"What a Piece of Work Is Man"

I am the king of my castle. This is not to say that I rule over my wife and children. On the contrary, my wife probably has much more power than I do. I am a king in the ceremonial monarch sense of the word, where I don’t accomplish much, and I wander around like I own the place – scratching my belly, belching, and engaging in various levels of slothfulness. I am actually quite a sight to behold, when I am in that state. I am shocked that my wife is actually able to keep her hands off of me, when I am revealed in my glory. My home is my refuge and place of rest. I work a full time job and pastor a church. I need that kind of down time.

A few days ago, I had just come home, and I was going to mow the lawn. I needed to change into some shorts and an old t-shirt from my office clothes. The shorts were in the laundry room, so I went to get them. I made my way across the house past the 100+ pound black lab and into the laundry room. I looked through the baskets there for my shorts.

Here is a little side note of interesting filler information to enhance the depth and quality of the story: We love to do laundry. We wash clothes all the time, even nightly. With 3 kids and dog hair and dirt and all that, it is essential that our washer and dryer run all the time. It’s almost to the point that if the washer or dryer stop, the kids will wake up. That’s a sample of how much we have embraced laundry as a family. Putting the stuff in the machines and watching the clothes be tossed all about, we love. We are very simple folks in that way. Folding clothes and putting them away, not so much. At any given time we have a laundry basket in the laundry room full of clean clothes literally up to my neck that my wife has balanced with the grace and skill of a circus performer. She has a gift of building towers of clothes like no one I’ve ever seen. We just simply hate folding clothes. We love to go to work or church with clean but horribly wrinkled clothing, because we also love to live out of laundry baskets all the time. The clothes often never hit the dresser drawers in our rooms. They come out of the basket, get worn, go back into the hamper, then return to the washer. It is a cyclic merry-go-round from Hell, and I want to get off!

So, coming back to the story, I spent 20 minutes digging through this tower of clothing, like I’m engaged in some kind of surreal, life-sized game of Jenga, where the cost of failure is my life. If the tower were to topple onto me, I would surely suffocate. After the 20 minutes, my wife helpfully said that my shorts were in my dresser (how one pair of shorts got put away and the odds of it being the exact pair for which I was looking are beyond calculation). So, I made my way back across the house and stopped right outside the living room to talk to my wife. I heard a sound, looked over, and my 8 year old daughter, Grace, and 4 of her little friends were standing there in a group, fanned out like a high school swing choir. As comprehension came over me in waves, time seemed to stop. You know that dream that everyone has from time to time, where you’re in public with a bunch of people, you look down, and suddenly you realize you are in only your underwear? That happened in that moment for me….only I was awake and was actually in only my underwear in front of a bunch of 6-8 year old girls. As the implications of this reality overtook me, all I could do was yell, “OH MY GOD!!” and run into my bedroom. I laid there in the fetal position feeling violated and ashamed, trying to rock myself until the memory mercifully faded. My wife walked all of the kids out of the house for their safety and so they didn’t have to hear me whimper.

In the aftermath of this, what did I learn? I learned that, as king of my house, I need to make the rules more clear. Always inform your half-naked father before parading your friends through the house. Also, I learned that it would be good to fold the clothes. I have not yet had to report to Child Protective Services, nor have I had to register as an offender. So, I have that going for me. I hear all of Grace’s friends are doing well with their counseling, and they are getting positive results from the psychotropic medications. As a nation, we are moving forward. Let’s now all face the horizon to look for a brighter tomorrow.

Oh Yeah, That Just Happened!

A couple days ago, I went to Wal-mart. I have a love-hate relationship with Wal-mart. There are times that I need horseradish, new underwear, and a car battery all at the same time (but not necessarily for the same project), and Wal-mart is the only place that can make that happen for me. Conversely, I cannot stand the lines, the chaos, the worthless junk, and all of the other pains of the Wal-mart experience. I see it sometimes as a necessary evil.

This particular day was no different. I worked my way through the massive, mindless mob, caught up in this universal consciousness - or at least groupthink - of needing some Axe Body Spray and some tennis balls right now, damn it! I ducked and weaved my way through, and was actually making good time! I was non-plussed, even when the guy at the pharmacy counter informed me that I would have to pay for my Sudafed there (because I am obviously manufacturing methamphetamines, just because of suffering from seasonal allergies and congestion). He then refused to ring up the rest of my items, which nearly cost him his life. Of this reality, he remained blissfully unaware. As I moved around the store, I realized that, if there is an argument for the film “The Matrix” being true and not just some paranoid delusion, Wal-mart is it. I had somehow taken the red pill and was now seeing just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I got in line at the checkout, and I was excited because of finding a register with only one person in front of me. Of course, my reverie was shattered when I realized that customer was also an off duty Wal-mart employee. The two knew each other and gabbed for what must have been 20 minutes, while the cashier slowly moved the items over the scanner. The person finished by paying for her $200+ in groceries with a combination of WIC, food stamps, cash, traveler’s checks, and, I believe, Deutschmarks. Smoke poured out of the register, but all was made right again with a managerial visit.

It was my turn. Teresa and I were going to make homemade Cuban sandwiches that night for dinner. I got one of Wal-mart’s fresh, warm loaves of French bread. I couldn’t wait to get home to grill those sandwiches on that bread. The cashier was a rather large woman, going in at approximately 350-400 pounds. She had a t-shirt on, covered with remnants of the day’s meals. She was very moist with sweat, and there was a sort of steam rising off of her entire persona and condensing in various places, i.e. her hairy upper lip. I am not mocking this woman, nor am I belittling her. The description is important information for the story.

Side Note: I have food issues. I don’t like people looking at my food, smelling my food, touching my food, or even thinking about my food. As long as I don’t see it, it’s fine. I will eat at the nastiest restaurants on earth, as long as I don’t see them touching or spitting on my food. If I see you near my food, I can’t eat it. It is a neurotic thing I have. This is more important info. That being said as a disclaimer, I will continue with my story.

She was moving the items across the scanner, and I had to help her with many of them, because of her large body and short, dinosaur-like arms. The last item was my loaf of bread. She saw it, and some pheromone or something kicked in, causing more sweat and odor and causing her eyes to widen in delight. She grabbed it (still in the protective foil) and brought it up to her hairy, sweaty upper lip and nose. She actually put her nose into the bag and took a big, deep breath, sighing into the bag and exclaiming, “Ooh, I love the smell of this bread. And, it is so warm and cozy!” At that point, she pulled the warm loaf to her chest between her ample, sagging breasts. She made yummy noises as she hugged my loaf of bread and swayed back and forth with delight. I could hardly see my bread amongst all of that flesh and t-shirt material. I turned and looked at the customer behind me, as he backed out of the lane with his cart in wide-eyed horror. I looked back at her and was about to say, “So, are you gonna get me a new loaf of bread, now?” Instead, a still, small voice told me to just let it go. I smiled as non-strained of a smile as I could muster, mumbled something about how good the bread was, paid for my groceries, and left. This whole thing was a real victory for me, which is the point of the story. You see, I still made the sandwiches and ate them, using the molested loaf of bread. And, you know, I think they were even more delicious than ever before. I think the little bit of love added by my Wal-mart cashier made all the difference.