the “Quiverfull Movement” a subset of conservative Christians who interpret the Bible to advocate for having as many children as possible, rejecting contraception and other forms of birth control. The name is derived from Psalm 127, which describes children as "arrows in the hands of a warrior". 

The implication, of course, is that the primary purpose of any family is to produce as many offspring as possible. According to the proclamation, this is to be done without the aid of IVF or other infertility treatments:

WHEREAS, Commercial surrogacy often treats children as products and women as a means to an end, and may entail the destruction of embryonic life, violating the dignity of human life and distorting God’s design for procreation within marriage

The resolution is addressing what the convention referred to as “willful childlessness” on the part of married, heterosexual Christian couples. According to the document, these couples are violating God’s mandate and design by utilizing birth control and choosing to delay parenthood or forgo it altogether. What was once known as pragmatic responsibility has somehow transformed into religious apostacy.

As a heterosexual married father of 3 amazing children, I firmly believe that nothing is more likely to proliferate societal misery and increase divorce rates than utilizing religion to guilt unprepared couples into becoming parents.

Becoming a parent is the hardest job you will ever love, and even when my wife and I agreed we were ready, we still were not entirely ready. If you and your spouse do not want to be parents, you should absolutely not become parents. If you are not mentally, spiritually, financially, emotionally and digestively prepared to place your children’s needs above you own, then the most moral, responsible and “Christian” thing you can do is wait.

I know several couples who agreed that they did not wish to become parents. Such a decision is not “sinful” or in violation of God’s will. They are no less “Christian” than those whose tax deduction forms require multiple addendums. There are blended families faithfully raising multiple children from prior relationships who have chosen not procreate within their current one. There are single and/or teenage parents working hard to provide for their unplanned child. There are non-heterosexual couples who have stepped up to foster and/or adopt one or more of the 400,000 children currently residing in the foster care system in our country. There are couples whose children only exist because of IVF and other fertility treatments. Does that make them any less a parent or their children any less a blessing? I don’t believe so.

This document creates a theological domestic maze that few could emerge from unscathed. Within this framework, God’s will concerning familial bonds is limited to the following:

Christian heterosexual married couples who reject any and every form of birth control and see procreation as one of the primary reasons their relationship exists. 

As the enthusiastic recipient of a vasectomy, my relationship lies decidedly outside of that paradigm and I do not believe that God sits upon his throne lamenting that fact that I did not unleash any more of my DNA upon His glorious creation.

Little Caesars

 Several years ago, I walked into a Little Caesars to pick up a couple of “Hot N Ready” pizzas which, in my case, was more of a “Warm N Wait” situation as there were no pepperoni pizzas on deck. 

Taking a seat, I began to observe the well-oiled machine that was Little Caesars. I quickly surmised that the heavyset mustachioed gentlemen with the buzz cut (whose name had to be Mike) was the manager and he was running the drive-thru window.  

On the other side of the kitchen resided two teenage pizza artisans mechanically churning out pies while wearing headphones. Mike was a beast. He inspected, sliced and boxed the product in what appeared to be one effortless motion before handing it to the customer. So, when Mike stopped and stared intently at a large pizza for several seconds, I knew somebody had just lost their chance at employee of the month.

I could almost hear Mike’s internal dialogue as he gesticulated his exasperation by raising his hands and exhaling loudly. It was clear he found himself in a conundrum. Does he let this culinary infraction stand and get the merchandise out the door or does he confront the issue head-on? 

Eventually he turns toward the prep-station, abomination in hand, and taps the closest of his sous chefs on the shoulder. Both of them remove their headphones just in time for Mike to present the pizza and ask whatever everyone else in the room knew to be a rhetorical question: “What is this!!?”

Glancing at each other, one of them timidly offered, “A large supreme?” 

Mike’s glare could have withered an artificial fern. “And what is all over it!!?” 

Still not sensing an ambush, the same young man earnestly responded, “Toppings!!?”

Mike looked like he was going to burn that mother down. Through gritted teeth, he managed to get out, “And why are there so many of them!!?”

This was not what I, or his colleagues, expected to come out of his mouth. I was mentally prepared for any number of scenarios ranging from wrong toppings to contraband body hair, but I was not expecting a volume discrepancy.

Clearly as flummoxed as me, the duo’s spokesman elaborated by admitting that he had been generous with the toppings because he felt that the customer would appreciate a hearty pizza. 

Mike, now looking to the heavens for strength and hitting every syllable as if it owed him money, said, “You don’t work at Papa Johns! Is there a Domino’s logo on your shirt!!? THIS. IS. LITTLE. CAESARS!!! We could have made 3 supreme pizzas with that many toppings! Don’t let it happen again!”

Without waiting for a response, Mike turned on his heel and returned to his staging area to contemplate the repercussions of not hitting his daily numbers.

