The Greatest Love of All

So, now that I have your attention, I am sure that you remember the old Whitney Houston song referred to in the title of this post. In case you don’t, let me refresh your memory with a few lines of pertinent lyrics (I have just picked them plum out of the middle of the song):

Because the greatest love of all

Is happening to me

I found the greatest love of all

Inside of me

The Coca-Cola Freestyle machine comes in three
fashion colors.

When I think of my greatest love, I know that these words ring particularly true. You see, my greatest love of all is the Coca-ColaFreestyle machine, and my favorite beverage from said machine, Strawberry FantaZero, will be found inside of me after I drink a 40 ounce cup of it at my local Willy’s Mexicana Grill.

Some people don’t believe in love at first sight, but those people have obviously never heard the story of the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine and me. But, before I tell you our amazing tale of enchantment, allow me to explain what the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine is, for those who are unfamiliar with its magic. It is a touch-screen soda machine featuring many different Coca-Cola products in a cornucopia of flavors. Just some of the beverages it may serve include Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Sprite, Diet Sprite, Fanta, Fanta Zero, Minute Maid Lemonade, Minute Maid Light Lemonade, Powerade, Dr. Pepper, Diet Dr. Pepper, and just about anything else your little Coca-Cola loving heart desires. But wait! Not only can you get any one of these drinks, but you can also get almost all of them in a variety of flavors. Have you ever tried raspberry Diet Sprite, or Minute Maid strawberry lemonade? Well, you can now!

When I go to my local Willy’s, I go for several reasons, including the food, the casual atmosphere, and the comfort factor (I went to Willy’s a lot in the course of divorcing my ex-husband, and I find it to be a soothing place to go). However, a large part of why I go is because of the allure of the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine. My local Willy’s was one of the first places in the Atlanta area to feature the machine, and when it was introduced there in 2009, it was like someone had plopped Rosie, the robotic maid from the Jetsons right down in the middle of the restaurant or something. People stared at it and oohed and aahed, and pretty much puzzled over how to use it. However, everyone quickly learned that all you have to do is touch the name of the drink you want on the screen, then touch the flavor and a frosty beverage flows into your cup as naturally as—well, as naturally as two people fall in love!

Now, to get back to the magical tale of the first time the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine and I met—it was evening, and getting toward dinnertime. I walked into Willy’s with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (AKA my ex-husband) and laid eyes on what looked like a spaceship parked next to where the old drink machine sat looking forlorn and lonely. We got our food, and I approached the spaceship, eyes open wide as saucers. As I looked at the screen, a little orange logo and the words “Fanta Zero” gazing hopefully back at me, I knew I’d met the match that would complete me. I tentatively touched the logo, causing the flavor choices to pop up. I spent the next 45 minutes eating and sampling different flavors of Fanta Zero from the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine.

After that initial rush of flavor sampling, I settled into a routine when I visited Willy’s. I started ordering the large-sized drink so I would not have to go back for refills as often, yet I filled my cup an average of three times on each visit to the restaurant. Now, I know some people think it is disgusting to drink soft drinks at all, much less to drink, like, 587 ounces of a soft drink in one restaurant visit, but if I am able to spread the wonder of the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine to even one new person, the vilification will be worth it. My pattern became to fill my cup almost to the top with strawberry Fanta Zero, and then to top it off with some regular cherry Fanta. To this very day I still drink the same flavor combination. I mentioned in this post that when I go to a restaurant, I pick one entrée and then order it every time I visit said restaurant until the end of time, and my pattern of getting drinks at restaurants is no different.

Toddlers have limited fine-motor skills. Also,
sometimes they think bananas are phones.

The only problem with the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine is the people who use it. For example, some people have no idea how to use it, and spend, like five minutes with a line behind them poking and prodding various parts of the machine hoping a beverage will come out from somewhere. While watching them can be amusing, I usually help them to hurry them along so I can get my drink.

Then there are the people who have, like, two and three year-old little kids with them, who decide that the best time to let little Sally or Jimmy press the buttons on the machine is when there are six people waiting in line behind them. Not cool! Let’s all think about the limited fine-motor skills of toddlers here, people! Then there are the kids who have decided to make the world’s most disgusting Suicide by mixing eleventy-billion drink flavors together. Unsurprisingly, once they are done mixing and taste their concoctions, they realize what they made is disgusting and they have to dump it out and start all over—all while I am waiting to get my drink!

