Last-minute Christmas

            It’s nearly Christmas, which means that it’s almost time for me to begin thinking about considering the possibility of starting Christmas shopping.

            I am a diehard, last-possible-minute Christmas shopper. It isn’t time to begin looking for gifts until the mall security guards are locking the doors on Christmas Eve.

            My wife, on the other hand, is an über Christmas shopper. She has been known to purchase gifts decades in advance. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she has stockpiled Christmas presents for possible future grandchildren that aren’t even yet a twinkle in an eye.

            It’s not as if I don’t like Christmas shopping. I just don’t particularly enjoy the parts that involve driving to the store, dealing with the crowds, searching for the perfect items, paying for said items and then driving back home. Other than that, Christmas shopping is OK.

            Finding an item that’s suitable for conveying the kindly feelings that accompany Christmas has always been a problem. This would often lead to panic decisions and gifts such as booklets of S & H Green Stamps and Mason jars full of mismatched buttons. Nothing says “Happy Yuletide!” like a festive ball of lint that has been lovingly and recently – it’s still warm! – collected from the clothes dryer screen.

            Let’s face it: it’s hard to know what to buy for some people. Back when I was a kid, the fallback gift for a man was a pocket square. Uncles all across this great land of ours probably have dresser drawers full of pocket squares.

            When I was growing up, the default Christmas gift for me seemed to be socks. It was always disappointing to pick up a promising-looking box and realize, based on its mass and lack of interesting rattles, that it contained socks. My heart had been set on a jet pack! Besides, what message does the gift of socks send other than “Your feet reek!”

            Aletta, a neighbor lady, gave me a model car kit for Christmas when I was about eight. My guess is that assembling the model was supposed to give me insight into the automotive manufacturing business – minus the labor and supply chain problems, of course. 

            Ideally, the box containing the model car would be opened carefully. Its instruction sheet would be gently removed, studied in great detail and scrupulously followed. This is pretty much the opposite of what I did.

            Excited at the prospect of owning my first car, I ripped the box open, sending tiny plastic car parts skittering across the floor. I tossed the instruction sheet aside, figuring that directions are for sissies. I still use this approach when traveling.

            I was eager to get started and began to randomly glue car parts together. I soon learned a couple of things regarding model car assembly.

            First was that there were some very good reasons for having an instruction sheet. It turns out that there is a very specific order that needs to be followed when assembling a model car. For instance, the engine and transmission should be installed before the hood and fenders, not after.

            Second was that model glue is surprisingly strong. Say that you have to remove the hood and fenders to allow the installation of an engine. The fenders are likely to snap before their glue joints give.

            I also learned that model glue has an atomic attraction to my skin. And my clothes. And my hair. There is no way on God’s green earth to remove model glue from hair, so a guy has no choice other than to cut it out. This is more difficult than it sounds, especially when you don’t have access to a mirror.

            The final step was applying the car’s decals which were released from a special sheet of paper by soaking it in water. This caused the decals to become so slimy and fragile that they would rip if you so much as breathed on them. You need the hands of a neurosurgeon when applying model car decals.

            After nearly an hour of intense effort, my model car was finally done. It listed to one side and was riddled with random splotches of glue and hair. The fenders were crooked and the decals looked like wads of wet tissue that had been thrown at the car and left to dry. None of the wheels turned except for the steering wheel, which kept falling off.

            Even so, I was proud of my miniature roadster. I was racking my brains for a way to properly thank Aletta for her thoughtful present when I stumbled upon the perfect gift: a nice new pair of socks.                                             

 

           

             

           

           

 

           

                                   

             

The Gut Bug

            An uninvited and unwelcome guest came to our house recently. His stay was short – only about 48 hours – but his visit left us emotionally and physically drained.

            I am speaking about that nasty intestinal bug that has been making the rounds lately.

            My wife was the first to sense his presence.

            “I don’t feel so well,” she said to me one morning. “I’m kind of urpy and my tummy is rumbling like Mount Vesuvius shortly before its epic eruption in 79 AD, a historical fact that one can look up on Wikipedia and use at times such as this.”

            As Chief Medical Officer of our household, it was my duty to diagnose the patient. This consisted entirely of taking her temperature via the proven scientific method of placing a hand on her forehead.

            “You don’t have a fever,” I said. “It’s probably just something you ate. I told you we should have thrown out that potato salad! When we bought it, the Colonel was still just a private!”