The two employees shrugged at each other, repositioned their headphones and went back to prepping pizzas. I tried to imagining the conversation when they got home and their parents inquired about their day. Parents who had painstakingly taught their children about self-sufficiency, work ethic and taking pride in your craft. Then, in an instant, Mike the human demotivational poster brought the walls of excellence crashing down.

My pizza, which had not yet been prepped, became collateral damage from the ToppingsGate scandal. When we opened the boxes at the house, each slice contained a single, orphaned peperoni. My wife frowned and asked why there weren’t more toppings. She suggested that I should have said something at the store. I informed her that had I complained to management about the scarcity of my toppings, either Mike or myself was going to catch a charge.

The Epstein Files

The Epstein criminal enterprise embodies a sobering truth. Specifically, that the justice system navigated by the rest of us bears little resemblance to the one encountered by the wealthy and powerful. Had Epstein been a mid-level trafficker catering to working-class Americans we would never be in this situation. Everyone involved would have been un-masked Scooby Doo style and subjected to criminal charges and the public scrutiny that accompanies them.

The irony is that the Trump administration has turned into its own wake. When they were on the other side of the presidential seal, the current FBI director, vice-president and even Trump himself alluded to a dark conspiracy perpetrated by the deep state protecting wealthy and influential clients of Epstein. The client list continues to be the political equivalent of Schrödinger's cat, somehow tangible enough to sit upon the Attorney General’s desk for review and yet never existing at all.

I am willing to bet that the list (if it does exist) is not populated by roofers, second generation farmers or shift-leaders at Dairy Queen. It contains CEOs, hedge-fund managers and political donors whose influence and reach would likely reverberate throughout the Federal government and both political parties. The only undisputed commonality of Epstein’s “clients” is that they continue to evade any repercussions for their crimes.

For every wealthy client who perpetrated a crime, there were countless others turning a blind eye to the most despicable form of commerce imaginable. They placed their own ambitions and influence over the safety and well-being of children. Whatever their political ideology, socio-economic status, or elected position; if they participated or enabled child trafficking they should be brought to justice. We can no longer claim to be a city on a hill while we continue to protect a shanty in the swamp.

Conspiracy Theories

 “You know dad, the moon landing was fake.” My eldest was around 8 years old when he came home from school and announced this to the family. To be clear, this information originated from playground banter rather than school curriculum. A classmate had informed some friends that his dad told him the truth about the moon landing after watching a video on YouTube. A few years later, my daughter would ask me why they had faked the sinking of the Titanic citing similar sources.

More recently, I had an experience with a gentleman who has been attending our church for several years and is of limited means. Occasionally I will take him to get some lunch after church and it was on one such Sunday that we found ourselves walking into a Subway whilst chatting about what he would want to drink.

He had been going on in some detail about how there was nothing better than an ice-cold Dr. Pepper so I suggested that he should have one with his sandwich. With only mild alarm, he looked at me and announced he had stopped drinking Dr. Pepper now that they “were putting AIDS in it.” It was at this point the Subway employee removed his AirPod and cast a reflexive glance at the drink fountain.

Certain that I had misheard him, I clarified and he was adamant that he had seen a video on the Internet that proved they had changed the formula a few years ago so that it included AIDS (in this scenario the release of Dr. Pepper Zero seems more ominous). Setting aside my burning desire to ask if the video in question had been uploaded by Mr. Pibb, I began what I believed to be comprehensive logical rebuttal to the Big K fear-mongering.

Most importantly, you cannot just add AIDS to something like it was aspartame. AIDS is the result of a virus not its cause, so the author of the video lacked a basic understanding of science (or beverages). This would be akin to infusing a Monster Energy drink with osteoporosis or selling apple juice with 20% less gonorrhea. Secondly, who would stand to gain? Perceiving that he remained unconvinced, we descended further down the rabbit hole. Turning my full attention to him, I began what I believed to be an unassailable case for AIDS-free Dr. Pepper:

Let’s pretend, for the sake of argument, that AIDS was something they could add into a drink. Why would a multinational beverage conglomerate, whose profits are contingent upon getting as many people as possible to consume Dr. Pepper as often as possible for as long as possible, follow a course of action diametrically opposed to their continued financial success and / or existence.

Feeling the intellectual wind at my back, I continued to assure him that there is no reason he cannot enjoy an ice-cold Dr. Pepper on a hot summer day. Guiding him toward the counter, I announced to the room at large that he should go get his Dr. Pepper while I speak to the resident sandwich artist who, although listening to our discussion, had so far refrained from comment. 

When my lunch companion rejoined me, cup in hand sipping on a cold beverage, I smiled and asked how that Dr. Pepper was treating him. He informed me that he felt more comfortable getting a Pepsi whilst mumbling something about not taking any chances.

I was telling this story to a group of acquaintances who joined me in laughing at the absurdity. One individual, still chuckling along with the rest of us, said, “That is crazy….But those government clouds are no joke.” Despite my instincts to the contrary, I decided this was a thread worth unraveling.

