Look at the moosebutt on that one

J-girl and I were at Albertson's today getting a discount turkey. All we had to do was buy $25 of overpriced groceries and then we could buy a turkey at 38 cents per pound. You don't have to buy much at Albertson's to make it to $25. We got a little exuberant (they had diet vanilla coke on sale!) and ended up buying $55 dollars worth of groceries, which naturally led my wife to haggle for the right to buy a second turkey at the same discounted price. I looked at the three guys behind me in line and shrugged my shoulders. I was all too aware of my responsibility as a guy not to make any other guy spend a second longer than was necessary in a grocery store. In their eyes, the only right thing would be for me to assert my commitment to law, order, and minimal line wait times by telling the little lady to back off. I'm sure they would admit, however, that if they were in my shoes, they would feel just like me—much too cowardly to stand between the little lady and a discount turkey. Nonetheless, they still expected better of me, and I could feel the pressure and animosity. I stared at my shoes, inwardly reeling at the bitter waves of resentment being sent my way.

Finally J-girl and the cashier agreed that J-girl would be able to get a second discount if she broke the purchase into two transactions. Oh-oh, I thought. That was the worse case scenario. Those guys behind me were gonna have to wait for us to get a second turkey and then wait to have the cashier split up the groceries and ring up everything again so that it turned into two transactions that totaled more than $25 each. That's when I felt the really hostile vibes. I could tell they were silently cursing me and questioning my manhood. They were sure that I must be a eunuch to let the line get held up like this. I smiled weakly at the cashier as my wife went to pick out a second turkey. I would have gone to get it just so that I could be away from all the resentment. However, both J-girl and I are clearly aware that me being a guy means that I'm too gender-handicapped to be able to pick out a turkey. So off went J-girl, leaving just me, the cashier, and the three eunuch haters.

As the other guys were watching my wife leave and silently cursing all women and their pitiful, spineless husbands, the cashier asked me if I would be willing to donate to the Utah food bank. I grabbed onto her offer like the life line it was. This was my chance to demonstrate that I wasn't eunuch material. Using standard guy reasoning, I quickly deduced that a contribution to feeding the hungry would easily compensate for my line-stopping treason to guy-kind. Even if the guys behind me didn't see that I was stamping out hunger, the fact that I was actually making a purchase would force them or any other guy to admit that I had a had a right to still be standing in front of the register.

So I told her I would be glad to contribute, after which she grabbed one of the preprinted donation forms and scanned it. Sure enough, the guys noticed that something had been added to the total bill, and while they continued to shuffle their feet and sigh heavily, I felt the hate waves lessen. I smiled a little, at the same time hoping that J-girl would hurry so that the amount I had contributed would balance my register-hogging debt to society. If she wasn't quick enough, I admitted to myself, I would probably have to make another contribution just to keep things even.

I was still trying to reason through how much a wasted minute at the register cost in terms of dollars in food bank donations when the cashier handed me the donation form and asked me to put my name on it. Let me explain that all of these places that accept donations have the annoying habit of displaying the forms on the store walls, proudly showing the names of the contributors. This practice is the main reason I refuse at times to donate. All of my dealings with the public are guided by a single metaphor: the nail that sticks out gets hammered. OK, sure, it's probably overly pessimistic, and may in fact be largely untrue. But it works for me. I try to avoid being noticed for anything, good or bad. I am always happy to  blend into the background. But writing my name on some stupid form to be seen by lots of people I didn't know was not my idea of blending. I stood there at the register, uncapped black sharpie in my hand, wondering what to do. I was already inconveniencing the cashier, so I didn't want to make a scene. Instead, I quickly scribbled my online name—Moosebutt—onto the form and handed it back to the cashier.