            “I’m going to lie down,” was her only reply. The fact that she didn’t point out that it was me who had insisted on keeping the leftovers told me that she wasn’t kidding about feeling ill.

            I was performing important journalistic research – watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons on the internet – when I heard some strange sounds emanating from the bathroom. My wife seemed to be calling for someone named Bork.

            “You OK?” I asked when she staggered out of the loo.

            “What do you think?” she replied. “My gut feels like it’s been worked over by Mike Tyson! I yakked so much, I saw a taco that I ate in 1973!”         

            My wife is prone to exaggeration and hyperbole, so I patted her on the head and told her to go back to bed. I was certain that the picture wasn’t nearly as bleak as she had painted it and that she merely had some minor stomach issues.

            Throughout the day she made several more verbal visits to the lavatory. In between times I would offer her 7-Up and soda crackers, but that only caused her to blanch and bolt for the bathroom.

            I found this deeply troubling, mainly because I was worried that I might also be stricken. But I decided that getting sick wasn’t an option. I simply would not allow it! Using nothing but the sheer force of will, I would avoid the dreaded fate of driving the porcelain bus.

            And it worked – for a while. By the next morning, I had the distinct feeling that a mighty maelstrom was brewing in my digestive regions. As the thunderheads of nausea gathered and boiled, I vowed that I wouldn’t let the gut bug win.

            My wife had by then pretty much recovered. She checked in on me at midmorning. “How are you doing?” she asked.

            “It feels as if an EF5 tornado, which, according to Wikipedia, can have winds in excess of 200 MPH, is churning its way through my innards!”

            “You always exaggerate everything! It’s probably just a minor stomach thing.”

            I languished in anguish for half a day. There were times when I thought that my determination might successfully beat back the enemy, but this was swiftly followed by the sense that the invaders were about to breach my defenses.

            Just when I was beginning to believe that hostilities might end with an uneasy ceasefire, a tsunami of profound emotions swept over me. The kind of profound emotions that, as a rule, causes a person to sprint for the bathroom.

            Once there, I was faced with an extremely pressing dilemma: which end should I hold over the toilet first? What followed is probably not what they had in mind when they minted the word “multitasking.”

            Afterwards, I was engulfed by a deep feeling of relief. I crawled back under the covers, glad that the storm was over. But it wasn’t over.

            Several additional urgent bathroom visits took place over the course of the day. My wife tried to help by offering 7-Up and soda crackers. Of what use would such things be to a man who, in the professional opinion of our family’s Chief Medical Officer, was clearly dying?

            At some indiscernible point, some invisible corner was turned. Less than a day after they had materialized, most of the symptoms had disappeared.

            We knew that our unwelcome houseguest had left when we could sit upright and watch TV without feeling woozy. We sipped weak tea and nibbled on saltines, both of us murmuring that this was a feast fit for the gods.                   

Sparkles The Adventure Cat vs Evil Cat Food-stealing Squirrel!

Acts of Kindness

            This is the season wherein our thoughts turn toward performing acts of kindness for others. A prime example of such a thing might include sending a bolt of cloth to Lady Gaga so that she doesn’t have to traipse around in a dress that’s made of luncheon meats.

            Speaking of vittles and bad taste, this is also the time of year when many suffer due to issues regarding food. For many of us, this discomfort comes from consuming excessive amounts of chow, but there is also the distress that involves lutefisk.

            Once upon a time, I heard that lutefisk should only be consumed during the months that contain the letter “r”. Many lutefisk lovers would contend that this rule should be expanded to include the months that contain a, e, i, o and u.

            This may be difficult to believe, but there are some who would turn up their noses at a lye-soaked, fish-based, food-like substance that has been dried outdoors where seabirds fly over. A few have even gone so far as to say that they detest this delicacy, so – let’s be brutally honest here – they are nothing less than Lutefisk Haters.

            Lutefisk Haters have such an intense aversion to the stuff that they gag at the mere thought of being in an area where lutefisk may have been served at any time in the past or might possibly be consumed sometime in the future. I know this is so because my wife is such a person.

            Given the depth of emotions regarding this issue, it’s amazing that we are still married. Few things warm my heart more than a traditional lutefisk supper on Christmas Eve. But my wife can’t stand lutefisk, so we compromise by not having lutefisk.

            I might make a few discrete inquiries of some people who are “in the know” and learn of a church basement lutefisk supper that I can attend “on the sly.” But I think my wife knows what I am up to during these “business seminars” because she insists that I burn my clothes as soon as I get home.        