They explained that all cloud formations we see today were manufactured by the Federal government in order to best control the populace. When I expressed skepticism that Washington, DC was in possession of a meteorological vending machine, they admitted that they too had harbored the same reservations before a YouTube video had opened their eyes.

The cornerstone of this argument was a simple statement, “Thunder just doesn’t sound the same as it did 20 or 30 years ago.”  Encouraging me to think back, they asked if I could honestly say that the thunder I heard last week was the same as the thunder I heard in the 90’s.

I haven’t even memorized the names of all of my children’s teachers I met at open house that week, so I knew there was no way for me to objectively compare the volume, frequency, duration and tonal characteristics of a thunderstorm that occurred before 2Pac was shot.

I thought about reminding them that the composition of a thunderstorm varies wildly based on the atmospheric conditions that spawn it, but I was already on a losing streak and I did not want to tempt fate. Instead, I listened politely and wondered why no politician had ever run on an anti-tornado platform.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the government clouds / chem trail / cloud seeding scenario is that it often finds its audience with people who remain unconvinced that the actions of humanity have any effect on the climate or weather. Those Venn diagrams shouldn’t overlap. How does one believe that we have the capability to bend the forces of mother nature to our will and yet somehow humanity remains statistically insignificant regarding our environment?

What do I know? Maybe it is all connected. Maybe YouTube is right. Perhaps, during a routine recalibration in 1912, the GovWeather-O-Matic 4000 starting dropping icebergs in the North Atlantic. In order to distract the populace from the fact that President Taft was tinkering with the jet stream, the US government conspired with a British company to fabricate one of the greatest maritime disasters of the century. The secret was then handed down until it appeared that the Soviets were on the cusp of a sustained orbital presence above the earth which could provide irrefutable proof that America was exporting cumulus clouds and low-pressure systems.

The government then hired Stanley Kubrick to film a moon-landing on a studio backlot in the hopes of turning people’s attentions from the heavens to the Kremlin. Their plan worked until the widespread adaptation of cell phones allowed for the recording and scrutiny of GMO thunder against free-range organic thunder through social media platforms. Then, just as YouTube sleuths got wind of their plans, they started putting AIDS (also known as the 24th flavor) into a popular soft-drink.

Sometimes I want to fight the good fight and sometimes I realize that the best course of action is to stay quiet and let people enjoy their Pepsi.

The Facelicker

While I have already written about my daughter’s involvement with competitive cheerleading, my oldest son has a passion for competitive robotics. If there was ever a total opposite to a competitive cheerleading tournament, it would be a competitive robotics event. The only commonality is my inability to comprehend how either event is scored.

My understanding is that when you get into higher levels it is more sudden death battle-bots than collaborative Amazon warehouse drills. While both cheerleading and robotics are full-day endeavors, the S.T.E.M. crowd is more of my scene. The emphasis on engineering, science, and programming is needed more now than ever and I sincerely hope that programs like this continue to expand.

While I was walking by two gentlemen at the Robotics state tournament, I overheard a conversation I was unlikely to hear at a competitive cheerleading event. They were each laying out a case for which one’s offspring exhibited autodidacticism at an earlier age. “He was reading before he could walk” was a common theme. I fought the urge to downplay the achievements of their kids by telling them that my son marked his gestation by tapping out the Fibonacci sequence on my wife’s uterus.

There were a large number of attendees wearing NASA gear and robot-themed puns on shirts, but one older gentleman’s attire caught my attention. It was a T-shirt styled like college alumni gear. In arced script, it said “Facelicker” and underneath that was “Est. 1979.” For a split second, I entertained the idea of asking about the meaning and origin of his garment, but other tasks needed to be completed before we could retire to the hotel for the evening. Perhaps it was a small liberal-arts college whose primary endowment came from someone with an unfortunate surname or an obscure psychedelic jam-band. Whatever it was it would just have to remain a mystery.

The next morning at the hotel, I just happened to wander onto the elevator with the very same gentleman wearing the same shirt. Since it was just the two of us and a softball coach engrossed in his phone, I decided that there was no time like the present. I motioned toward his shirt and said, “I have to ask.”

His face lit-up with an intensity that let me know that his entire life had been leading up to this moment. Day after day he wandered the earth just begging for someone to give him a reason to tell his story and I was just the moron he had been searching for.

He set the scene for me. It was a 1979 worship service at an undisclosed denomination and he described sitting on the pew sandwiched between his wife and her best friend. His arms were around both of them when, at some point during the service, his wife leaned over to him and challenged him to suddenly turn and lick her best friend’s face.

If he had entertained any reservations about tongue-bathing another woman during the scripture reading, it was not conveyed in his recounting of events. I was fuzzy on the details of the wager itself, but whatever was at stake, he smiled broadly while bragging that he “got her from chin-to-ear” smack dab in the middle of exalting the Almighty.