There are also the kids who get a little bit of a drink and taste it, and then a little of another flavor and taste it. Okay, they are kids, I get it. Their excuse is that they are young. But one time there was this grown-ass man in his early twenties who proceeded to sample each flavor of Powerade the machine had to offer, then drink half a cup of it each time, all with people waiting behind him. I was shocked and appalled at his behavior!

As you can see, appropriate usage etiquette is very important to me when it comes to the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine. I feel bad when I top off my Fanta Zero with regular Fanta, because I am making people wait, but some of these people seem to think that patrons waiting for drink refills just have all the time in the world! Hmph!

I guess that’s how love is, though. There are the things you love about someone, and the things you don’t like quite so much. If I could just eliminate having to wait in line behind some of these people, the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine would have only positive qualities in my eyes. I guess it is time to start saving money so I can get one for my house one day. If that day ever comes, and you come by to visit and I don’t answer the door, just remember, I am inside with my greatest love of all, enjoying endless flavor combinations and free refills.

Coca-Cola Freestyle image courtesy of http://insideboloco.wordpress.com/

Toddler image courtesy of http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/

Lyrics from the song "The Greatest Love of All," written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed

Online Dating: A Weighty Decision

I bet this happens to you: something is sort of bothering you, only you don’t think it really bothers you that much, so you just go on about living your life and you try to forget about it. Until you realize that maybe it is actually bothering you more than you thought, and so you have to actually revisit the issue and work through it so that you can move on from it. Well, this has happened to me from something that occurred over the weekend—something that got me down and messed with my mojo.

June Cleaver is probably not going to win
that twerking contest!

I know I have mentioned before that around the beginning of August I somehow, inexplicably, became an optimist. I still don’t know exactly what prompted this change, as before it occurred I was about as optimistic as June Cleaver at a twerking contest. But, somehow this great change occurred. And, guess what?! I actually feel much better and am much happier than I have ever been! So, it is understandable, I guess, that I worry that this optimism will somehow wear off or otherwise fade away. If I ever feel a little bit down, or if I start to dwell on something negative, I become hyper vigilant about not slipping into a negative way of thinking. Well, over this past weekend I felt a little blue, and it has lasted up until this very moment.

I have figured out what caused me to feel this way and, what do you know? It is related to online dating. I suppose feeling depressed about online dating is no big revelation. After perusing an online dating site last week, and seeing some of the guys out there, I guess depression is a rational response. However, I know enough people who have had successful online dating experiences, that I believe there are some good ones amidst the sea of men who don’t wear shirts in their profile pictures, so, on Sunday, I actually wrote out my online dating profile in Microsoft Word. Perhaps I will share it with you one day, because I think you would find it pretty entertaining, but I will wait until I have actually posted it on a dating site to share it here.

Posting my profile was a big step, but I was going into it with a good attitude, and thinking that even if I don’t meet anyone spectacular, I willd still probably have fun, and I will certainly have some good stories to tell. I decided against the site I looked into last week, OK Cupid, and instead opted for another free online dating site called Plenty of Fish. My older brother and his wife met on that site, and they seem like a wonderful match, so I thought, “What have I got to lose?”

Well, apparently the answer to that question is a few pounds, but I’ll get to that in a minute. After laboring over my dating profile so that I didn’t sound insane, or needy, or overly self-involved, or any of the other terrible things you try not to sound in your online dating profile, I was ready to take the leap and actually put it up on the Internet for all to see. Before I could post the profile, I had to post some preliminary information. You know, like my birthdate, whether or not I was a smoker, my height, and other things that help online daters weed out inappropriate matches. All was going well until I got to the little box that said “body type.”

I figured I was all set on this box, because I would just put “curvy.” In my mind, curvy could describe my figure without sounding negative. I have lost a lot of weight, and I am not exactly really overweight, but I still weigh a little too much to be considered average, but I don’t think I am at such a high weight that I seem that much bigger than average. So, curvy it was!