            Another source of misery that rears its discordant head at this time of year is choir practice.

            As a kid, I was forced to be part of numerous Christmas choirs. Note that I didn’t say “sing in.” I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty sure that I invented the art of lip-synching.

            As soon as Thanksgiving was over, choir practice would begin. Back then, federal law mandated that kids be in at least two Christmas choirs, one for the school Christmas concert and a similar event for Sunday School. You would think that after all that choir practice I would sing like an angel, but no.

            It’s not like our choir directors didn’t try. Quite the opposite. She – our directors were always female – would gesture vigorously as she cajoled us with such instructions as, “Open your mouths!” and “SING!” and “I can’t hear ANY of you boys!”  

            There was a good reason she couldn’t hear any of the boys: none of us were singing. Boys who actually sang often became the object of derision. Their still-developing and fragile sense of manliness might be called into question; the term “sissy” might be trotted out. 

            The choir didn’t suffer due to my chronic nonparticipation. I had experimented with singing in the privacy of our dairy barn and was appalled by the results. The noises that issued from my throat startled me and caused me to think that perhaps someone was choking a toad. The cow that I was milking agreed, making her opinion known by lifting her tail and releasing a burst of methane.

            And our choir directors always seemed to have such high ambitions for us! This was the cause of much suffering on both sides of the baton.

            I blame the recording industry. My theory is that our choir directors had listened to recordings of professional musicians singing Gregorian chants and thought, “By golly, there’s no reason why our choir, which is made up of musically inexperienced farm kids, can’t sound exactly like that!”

            To hear a good example of this, go to YouTube and type in “Chanticleer” followed by something such as “Shenandoah” or “Stille Nacht.”

            See what I mean? There is no way a normal human kid choir could produce that type of harmonizing! Their poor choir director must have gestured her arm off.

            Compared to the members of Chanticleer, I have a negative level of musical ability. So the way I see it, my not singing was nothing less than a selfless act of kindness.       

Storing Stuff

            “Where is that thingamajig?” I called out to my wife as I pawed though the junk drawer.

            “What thingamajig?” she called back.

            “You know. The one that I have to use to adjust the legs on the washing machine.”

            “I think it’s in the junk drawer.”

            “That’s where I’ve been looking and I am not seeing any thingamajig!”

            “Not that junk drawer! The one over on the right!”

            “Never mind! I found it in the bottom junk drawer!”

            So goes another exciting Saturday night at the Nelson farm. I find this troubling on several levels. For one, I was actually looking for a doohickey and misspoke when I said “thingamajig.” But I didn’t want to tell my wife – good ol’ what’s-her-name – lest she think that I’m growing forgetful. 

            Second of all, how many junk drawers do we have? Are they multiplying? Will we be digging for something someday and discover that our junk drawers have junk drawers?

            And most importantly, where do you draw the line between someone who is wisely conserving their resources and an overly-passionate hoarder who gets a syndrome named after them? 

            My wife and I have developed a storage system for our stuff that we call “pilot.” That is, we pile it here and we pile it there until we grow tired of re-piling the stuff and throw it out. Then we go buy new stuff.

            The same system can be seen in the way we use our refrigerator. The fridge is basically just a place where we store leftover food until it’s time to give it to the dog.

            “Where’s that last slice of pizza?” I may ask my wife after scanning and rescanning the contents of the refrigerator until I have stood in front of its open doors long enough for icicles to form on my buttons.

            “I tossed that out to the dog a long time ago,” she might reply.

            “What?! That pizza was still good!”

            “You’ve got to be kidding! It was made during the Eisenhower Administration! It had more life forms on it than the floor of a boy’s high school locker room!”

            We have all been in homes which are kept so impeccably clean that you suspect its owners chase after individual dust motes so as to capture them before they can land on anything. The sort of home that would make Martha Stewart look like a pitiful slob.

            And we have also visited homes that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Homes that don’t have floors or walls, only paths between the soaring stacks of stuff. You don’t dare sneeze lest you set off an avalanche and have to be rescued by a St. Bernard that has been specially trained to sniff out people who have been buried by junk. Knowing my luck, the dog would have consumed the contents of his brandy cask by the time he found me.

            Our home is somewhere between these extremes. Because we are in the Holiday season and might have guests, a flurry of cleaning and rearranging and chucking out has been taking place recently.

            “What are these keys for?” asked my wife during one of our housecleaning forays.