At this point the third passenger, who had been absorbed in authoring a lengthy text message right up until the moment that “chin-to-ear” made its debut, looked up with what could only be described as involuntary revulsion. Unabated, Facelicker Jones chuckled as he said, “Boy, you should have seen the look on her face after I got done! At any rate, she went and had a T-shirt made to commemorate it soon after and here we are.”

There had been many scenarios floating around my head before hearing his tale, but tracing a woman’s jawline with your tongue in the name of the Lord had not been on my bingo card. As the door began opening and the softball coach all but threw himself from the elevator into the lobby, my mind swirled with questions:

How old was the shirt he was wearing and why did it not look worn at all? Did he have an entire wardrobe of these like the batsuit? What woman’s reaction to unwanted face-licking is to present the offender with a commemorative T-shirt? How did his wife feel that he continued to memorialize the moment he violated the sanctity of her friend’s neckline? Where was his wife now? Did he and the best friend get together and continue to regale strangers with their origin story? Can you imagine being out to dinner with them and stepping on that landmine? So, how did you two meet…..

Would she answer, “It was love the moment he turned away from his ex-wife during the fourth stanza of Shall We Gather at the River and baptized my jawline with his saliva. We have been inseparable ever since!”

After parting ways with him in the lobby, I found my wife and recounted the sordid tale as she valiantly attempted to continue consuming her waffle before ultimately giving up. She then made it clear that despite 22 years of marriage, when it came to Face-licking she did not think that we “were there yet.” Then, for what must have been the thousandth time in our lives, she gave me the, “This is why we do not talk to strangers” reprimand.

The Sandals Incident

Last year, my wife and I decided to celebrate our anniversary and her birthday by taking our first trip to a Sandals Resort. With the invaluable assistance of a good friend and travel agent, we planned a getaway to the beautiful island of Antigua. Our flight to Miami was very early, so we found a park-and-fly deal at a hotel near the airport.

We woke up at 4 AM to pouring rain and the news that our flight was delayed due to a crew issue. This meant that we would miss our connecting flight in Miami and there was only one other flight to the island that day. Even if we could get seats on the remaining flight, we would only have about twenty minutes to make it to the terminal once we landed. I explained our situation to a gentleman at the airline service desk who proceeded to type furiously on his keyboard while assuring me that he had secured our seats on this final leg of our journey. He reminded me that we would need disembark quickly in order to make it to the gate. I thanked him for his tenacity and invaluable service.

As our flight touched down in Miami, I opened the overhead bin before we were even at the gate. Normally a conscientious traveler, I was knocking over women, children, and the infirm in equal measure just to give us a fighting chance to make our connection. We had paid to spend that evening at a tropical resort and I was not about to let someone’s bad hip get in the way.

When we breathlessly stumbled up to the departing gate, I informed the desk agent that arrangements had been made because we had missed the previous flight. After a few minutes of typing, he regretted to inform me that the prior desk agent never actually did anything and they had no record of our tickets being transferred. I half expected to be told that the individual I spoke to was not even an airline employee and that the keyboard he was typing on had been connected to Keurig machine under the desk.

Undeterred, I reached for my cell phone as I had taken meticulous notes of my interaction with the previous associate for just such an occasion. It was then I realized that in my haste to make the connecting flight we were never actually on, I had somehow left my phone on the plane. This was clearly karma for my willingness to Samsonite-whip fellow travelers.

My wife and I then ran back across the Miami Airport to our arrival terminal only to be advised that the phone could not be located. It was, of course, still in airplane mode so my tracking options were practically non-existent. Accepting that my phone might be a lost cause, we ran back to the airline customer service desk and found that it would be two days before they could get us on another flight. Not to worry through, for the inconvenience they had secured us lodging at one of Miami International Airport’s finest hotels. She even gave us some extra meal vouchers to make sure that we lived like high-rollers during our extended stay.

Dejected but with plenty of time to kill, we asked how we could contact lost and found to see if someone had turned in my phone. We were told that there were two agencies to check with (one specific to the airline and a general repository for the airport) and we should make contact with both. The airline’s lost a found was friendly enough and we completed the requisite forms. The airport lost and found was a different story.

We walked down abandoned corridors in parts of the airport that no one should have to see. When we finally found the split-door nestled in a dark corner, I felt like I was trying to gain access to a speakeasy. A gentleman opened the top-half of the door and brusquely informed me that I would need to complete a form and they would “be in touch if my iPhone turns up or whatever.” I did not get the impression that they facilitated many successful reunions. I suspected that the entire department had been disbanded years ago but no one in upper management had been able to locate the employees to tell them.

We decided to go back to the hotel to regroup. Upon entering the room, we were greeted by warm, moist air and the unmistakable scent of human waste. I made the front desk aware of the sewage sauna situation and began attempting to access to my Apple account so that I could at least mark the device as lost. Because I was attempting to login from an atypical device in an unusual location, Apple kept sending a text message to the lost iPhone in order to allow me the ability to mark said iPhone as lost. I called Apple customer service to share that I had discovered a flaw in the system and they suggested that I find a Verizon dealer and transfer my service to a new phone so that I could receive the messages to mark the original phone as lost.