J-girl still wasn't back, so the cashier had nothing better to do than read the name on the form. She glanced at it with bored eyes, started to put it down, and then looked again. She looked back up at me, catching the laugh that was on its way out, and turning it into a smirk on her now attentive face. I was about to explain why I chose to write that particular name, but before I could say anything, she shook her head, looked back down at the form, and chuckled. Then she looked back up at me, eyes snapping, her lips noticeably pinched tight to hold back the zinger that was on the tip of her tongue. I looked down at my feet, and we stood like that for nearly a minute until J-girl finally showed up with the second turkey. Then the cashier scanned the turkey, inserted a key into the cash register, and punched in the code to allow the purchase of the second turkey at the discount rate. The groceries didn't have to be split up, and nothing had to be rescanned. The guys behind me sighed in relief. As quickly as I could,  I swiped my credit card, gathered the bags, and grabbed the receipt, my eyes glued to the floor the entire time. As I turned toward the exit and the cashier wished us a good day, I swear I could feel her smirk as she considered whether my butt was more similar in size to an elk or a moose. This only served to convince me that my metaphor for governing public relations was spot on.

Revenge of the pork taco

I decided on Sunday to make pork tacos (authentic local pronunciation: tack-ohs). Unfortunately, I didn't get the roast into the crock pot until 12:30, which wasn't enough time to force it to submit to being shredded at 6. I had people who needed to be places soon thereafter, so I quickly threw together a completely different dinner (spaghetti and meatballs, cauliflower, french bread, sliced apples), the whole time being careful not to step on Little J and her science project that she was gluing to a display board in the middle of the kitchen floor (the "perfect" wide-open space, she claimed). Despite scientific evidence that men cannot multitask, I somehow managed to make dinner as I jumped over and stepped around the display board,  granting glances and nods of approval to Little J every 30 seconds as she told me to look at what she had just glued to the board, simultaneously interrupting my teenager's monologue of his college social life with frequent questions (to show that I was listening), regularly glaring at the other teenager (to try to curtail his "clever" running commentary), and occasionally making sympathetic noises in response to Swine Flu Mary's (a,k.a., J-girl) groans of misery (to acknowledge that yes, this was indeed the worst illness that could be inflicted on humans and that, yes, it must be truly awful because she had fallen asleep twice during the day--never mind that that's my average score for a single sacrament meeting). I wanted to kill the pork roast, which, as it turns out, wasn't actually pork but beef instead. Yes, it was one of those peaceful, spiritually renewing Sabbath evenings.

The upside of this whole pork taco debacle was that the "pork" was finally cooked enough for tacos on Monday night. Only, it didn't die quietly. This time it sought its revenge on Josh. Halfway through the meal, both Josh and I noticed that he had huge splotches of taco juice all over the upper right shoulder of his sweatshirt. Neither of us had any idea of how it got there. He took his sweatshirt off (yeah, I know, dumb idea), only to get more juice on his shirt with streaks running down his left forearm and ending in a puddle of juice surrounding his left elbow. Josh started panicking and making squawking noises as soon as he realized the taco juice was after him. Being filled with charity and family unity because it was Family Night, the rest of us sprang to his rescue by laughing and mocking him. J-girl tried to explain to us how all of this happened based on her newly gained scientific expertise from this semester's Physical Science 100 class. Just to be on the safe side, we waited a good hour for the juice to cool and "deactivate" (Josh's term) before putting the leftovers away. We had learned that you can never be too careful when it comes to dealing with taco meat.

Swine flu comes home to roost

Yesterday (Friday) we learned that J-girl has swine flu. We probably should have known on Tuesday, because that's when she came down with the symptoms that she didn't tell anyone about. You'd think an ex-nurse would have a little more common sense about her own health, but she doesn't, even after all of the hype surrounding the swine flu. I should have known better, though, than to think that this would make a difference in her MO. Every time she gets sick, she never considers taking medication, going to the doctor, or getting extra sleep. She just keeps going until she either collapses or I notice that she is sick and prompt her to do something more responsible. Her response to these promptings is typically, "Oh, yeah, why didn't I think of that?" I constantly ask myself the same question.

You're probably thinking that she keeps going because she doesn't see any alternative. But I've learned that usually isn't the case. Her main belief is that no matter what she does, she's going to feel miserable anyway, so she might as well get something done at the same time. I'm somewhat sympathetic to that line of reasoning, but I don't see why that means she doesn't need to take medication or go to bed early. Sometimes I wonder if her insistence to keep going is a form of denial.