            “Good grebe! Those are for the ‘74 Pinto that we traded off 30-some years ago! That tinny little car was probably taken straight to the recycler and turned into Spam cans.”

            “So should we throw out these keys or not?”

            “I dunno. Let’s put them in the ‘maybe’ pile.”

            The shop/ garden shed is my exclusive domain, so my wife has nothing to do with how and where the tools are stored. Which means that things are pretty messy out there.

            To the untrained eye, my shop might look as if it had just been hit by a small indoor tornado. But I know exactly where everything is. Kind of. To within 30 feet or so.

            Last summer I told my wife that I was going to mow the lawn and thus needed the checkbook.

            “Why would you need the checkbook to mow the lawn?”

            “Because. The mower’s grommet confabulator needs adjustment and it takes a special tool to do that. So I’m going to run to town and buy one.”

            “But I thought you already had a confabulator doodad.”

            “I do. Technically. OK, I admit it! I can’t find the dumb thing! It’s out there in the shop somewhere but it’s decided to hide from me! It’ll be a lot quicker if I just go buy a new one.”

            “Well, you’ll have to help me find the checkbook first. I think it’s somewhere here in one of these junk drawers.”    

    

                        

Thanksgiving Day Doings

            It is Thanksgiving time, a traditional holiday that was started by the Pilgrims, a group of intrepid voyagers who decided to put ashore not far from the site of present day Boston due to the fact that they were nearly out of beer.

            Sadly, Sam Adams Brewery wouldn’t come into existence for several more centuries, so the Pilgrims had to make do that awful substance known as “lite” beer. This and the total lack of televised parades and football games were among the many harsh privations that our pioneering forebears were forced to endure.

            Things have changed tremendously since that first Thanksgiving. For instance, the average modern American will now consume more calories on Thanksgiving Day than were contained in the entire original Thanksgiving feast.

            They say that the most important exercise you can perform during the Holidays is grasping the edge of the table and pushing yourself away. Like many, I find it nearly impossible to follow this brutal exercise regimen. Plus, pushing back from the table only puts me in closer proximity to the kitchen counter which is loaded with plates full of yummies, some of which I have sampled only a couple of times. Certainly that luscious lefse could stand more scrutiny!

            And like many, my waistline gives testimony to my failure to perform these dinnertime push-backs. But it’s not my fault! The forces aligned against me are simply too powerful.

            For example, there once was a time when I would only catch an occasional glimpse of a cooking show on TV. Watching such programs made me feel like when I was a kid and stumbled across the Ladies Foundation Garments section of the JC Penney catalogue. Whoa, what have we here? Boo-yah!

            Nowadays, there are entire networks that are dedicated solely to food. It’s nothing but food this and cooking that! Salacious terms such as sauté and baste and glaze are tossed about with total abandon. Bingeing on a cooking network is roughly equivalent to constantly hearing, “Hey, big boy! Want to watch while I whisk up some meringue?”

            It doesn’t help that many of the chefs on such shows tend to be ladies who are, shall we say, “experienced” in the field of food. Ladies who are comfortable with the fact that they have done very few tableside push-backs. But this only makes every salubrious snack seem even more tempting. “Never trust a skinny cook” is the axiom I live by.

            The ubiquity of the Internet and the soaring popularity of social media have only made this situation worse. Even on such family friendly and trustworthy sites as Facebook, one can see such tawdry headlines as:

·         Ten Ways To Drive Him Wild (Rice) On Thanksgiving Day!

·         Your Man Will Cry After Tasting This Onion-Free Stuffing Recipe!

·         Breast Or Thigh? Why Not Both?

·         Change “No, Thanks” To “Yes, Please” With This Willpower-Destroying Apple Crisp!                 

·         Not His Mother’s Whipped Topping: Seven Secrets For Disguising Cool Whip

            And the list just goes on and on! After being constantly bombarded by all these subliminal – and some extremely liminal! – media messages, it’s no wonder the average guy finds it impossible to “just say no” when a sultry voice whispers to him, “Would you like seconds?”

            After stuffing ourselves silly on Thanksgiving Day, many of us will commence to lying on the couch or the Barcalounger or the garage floor (any horizontal surface will do) like a herd of beached seals. The difference is that seals, if threatened, will actually rise up and do their best to escape the perceived danger. In the immediate aftermath of our epic Thanksgiving feast, most of us are so comatose we wouldn’t move even if a great white shark were to walk into the living room and ask to see the menu.