Meanwhile, a very capable maintenance technician had determined that the shared AC / sewer drain was clogged and began loudly pumping the sewage into a chum bucket on the floor. The putrid smell combined with the slurping noises emanating from the hand-operated sump-pump served to create a slightly different atmosphere than we had expected on the first night of our romantic getaway.

I called back to the front desk and asked if we could be transferred out of the excrement suite. Unfortunately, the hotel (like the flights for the next 48 hours) had no vacancies. Amid the grunting and gurgling in the background, I called Verizon customer service and explained the situation. They informed me that I would need to pay almost $500 to satisfy the balance of the lost device and cover the upgrade and activation fees for the replacement. I begrudgingly agreed and was told that there was an affiliate retailer just 6 blocks from our current location and everything would be ready when we arrived.

The affiliate was a small, family run affair and as it was the Sunday before Memorial Day, we were the only customers. Relieved to see the device in a bag with my name on it, I informed the proprietor that I was here to retrieve the order and I would be on my way. He checked the screen on his computer and informed me that Verizon had not paid him yet, and until they do, the phone would remain where it was. I showed him the digital receipt on my wife’s phone and he patiently listened before explaining that he was not questioning whether or not Verizon got their money, he was only interested in when he was going to get his. It would appear that the trickle-down economics model was not held in high-esteem within the Miami wireless community.

Exasperated, I called Verizon customer service back and finally explained the entire situation over again while pacing the floor as an employee mopped around me. It was 4:58 PM by the time I got a manager and he informed me that I would be placed on a brief hold while he got to the bottom of this sordid business. He then promptly hung-up.

My lovely bride, whose face had been buried in her hands for the duration of the call, reminded me not to throw the only working phone we had through a window. My eye started twitching as I requested just a little more time from the manager to sort this out. He said I could have 10 minutes because he had plans to attend a cook-out (probably with the customer service rep that had just hung-up on me).

I immediately called the customer service number again only to be subjected a recording informing me that while call center was closed due to the holiday. They would be happy to assist me the following Tuesday.

I was now the proud owner of two Verizon iPhones and somehow was not in possession of either of them. On the plus side, the AC in our room was now functional and the poo-pail was gone. We were then told by the onsite restaurant that all of our meal vouchers combined would be just enough for one of us to be allowed into the buffet line. It was as if the airline had issued us currency from a Third World nation on the brink of economic collapse.

We briefly toyed with the idea of one of us getting a plate and slipping the other one rolls and mashed potatoes under the table while no one was looking but instead we DoorDashed some food and ate in our room as my wife and our travel agent worked furiously to find another flight.

Once she was off the phone, I winked seductively at my bride and told her that while it was not a beach-front resort, it would be a shame not to take advantage of the rapidly dissipating smell of feces and the questionable comforter. She politely declined my romantic overtures with an eye-roll. I made a mental note to check and make sure I had packed some supplemental rizz in my overnight bag.

Miraculously, we were able to find a flight out of Miami the next day and landed in beautiful Antigua. The resort was gorgeous and, after a short delay, we were being led to our room. After about ten minutes inside, we realized that the “windows” were simply plantation shutters with bug-screens open to the common area.
The lack of glass allowed sound to travel easily between the courtyard and the bedroom (along with demoting the air-conditioner from an appliance to a wall-decoration).

When I walked outside our door, I could clearly hear the woman in the room next to us showering and requesting a loofa from her companion. If either of them consumed some bad jerk-chicken, the entire unit would be forced to bear witness to the aftermath. It was clear that there were not going to be a lot of secrets at Sandals.

In addition to the immediate privacy issues posed by this configuration (both carnal and gastrointestinal) it was very humid in the room. I began opening the wardrobe to see if I could locate something to stuff the windows with and while reaching to the top shelf for the extra pillows and blankets, I discovered another man’s shorts.

Under different circumstances, this discovery would have been a powerful conversation starter at couple’s-only resort. Since we had only arrived, I sat aside the mystery drawers and continued stuffing the windows with decorative pillows until I achieved some semblance of privacy and climate control.

I then called the customer service desk and explained the situation. I expected the prospect of missing window panes and mystery garments to elicit something close to at least feigned indignation. Instead, my story was met with a long pause before the woman asked firmly, “Are we sure they are not your shorts?”

Did I give staff the impression of being so disconnected from reality that I would unable to identify the attire that had just recently adorned my no-no square? I jokingly assured her that she was more than welcome to come to our room and launch a full investigation. Before I realized it, she had hung up the phone and was at our door.

I displayed the enormous shorts in front of my waist in a pose that I imagine looked like an online ad for a weight-loss program. She nodded in acceptance and agreed to take possession of the linen man-trunks. We then discussed the window situation and she seemed genuinely surprised at my distaste for open-air bowel movements. She explained that this was an older section of the resort and they had not yet retrofitted it with modern windows.