But, when I looked at the choices for body type, I found, to my dismay, that curvy wasn’t one of them. The choices were:

• Prefer Not to Say
• Thin
• Athletic
• Average
• A Few Extra Pounds
• Big & Tall/BBW

Now, I can see some problems with some of these choices right off the bat! First, if you put “Prefer Not to Say,” forget it! I am pretty sure that evasiveness on this question is not the way to go. If I looked at a guy’s profile and it said, “Prefer Not to Say” for body type, I would probably assume that was code for something terrible that he did not want to share, and then I would probably not respond to him. Plus, what I would imagine in my mind would likely be much worse than how things were in real life. "Thin", "Athletic", or "Average", would be great, but I don’t quite fit into any of those categories. I’m not thin, I am athletic only in the sense that my fingers get a good workout when I knit, and I think I am a little bit outside the average category, though, in a couple of months, I will probably fit right into that category. I know I don’t fit into the category of “Big & Tall/BBW” because, first, what does BBW mean? And, second, I’m not really extra-big or extra-tall.

In all honesty, I probably fit into the category of “A Few Extra Pounds,” but, really? Really, is there anyone who is going to want to put “A Few Extra Pounds” as their body type on their dating profile?! I mean, come on, Plenty of Fish, at least come up with a nicer way to say it! That is why I like the designation “curvy,” because it communicates that I am a work in progress, while not making me feel terrible. I considered just putting "Average," because, it won’t be too long before I will be average, but then I decided that this would be false advertising, and that my potential dates might be disappointed after they met me and saw that I don’t quite belong in the average category.

So, I could put “A Few Extra Pounds,” and then I would be being truthful, but that would limit who would respond to my profile. Now, I know that, ideally, a guy wouldn’t care about my body type, and he would just like me for me. But, let’s be honest here. Meeting someone online is not like meeting someone in real life. If I meet a guy in real life, and he carries a few extra pounds, but he is an awesome guy, then I am probably not going to care about the extra pounds, because I will know he is an awesome guy. But, when I am looking for a date online, and I do not know any of the guys one bit, why not try to get one that seems like a nice person, and who is also very attractive? I do not mean that people who weigh a little more than they would like cannot be attractive, but, if I am given two dating profiles, in which the guys both have attractive faces, and they both seem like passable normal intelligent people, but one has chosen “Average,” and one has chosen, “A Few Extra Pounds,” then I might be more likely to choose the average one.

The dreaded body type selector on Plenty of Fish!

Or, now that I consider it, I might just go ahead and go on a date with both and see which one I liked better. See how talking out your feelings helps? I am working through this issue already! But, even though I know that whole “A Few Extra Pounds” thing would not be a deal breaker for me, I still cannot bring myself to use that descriptor in my own dating profile. I mean, it just makes me feel unattractive! Plus, I did hang out with a guy a couple of months ago when I weighed slightly more than I do now, and he did not seem put off by my body type, so maybe I should just put average. It is a quandary! Right now I am leaning toward waiting until I have lost about 20 more pounds before signing up so I can, in good conscience, put “Average,” but I feel like that is not quite what I want to do either.

I guess this is something I will work out in my mind over time, but right now I am going to take my indecisiveness as a sign to hold off on the online dating for a little while!

June Cleaver image courtesy of http://blog.mollymaid.com/

Body type selector image courtesy of http://www.plentyoffish.com

You Down With OCD? Yeah, You Know Me! (Plus, the Cheeto Incident)

Yes, I have OCD, like this guy.

You know how I said earlier that there would not be a blog post today? Well, I lied. You see, there was a technical glitch this morning known as “me.” I am pretty sure I haven’t shared this with you before, but I take a few medications each night for some, er, conditions. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and I am also prone to depression and anxiety. When I say I have OCD, I don’t mean it in the way many people use the term, such as “Man, I am so OCD about keeping my bathroom clean.” I mean I actually have the full-blown disorder, and I have to deal with keeping the obsessions and compulsions at bay on a regular basis. One part of doing this is that I take several medications. I take an antidepressant, a medication that helps to reduce my obsessions, and a mood stabilizer, and I take them each night before I go to sleep.