            The original Pilgrims would never have brooked such nonsense. They spent the first Thanksgiving in the New World eating and playing games and generally whooping it up with their Native American friends. And no, this did not involve visiting a casino.

            What passes for games in modern times is the act of watching football games. This entails a certain element of danger if by “danger” you mean “it’s entirely possible that I could sprain my wrist while opening this bottle of beer.”

            But after all these centuries, the main reason for Thanksgiving remains the same: to gather with friends and family and to give thanks for all our blessings. And that goes double for these comfy new pants with their stretchy waistband.

             

A Murder Mystery

            It isn’t often that we are asked to witness a murder, so my wife and I felt impelled to accept the invitation.

            We were told to go to a supper club located in the tiny town of Lake Benton, Minnesota. As we entered the club, we instantly perceived that a huge mistake had been made.

            A reunion was being held for some high school we’d never heard of. Not wanting to admit that anything was amiss, we and the other attendees mingled and chatted. Questions about how things were going in each other’s lives were asked and the usual high school reunion-type answers were given. That is, the impression was created that everything is simply wonderful.

            One particular woman was wearing a very striking red dress. And by “striking” I mean “cut clear down to here.” Her nametag, which was difficult to read due to its close proximity to some cleavage, implied that she was Jennifer. Jennifer had a very hands-on personality.

            As Jennifer and I chatted, she touched my shoulder and my arm, overtly violating the invisible three-foot no-go zone we Midwesterners all carry around. When Jennifer departed to mingle with others, my wife fixed me with a look that would melt titanium.

            “What’s on that business card she gave you?” she asked.

            “Says here that Jennifer specializes in tantric massage.”

            “Your tantric doesn’t need any massaging!” said my wife.

            Fortunately, a moment later my wife’s and the entire room’s attention was diverted when a fracas broke out between two women. There was a flurry of pushing and yelling; loud, derogatory statements were made concerning each other’s morals and recent ancestry. The adversaries were quickly separated and restrained, so the catfight was stopped before it could really begin. I felt vaguely disappointed.

            We were about to be served our meals – I was looking forward to my sirloin – when one of the attendees stood up and began making a speech. He waxed nostalgic about the “good old days” in the high school that we’d never heard of, making special mention of Kathy, a world-famous movie star classmate whom we’d also never hear of. When Kathy rose to thank him, he impetuously grabbed her and planted a long and passionate kiss on her mouth. Lipstick was exchanged.

            Kathy responded by coughing and gagging and falling to the floor. Several people rushed to her aid, but moments later she was declared dead!

            Shortly after Kathy’s lifeless body was carried from the room, we tucked into our meals. That might sound cold, but it wasn’t like we could do anything for her. I thought about calling “dibs” on Kathy’s dessert, but decided that this might seem a bit too callous.

            The room buzzed with discussion regarding the cause of Kathy’s demise and who might have done it. We realized that some of the conversations we’d had with certain guests during social hour might have contained clues.

            I pointed out to our tablemates that some of the so-called ‘clues’ might actually be red herrings. 

            “Will you shut up about Jennifer?” said my wife.

            About the time that our cheesecake arrived, a police inspector named Sherbert Holmes strode into the room. He announced that no one could leave until he had questioned key suspects.

            His inquiries revealed that Kathy had numerous enemies in the room, many of whom might have wanted her dead. Even Kathy’s best friends agreed that she could use a little killing. Such is the life of a world-famous movie star!

            Holmes’s keen intellect soon ferreted out the truth and the guilty party was arrested and hauled away. We toasted this investigative success with a cup of after-dinner coffee.

            I chatted with Sirrina Martinez, the lady who was responsible for the evening’s adventure. Sirrina is the Event Coordinator with the Lake Benton Convention and Visitors Bureau. I asked her what had engendered the idea for a whodunit dinner theater.

            “When I was little, the TV show Golden Girls was big at our house,” she replied. “In one episode the girls attended a murder mystery dinner theater. Ever since then I have wanted to do an event like this.”

            Have you directed anything before?

            “No, this was my directorial debut. None of this would have been possible without our wonderful community volunteers. Funds raised tonight will go toward the Lake Benton Opera House. Our hope is that we can host more community events like this.”

            As we drove home, my wife and I discussed the evening’s happenings. How is it that we missed all those obvious clues?

            “They arrested the wrong person,” said my wife. “It should be a felony to wear a dress that’s that red!”