I politely requested that we be moved to another room and was told the resort was full “what with it being a holiday and all.” Undeterred, I tried another employee who also echoed the same sentiment. Defeated, I fell back onto the mattress next to my glistening marital companion who had already discovered that the bed was carrying a lot of nocturnal trauma. If our bed was originally manufactured with springs and padding, they had both long since gone on to glory.

I called the front desk and requested a mattress-topper which generated a surprising bit of push-back. I suspected that word about us had made the rounds among the employees and they were worried that I was going to disembowel it and use the foam as window insulation. They said that they only had a few but they would see what they could do. I would later find out that, due to miscommunication, our pad was installed on Loofah Lisa’s mattress next door.

We walked out and enjoyed the immaculate grounds and the beautiful beach. We spent the next few days enjoying our time together and consuming delicious meals. It was about our third day there when I walked out onto our patio to discover several of the “resort cats” lounging on our chairs. While similar to the domestic cats we had back home, these semi-feral creatures possessed unique facial structures that made it clear there was a pronounced fork in the family tree. They were pointed out to us during orientation and their housing unit was visible from back of our room.

As I reached out for one of the towels we had left out to dry, the nearest resort cat bit my hand without warning before settling back into its nap as if performing an expected courtesy. It was deep enough to draw blood and I became concerned that an infection might set in, so we located the Sandals nurse station and made our way over to see if they had some Neosporin.

It was a small room packed with enough supplies to triage a small military offensive. There was an unadorned desk and a friendly woman emerged from the back to ask how she could be of assistance. While listening to my situation, she was very conspicuously searching for a paper form which she then handed to me on a clip-board. I explained that I was not requesting an invasive medical procedure, I simply had not packed an antiseptic and thought she would have some.

She again insisted that I complete the lengthy “incident report” and be as detailed as possible. After turning “A cat bit my hand” into a dramatic essay, she insisted that my wife sign as a witness to assure everyone that I had not invented the story with nefarious intent.

I was somewhat offended that they suspected that my wife and I had booked this trip as part of a master plan to defraud an international resort chain by fabricating an attack by an on-premise pack of animals I only learned about upon my arrival. If I was going to play the long con, I think I would have gotten more traction by alleging psychological damage hearing our next-door neighbors evacuate their colon shortly before rekindling that loving feeling.

Upon inspecting the form, she the curtly informed me that I would have to purchase the requested first-aid supplies in the resort gift shop. I was sure I had misunderstood. I motioned toward the Grey’s Anatomy starter kits along the wall and requested some antibiotic cream and a band -aid. She again directed me to the resort gift shop. Upon arrival we found a “travel tube” of Neosporin for $14. I reminded my wife to stay close to shore because if this purchase was any indication, we would be financially unable to procure a shark-bite kit without collateral.

The beaches were public so there were several local vendors and most were friendly. There was one entrepreneur who approached me and cheerily asked if I needed some marijuana. I thanked him for his consideration, but assured him that I was not in the market. Taking my disinterest as something else, he leaned in closer and said, “I got you. I figured you were more of a cocaine guy anyway. How much you need?”

Beginning to wonder if my new beach attire was giving off the wrong vibe, I assured him that I was not a “cocaine guy” and after several more attempts and assuring me of his powder’s unmatched potency, he left.

We spent our days lounging along the shore and I was quickly reminded why I had fallen so hard for my amazing wife. A local tour-guide took us all over the island and we learned so much about the rich culture. We discovered that the people of Antigua love them some Shaggy. We heard “It Wasn’t Me” so often I just assumed it had been adopted as the national anthem. We also learned that it is illegal to wear camouflage in public. Our guide informed us that the law stemmed from a brazen armed robbery where three men presented themselves as military personnel and relieved motorists of their valuables for several hours before being arrested. I couldn’t help but feel that somehow Chompers the Resort Cat had masterminded the entire scheme.

We learned to never complain about the hardships of the pandemic to the resident of an island whose entire economy relies on tourism. When he told us that they became desperate and people did not have food, he meant it in a way that I am blessed never to have known. It was a needed reminder that when we visit these nations, our worst financial situations would often qualify as someone else’s aspirations.

Our flight back was fortunately non-eventful and we landed in Miami right on time. Having completed all of the customs paperwork during the flight, we expected to breeze through and get a bite to eat before our final flight. Passports in hand, my wife and I approached the customs official and he processed her first. We exchanged pleasantries, but his cheery manner faded as he looked at his screen and declared that my better-half was going to be held for further questioning.

Completely misreading the situation, I joked that if she was going to be detained then I was just kidding about being married for twenty-one years and we had just met on the plan while making-out during some turbulence. Taking my passport from my hand, he said, “You’re going too, funny boy” before another officer emerged to escort us into large waiting room with stainless-steel chairs bolted to the floor.