Which brings me to why I didn’t post anything this morning. Last night, around 10:30 PM, just before I went to bed, I took my medications, and promptly fell asleep. I was pretty tired, so not even knitting or Netflix could keep me awake. Around 2 AM, I woke up and I was really hungry. Now, typically, I do not eat things when I wake up in the middle of the night, but, last night, I hadn’t had all that much for supper, so I decided to make an exception. Rather than choosing an apple, or grapes, or something healthy, I chose to eat some baked Cheetos. The bag was over halfway full, and I was planning to count out the serving size, 34 Cheetos, for four Weight Watcher points. I got out the bag and sat down on my couch, and proceeded to munch on Cheetos and read the Buzzfeed app on my iPhone, careful not to turn the iPhone orange with Cheeto dust.

I think I was around Cheeto number 29, when I looked down at my shirt and noticed that there were several ants crawling on it. As you well know, I hate bugs, so I quickly brushed the ants off my shirt. I have had ants invade my house before when the seasons were changing, so I figured that I was just having a minor ant infestation. I went back to eating my Cheetos. At Cheeto number 33, I felt something tickling my hand. I looked down to see an ant crawling on my finger and more ants on my shirt. I quickly removed them all, and reached for Cheeto number 34, my very last one.

Well, to my horror, when I pulled Cheeto number 34 out of the bag, there was an ant crawling on the actual Cheeto itself! I was rightly disgusted, and, confused as to how there could be an ant on my actual Cheeto, I looked down into the bag only to see a truly disturbing sight: there was an ant party going on inside my Cheeto bag! I wasn’t aware that ants preferred snack foods as a place to make their homes, but, sure enough, there were dozens of the little critters, dark black specks amongst a sea of orange.

I let out a scream similar to that which I might belt out were I being chased by Leatherface, ran to the trash can and threw the bag of Cheetos away, and then drank copious amounts of water and a can of Diet ginger ale. You know, because Diet ginger ale, like a fine wine, pairs well with just about any food, and it seemed to be the best choice for washing down the bagful of ants I had probably just eaten. Horrified and feeling like there were little ant legs crawling all over my body, I ran to my bedroom and hid under the covers in my bed.

Needless to say, the Cheeto incident had left me a little rattled, to say the least, and, because it was also 2 AM, my mental faculties were not at their best. Now, I keep my nightly medications in their bottles on my nightstand and, not remembering that I had already taken them before I went to bed the first time, I took them all again. Maybe if I kept the medications somewhere else, say, in my kitchen or bathroom, then perhaps I would have realized, in the time it took me to walk to get them, that I had already taken them. But, let me just tell you how much it sucks when you are already in bed and ready to sleep or watch tv, and then you actually have to get up and go take your medications. As I have mentioned before, I like to be pretty lazy in my leisure time, so each night I put a bottle of water on my nightstand, and then I take my medications after I am in bed.

Well, anyway, getting back to the point of this post, if you take your OCD medications twice in a period of a few hours, they will have a huge effect on you, meaning that you will sleep like Charlie Sheen after a bender for the next ten or so hours. You might wake up a few times, and you might even be coherent, but you will be unable to actually exit that cocoon of sleep you are all nicely ensconced in, and you won’t be able to actually complete any tasks without falling back asleep, plus, your speech will be slurred, and you will sound like Charlie Sheen did during the course of his bender, you know, right before he fell asleep.

So I woke up around 6:45 this morning, and immediately knew something was wrong. I recalled the Cheeto incident and deduced that I had taken my medication twice. I then texted my boss, because I didn’t want to call her sounding like I was drunk, and she is cool and will allow us to text message when we are not able to come in to work. I tried to explain the situation as best I could without giving my full psychiatric history, and even managed a relatively error-free text due to the miracle of auto-correct. My boss, as usual, was very nice and understanding.

I then realized that I needed to post my blog entry for today. I had an entry written, but I had not put in the pictures, and it was not ready to be posted. I had not done the final preparations last night, and had planned to wake up early today to put the finishing touches on the entry, as I sometimes do. But, around 7 o’clock this morning, I was not awake enough to do any of this, so I managed a quick post to say there would be no post, and I went back to sleep. Sometime around noon I woke up again, and becoming more and more coherent as the afternoon passed, I realized I really did not want to miss a day of posting. Thinking that this whole debacle probably merited its own post, I saved the previously prepared post for tomorrow, and wrote this little account of my day.

Always check your baked Cheetos
for ants before eating them!

It is now around 4 PM, and I am finally awake enough that I think I could probably drive a car or operate heavy machinery without seriously injuring or killing anyone. I have learned a few valuable lessons from this situation, which are as follows:

1. Whenever you are going to eat baked Cheetos right out of the bag, always look in the bag first, you know, just to be safe.
2. Put your nightly medication in one of those Monday through Friday medication organizers so that you will always know whether or not you have already taken it. (Also, look in the organizer to make sure there are no ants in there before you take it.)
3. Complete all blog-related tasks before going to bed, so all you have to do in the morning is hit the publish button.

While I am not thrilled with the events of the past 14 hours, I think I have learned some valuable lessons that I will hopefully not soon forget. And in case you were wondering, ants don’t taste like chicken. They actually don’t taste like anything at all, which is why they are able to stealthily invade your snack food bags without detection. Be vigilant, my friends, about both your snack foods and your medications, and hopefully you will never find yourself in a situation similar to mine!

Monk image courtesy of http://www.fanpop.com

Baked Cheetos image courtesy of http://www.fritolay.com

Chicken is Not a Vegetable!

Not eating cheese would make me angry and bitter, but
seeing this cute mouse would make me happy!

You know, I'm not sure if I have ever told you this, but I am a vegetarian, and I do not like or eat meat. Now, I know that many Southerners consider fried chicken to be a vegetable, but I don't eat that either, nor do I eat fish, shrimp, or other shellfish. My rule is that if it ever had a face I don't eat it. I am not a vegan, though; because I love cheese eggs, and all dairy products, and if I could not eat these things I think I'd be pretty irritable most of the time!

My reasons for being a vegetarian are twofold. First, I have never liked meat too much. When I was a kid I didn't really eat meat when my mom cooked it at home, except for chicken. I would eat hamburgers when we went out, though. My archenemy was cube steak. I dreaded the times my mom would make that, and, although I would try a bite, I disliked it a lot. I sure am glad my parents were not the type of parents who’d make us sit at the dinner table until we finished a certain food. I'd probably still be sitting there today, with the cube steak having disintegrated into dust. Hell, I'd still be sitting there a million years from now, and the scientists from the future would have to use radiocarbon dating to figure out just how old the cube steak and I were. Cube steak really seems like something that would have a long half-life.

Anyway, I never liked meat too much, plus I have always loved animals. I think most mammals and lizards are cute, and that many birds and some sea creatures are cute. I hate bugs, but I don't really put them in the same category with other animals, kind of how Velma was part of the Scooby Doo gang, but nobody really liked her. I will always go out of my way to pet any pettable animal, and will even try to make friends with non-pettable animals too.

One time there was this dog I found wandering the neighborhood. He was a big black dog, and when I approached him in front of my house, he growled and snarled at me and bared his huge colossal teeth. But I wasn't deterred. I was going to find the dog's owner and get him home! I lured him into my backyard by making a Hansel-and-Gretel trail of dry dog food. Once he was in my backyard, I closed the gate and I gave him several cans of wet dog food, each time trying to approach him to look at his tags so I could see where he lived. I did this for the better part of an hour. Yet, each time I tried to get near him, he went crazy like he was a famous person and I was a paparazzo trying to snap nude photos of him or something. I'd move toward him and he'd growl. I'd reach for his tags and he'd snap his jaws at me. You get the picture. The guy just did not want me near him, although I must say he was pretty rude about it! He could have been a little gentler with me and simply stopped calling or told me he needed to do his taxes, as some other guys have when they didn't want to be around me. Finally, I gave up because I enjoy having fingers and a hand. I fed him a couple more cans of dog food and then let him back out on the street, hoping his owner would be out looking for him.

I felt really bad and guilty that I could not get that dog back to his owner. As you can see, I'm a sucker for animals! Because I love animals so much, the idea of eating them really bothers me. I was around 16 when I realized that meat was made of animals. Before then I hadn't really considered it, or maybe I thought meat just grew on trees, or that cows gave meat like they do milk or something. At that time I read something about pigs having intelligence equivalent to that of a two-year-old child, and I just couldn't eat pork products anymore. Then I decided that cows looked pretty smart too, and I wouldn't eat beef products either. I gave up beef and pork in 1995, and other than a couple of unfortunate times when one of these meats has inadvertently ended up in my food at a restaurant, I have not eaten them since.