Unsure what to do next, we took inventory of the room around us. There was a Hispanic woman with an infant in the row in front of us and off to the right were several customs officers. It became clear that we were to wait until one of us was called up for further questioning. I watched as a Chinese national sat stone-face while the customs officials attempted to corroborate that he was indeed the regional sales manager for a manufacturing firm and in Miami on business. I wondered how many people they tripped up with the “business or pleasure” question. Have they ever had someone lean in and respond in a menacing voice, “Neither. I am here for carnage and insurrection”?

My wife thought we should request an attorney but I felt like we might be blowing things out of proportion so we waited. Finally, one of the agents called my name and when we both arose from our chairs, he indicated that he was only requesting me. My wife, undoubtedly terrified that our collective fate now rested in my ability to navigate a customs incident without making the situation worse, slid back down into her seat.

The officer was already holding my passport and asked me several questions, the answers to which I was certain he could have gotten from his computer screen. Where do you live? What is the zip code there? Where were we coming from? Why were you there? I got the impression that these were warm-up questions, so when he began asking if I had any declarations, I felt we had arrived at the heart of the matter.

I insisted that the only thing we had brought back from the island (other than the world’s most expensive tube of antibiotic ointment) was a gift for each of our three children: A hat for our youngest son, a dress for our daughter and a stuffed animal for my oldest son.

He eyed me warily before asking again if there was anything else I would like to declare while he was giving me the opportunity. Anything at all? When I again repeated my list of the three souvenirs, he then said, “To be absolutely clear, it is still your contention that there are no narcotics or controlled substances in your luggage?”

My first thought was that maybe I did look more like a cocaine guy than I realized. Then my mind wandered to the stuffed animal we had purchased from a beach vendor. What if it was full of uncut Caribbean powder? What if I had unwittingly become an international drug mule? Had they already found cocaine? Would my wife wait for me on the outside?

My anxiety began to grow and when I get nervous, I will often resort to poorly-timed humor. With a laugh I told him that we only bought the three items I had already disclosed and I did not know how he was raised, but where I come from kids had to get their own narcotics. His face remained stoic and he said “very funny” in a way that made me think he contemplating tasering me just to see if I would wet myself.

My mind then wandered to the cell phone I had left behind and a terrible thought occurred to me. What if it had been picked up by a mid-level distributer of illicit substances while my wife and I were away at the beach? What if my number had been used to facilitate enough shipments to trigger an investigation? I then blurted out that I had lost my cell phone at the airport on my way to Antigua which also sounded like something a cocaine guy would say.

Finally, he smiled and handed me back my passport. Without ever speaking to my wife, he motioned that I was free to go collect my luggage. As we approached the carousel, looked around half-expecting someone to arrest me the moment I touched the handle. I asked my wife if she would stick by me if things went down and she assured me that she would be in an Uber headed for a new life before they even got the cuffs on.

In what can only be described as a holiday miracle, the airline lost and found had my phone and I was able to prove ownership because my wife’s phone had the same wallpaper photo of our kids that appeared on mine. I was astounded by the amount of electronics left on planes. It looked like a Best Buy scratch-and-dent sale back there. I immediately began calling Verizon to get a refund on the replacement phone that I was never allowed to pick up. I almost lost it when the rep asked me, with a slightly-condescending tone, why I had placed an order and never bothered to take possession of it. For the second time that week, the phone in may hand was in danger of being propelled through the nearest window.

Perhaps for our next anniversary, we can up our game and get on INTERPOL’s radar (or at least actually make out during the turbulence).

The Cracker Barrel Incident

It was a late Sunday morning in the fall of last year when my wife suggested that we visit our local Cracker Barrel for a lowkey brunch with the kids. So, we gathered the flock and spent the requisite amount of time browsing through the giftshop waiting for our name to be called. If you have never had the experience of a Cracker Barrel giftshop, just imagine a place that sells Pink Floyd vinyl, rooster crockery and cold-pressed soap in equal measure.

Everything began as you would expect, the kids fought over the single wooden-peg game allocated to our table. A franchise staple, the object of the triangle peg game is to take the golf tees and jump them over each other to reduce the remaining number to one. If any of them managed to reduce the number of pegs to three or less there were immediate accusations of cheating and malfeasance by their siblings. Eventually, their attention turned to the menus so that everyone could pretend to contemplate their choices while eventually ordering the exact same thing we knew they would.

As is our custom, as soon as the server left my children began complaining about what they perceived to be an inordinate amount of time to cook pancakes. I informed them that it has been only about 42 seconds and it is unlikely that our server has had enough time to convey our entire order to the cook unless the two of them have worked out a series of clicks and hand signals to communicate.

The food arrived in a reasonable amount of time and everyone began tucking into an artery-hardening array of eggs and gravy. Toward the end of the meal, I noticed that my wife was staring at our first-grader with mild concern. I glanced over and satisfied myself that he was not choking, but he certainly did not seem to be enjoying his folksy breakfast experience as much as the rest of us.