In 2002 I read a disturbing article about chicken production, and I gave up chicken, turkey, and all other manner of fowl. I had a brief chicken renaissance in 2006, when I learned I was anemic, until I realized that I had actually lost my taste for chicken, and that it is red meat and not chicken that would provide me with iron, so I also realized I was stupid. I stopped eating fish and the like in 2009, and now I eat no meat at all, though, as I said before, dairy products are the bomb!

Now, I know vegetarians are annoying to many people, and I totally understand why. First, they often want everyone around them not to eat meat either, and they will sometimes force horrible disturbing articles about meat production on unsuspecting carnivores. Also, sometimes they are very hippie granola-like too, and they do things like play hacky sack out on the green space at college while wearing a macramé hat. I mean, come on! Nobody likes people who do that!

I'm here to tell you that I try very hard to be a non-annoying vegetarian. I do not want my friends and family to hate me and want to murder me when they have to go to dinner with me.  First, I do not care at all if other people eat meat. As long as you do not ask me to go hunt down a turkey and kill it and cook it for you, I couldn't care less if you eat a turkey sandwich. Plus, I do not mind if you eat meat right in front of my face. I will gladly go with you to Sonny's Barbecue and shovel in the excellent garlic bread and french fries while you eat 50,000 pounds of pork ribs mere inches from me. (I would be more concerned about how many Weight Watcher points my meal had than about the fact you were eating meat.) I might even prepare meat for you if I liked you a lot, particularly if you were an attractive age-appropriate male with good income prospects and the ability to return text messages.

Also, I know how irritating it can be when you try to make dinner plans with a vegetarian, and they're all like, "But there's nothing I can eat at Sammy's House of Carnivorous Meats! We can't go there." Once again, I am here to tell you that, if forced, a vegetarian can find something to eat at most modern restaurants, even at Sammy’s House of Carnivorous Meats. Many restaurants, even popular chains, now feature vegetarian menu sections, and even the ones that don't often still have vegetarian-friendly items. I enjoy going to Outback Steakhouse, for example, because they have most excellent baked potatoes and salads. In fact, their garlic croutons are so good, that if a six-year-old little kid had the last Outback croutons in existence, I would steal the croutons from said kid and even make him cry.

Did that chicken touch my salad? Shh! Keep it on the DL!

Now, I know many vegetarians would argue that most restaurants do not have a wide selection of vegetarian items, which is true. You will usually only find a wide variety of choices if you go to a strictly vegetarian restaurant like Cafe Sunflower in Atlanta, or The Laughing Seed Cafe in Asheville (two of the only all-vegetarian restaurants I have visited). But I happen to be pretty boring when it comes to what I eat. I will find one meal I like at a restaurant, and then, every time I go to that restaurant from now until the end of eternity I will, without fail, order that same meal. If I were a really adventurous eater I might be upset about the lack of vegetarian items in most restaurants, but since I'm not I am all set! In the past 18 years I can count on one hand the number of times I was at a restaurant and there was nothing there I, as a vegetarian, could eat. I am also pretty easygoing about meat touching my food. If I see some chicken sitting right there all rubbing up against my salad, then I will probably not want to eat the salad. But, if I don't know meat has touched my food I'm all good! At Willy's Mexicana Grill, for example, I know my tofu is probably cooked right next to the steak, and, as long as I don't see it or know about it, it is okay. I have a “don't ask don't tell” policy when it comes to this issue.

Further, I am a slight hypocrite in a couple of ways when it comes to being a vegetarian. First, I was devastated to learn a couple of years ago that barbecue flavored baked Lay's potato chips are not vegetarian because there is something meaty in the flavoring they use on them. Well, I really love barbecue flavored baked Lay's potato chips, so I simply conveniently forget this little nugget of truth, and eat them anyway. Problem solved! And, also, I wear leather shoes, which, I guess is kind of hypocritical for an animal lover, but I just wanted to put that out there in the interest of full disclosure.

I hope you have enjoyed my take on vegetarianism. I promise if I ever go to dinner with you, that I will not be a pain in the ass, as long as you promise to buy me a Gigi's cupcake afterward. Happy eating!