Apparently, my son had managed to lodge his elbow between the slats of his wooden chair. Scoffing at my wife and son’s growing alarm, I pivoted and verbally instructed him to wiggle it a little bit whilst I continued stuffing my face with French toast.  My son, looking at me with disappointment for what would not be the first or last time in his life, told me that he had already tried that.

Exasperated, I got up out of my chair and walked over behind his. In all fairness, his folded arm was firmly wedged in the widest part of the chair spindle. Upon further investigation, it appeared that his wind-breaker (which had been draped across the back of the chair) had reduced the friction against his skin allowing his extremity to protrude much farther than it normally would have.

He had already extracted the wind-breaker in an unsuccessful attempt to free himself and was now growing desperate. Still chewing my food, I leaned down and attempted to force apart the slats as he pulled his arm toward his body. It was clear that either my muscles were far more atrophied than I had feared or the chair was far better built than I suspected. Either way, it was clear that my tendons had less structural integrity than their furniture.

My feeble efforts were noticed by a rather muscular server who caught on to the situation much faster than I had. Breathing a sigh of relief that this was now in the hands of a four-star Cracker Barrel veteran who looked like he was putting up three hundy at the gym, I took a step back and watched (with some satisfaction) as he was unable to make any more progress than I had.

He and I regrouped momentarily and decided that the best course of action would be for us each to sit on the floor, place our feet on the bottom rung of the chair and then pull-on opposite sides of the same slat. As you can imagine, seeing Swole McApron and myself sitting on the floor playing tug-o-war with a child was started to draw the interest of the other patrons who had now stopped eating. Within a few moments of our latest futile attempt to end the standoff, the manager had appeared to ascertain why one of his servers was on the floor attempting to demolish company property instead of slinging gravy.

The three of us then attempted – again in vain – to create enough space for my son to free his arm. At this point, all restaurant business had ceased and even the hostess had moved closer to bear witness to my son’s plight. As is often the case in any public crisis, people began offering unsolicited advice “try lotion!” “wiggle his arm more!” “raise children with better spatial-awareness!”

The manager began lamenting that they had recently changed chair manufacturers due the sub-par quality of past items and how easily they broke. I responded that it would appear the newest model had been constructed by the Amish on a direct commission from our Lord and Savior. The manager was very kind and I verbalized my desire to avoid any damage to the chair. I then offered to pay if it had to be dismantled (an offer which he politely declined). I assured him that we would do our best not to bring any harm to the chair forged in the heart of a dying star.

During all of this, my son had remained stoic but was clearly concerned the longer the ordeal went on. My wife was comforting him amid the sideline coaching and my other children continued eating their meal as if this sort of predicament was a common occurrence anytime our family was served an entrée. Had the jaws of life been involved, my oldest would have simply tapped the nearest firefighter and requested they pass the syrup. 

Child with arm stuck in chair at Cracker Barrel - A.I. (oil on canvas)

It was around this time that a gentleman appeared and offered to retrieve his cordless Sawzall from his truck. I was thankful for his offer but was reluctant to place a reciprocating metal blade that close to my child’s body. We agreed that would be a last resort and he stood at the ready.

Suddenly, my son’s stoicism broke and tears began to stream down his face. Concerned that our efforts had further pinched his arm, I leaned in and tried to comfort him. It took several minutes before I understood his heightened level of concern. He had overheard both my conversation with the manager and the gentleman with the power-tools. From those two conversations, he had inferred the following:

1.     Dad has assured the manager that we would not break the chair.
2.    A man had offered use of his Sawzall.
3.   The only logical conclusion was that the Sawzall was going to be used to amputate his arm so that, other than the bone fragments and blood, the chair could be spared any trauma.

Once I reassured him that I would sooner set fire to the building than cut off his elbow, he calmed down and someone emerged from the kitchen with a claw hammer and pry-bar. After several spirited attempts, the chair finally gave way with a loud crack and the ordeal was over.  

The crowd dispersed just as quickly as it had gathered and the manager kindly offered my son a complimentary dessert. Normally we would have taken the offer, but he was still understandably upset and my wife whisked him out to the car while I waited for the check. She said that as they moved through the gift shop, she overheard one female patron whisper to the other one, “That’s the kid with the arm!!”

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. We are all seated around the table eating when my wife and I began talking about all of us going out to dinner over the weekend. I thoughtlessly mentioned Cracker Barrel and my wife echoed the sentiment and wondered aloud why it had been so long since we had eaten there.

As she was saying this, we both remembered that there was a very specific reason we had not been in awhile and immediately turned our attention to youngest son. His face was stricken, he had dropped his fork and was saying, “No! No! Cracker Barrel” while holding his arm.

With the promise of a quilt or coat between his body and the chair, we were successfully able to get him over his fear of Cracker Barrel (or just subjected him to further childhood trauma). If I find him seated in a wooden rocking chair facing the corner of his room muttering “ya’ll come back real soon!” we will just add a little more crypto to the therapy fund.