Mouse in cheese image courtesy of http://www.theguardian.com/

Salad image courtesy of http://www.pizzastationsi.com/

I Hear the Secrets That You Keep (When You're Talking in Your Sleep)

My dad has the talent of watching television with his eyes
closed. It is hard to watch The Bridge this way, because the
plot gets rather complicated at times.

On Saturday night I went over to my parents’ house to hang out and engage in one of my favorite pastimes: catching up on the shows my mom has DVR'd for us over the past few weeks. Now, sometimes I do this at my own house, but it is often more fun to do it at my parents. They have lots of animals to pet, they always have Diet Cranberry Raspberry Snapple at the ready, and the company is good. On Saturday my mom and I had just watched an episode of Rizzoli and Isles when my mom decided we should watch an episode of The Bridge next.

If you are not familiar with The Bridge, it started in July on FX, and the premise is that there is a serial killer operating in both El Paso and Juarez, Mexico, and the police are hunting him down. The police in both El Paso and Juarez are on it. I enjoy the show because it is interesting, and so much sleazy stuff is always going on that there is a lot of intrigue. Also, the actor who places the police officer from Juarez, Demian Bichir, is pretty cute, even if he is somewhat outside of what might be considered age appropriate for me.

My mom invited my dad to come in and watch The Bridge with us. My dad doesn't watch a whole lot of tv, but he has managed to keep up with The Bridge, and we always like it when my dad wants to watch something with us. My dad, however, often becomes narcoleptic in the presence of television shows, and will usually fall asleep within the first five minutes of whatever we are watching. He agreed to come watch the Bridge with us, and took a place on the couch next to my mom. I was on the other couch knitting while the show was on.

Now, before I go any further, I need to give you some background on my dad. My dad's company is a construction product and tool supplier, and my dad goes into work every morning by 6 AM, and usually gets home around 5 PM. He is often pretty tired when he gets home from work, and, ever since I was a kid, him falling asleep on the couch in the evening has been a common occurrence. One great thing about my dad falling asleep like that is that he sometimes talks in his sleep, which is entertaining for the rest of us.

While my dad is sleeping, he must be working in his dreams. There have been a number of times, for example, when my mom or I have tried to ask him something and he has responded by doing inventory with a man named Jimmy who he works with. "Dad, how late are you getting home tomorrow night?" I might ask, and Dad would respond, "Jimmy, how many of that number 47 eyebolt have we got?" Sometimes, if you ask my dad questions while he is sleeping, he will respond rather nonsensically, and it ends up sounding like a game of Mad Libs in which the player did not see the paragraph before coming up with the words to fill in. All in all, it is pretty amusing.

So, on Saturday night, my parents and I gathered to watch The Bridge, and within about five minutes of the show starting, like clockwork, my dad had fallen asleep. Some of the dialogue in the show is between characters who are Spanish speakers, and this dialogue occurs in Spanish with English subtitles, which I appreciate. It is not very believable that two men in Juarez just happen to converse in flawless English without a hint of an accent, and I enjoy the touch of realism allowing the characters to talk as they would in real life adds. When we watch The Bridge and I am knitting, my mom will read the subtitles to me because it is hard to knit and read subtitles at the same time.

On Saturday, one of the characters was having a dream, and in the dream he was talking to a woman who was offering him a glass of milk. As is typically the case in dreams, what the woman said next was kind of weird, but, hey, I can't say my dreams make any sense either. My mom read the subtitle out loud to me. "Are you thirsty my king?" she read, as onscreen the woman proffered a glass of milk to the man. At that moment, my dad, who had nodded off in a sitting position, turned to her and said, "No thanks, I'll get something in a minute," and then he went back to sleep.

Forget this king--Long live my dad!

My mom and I hooted and hollered like we were watching the Comedy Central Roast of Betty White or something. At that moment, my dad's sleep-addled response was truly the best thing that had ever happened up until that moment in my life. Later, my mom looked down the hall to see that my dad had left several lights on in the back part of the house. "It looks like your dad left all the lights on," she said. "I guess my king needed a path lighted for him back there." My mom and I now refer to my dad as "My King," or, alternatively, as "The King," or just "King." I am not sure how much mileage we are going to get out of this nickname before it grows old and tired, but for now we are amusing ourselves with it. Long live the king!

The Bridge image courtesy of https://thetinyprotagonist.wordpress.com

Burger King King image courtesy of http://kirbymuseum.org/