Whatever her reasoning, our family now clearly falls into the non-flu-fighters category. After J-girl was diagnosed, Mark admitted that he might have had the swine flu earlier. Of course we didn't know because, like his mother, he didn't bother to tell anyone that he wasn't feeling well. Josh had swine-flu like symptoms, but he got over them in two days, so I thought it was something less serious. Floppy's been eating like a swine, and so have I, so I'm thinking the only one who hasn't been infected yet is Little J. And of all of us who were infected, only Josh stayed home. We seem to have been doing our best to make sure that the epidemic continues. Floppy even tried to sneak out in public by climbing into the minivan while everyone was unloading the groceries. It took us over an hour to find him.

I'm not sure what we can do to repay society. I've thought maybe I'd make an extra effort not to burp or fart in public. Or perhaps I could make an attempt to eradicate the dandelion and clover infestation in our front lawn. But after further thought, I realized that if I did any of these things, I would stop making the people around me look so good. So I've decided to exert a great amount of self control and do nothing—well, almost nothing. If you do end up getting the swine flu, what I intend to do is take the fall for it. Go ahead and to tell everyone (over the phone) that we gave you the swine flu and that you're staying home so as not to stupidly pass it on to others. The increased esteem your friends will have for you should make us about even. Maybe you'll even owe us a little, in which case I expect you to back off a little in burping and farting in public.

Promise of Youth

I sit in the third row of Primary, waiting for the cue to start my show. In front of me sits a mom and her toddler. The child, never motionless, shifts, pulls, pokes, turns, sits, stands, constant movement in her mother's arms, face set in concentration, long lashes covering eyes that always look down. Suddenly she flops down on her belly and slides to the floor. In a few short seconds, she moves right to my side and extends her stubby arms for me to hold her. I lift her up and hold her so that she can stand on my legs like she stood on her mother's. Her legs go limp as I set her down, and she sits on my lap, her round face turned up toward mine. Then with no warning, she spreads her arms, leans into me, and clutches her arms around my pot belly. My arms instinctively wrap around her, and I look down with a sudden ache of love at the soft yellow curls and pudgy rolls of baby fat on her arms. I catch a whiff of baby shampoo and soap, and then she is sliding off my legs onto the floor, moving again with downcast eyes, face set in determination at the carpeted aisle between chairs, the warmth of her sudden affection still resonating through my chest. For a moment I forget my own brokenness and bask in the bright hope and wonder of her youth instead. If only, I think. If only. I watch her toddle away, and I ache once again as the warmth inside begins to dissipate.

Living with a dying grandmother

It's surprising that I could have spent so much time with my grandmother and yet not really have known her. While growing up, I visited my grandparents frequently, and occasionally stayed with them on my own. My grandmother was always content to let my outgoing grandfather run the show and take the major role in our interactions. I know that my grandmother loved me, though, because she always made sure I was comfortable and well fed. Whenever we were with her on a trip, she made sure that meals were planned and restaurants picked far in advance. Food was never left to chance. To a hungry teenager, that was important.

After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother came to Utah. She was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease. After a long respiratory illness, she came to live with us. We thought that she might die in the next month or so. Instead, she seemed to rebound, and for the next four months became an important part of our family.

Some moments stand out:

• Christmas lights on Temple Square: Grandma trudged through the cold air using her walker and grinned like a young child at the beautiful lights. She also loved the apple pies we got at McDonald's afterwards.
  
• Sourdough pizza Mondays: Grandma loved to help make meals. We loved it when she put the pepperoni on the pizza because she always piled it on. She loved to eat the pizza, too, and almost always ate four or five pieces.
• Running errands: Driving with Grandma always made me see things anew. She grew to love the mountains, and every time she saw the snow covered peaks while driving with me in the car, she would gasp and exclaim how beautiful the world was. It warmed my heart each time, helping to ease the pain of seeing her health and memory decline.
• Gentle conversations: Grandma taught me the joy of talking about the things that are present and close by. We would talk about the warmth of the sun on our backs as we walked, the flowers that poked through the snow, the strange ice formations made by the slanted winter sun in the snow piles by the walks and drives, the warmth and softness of the Floppy's fur.
  
• Eating out: Grandma's favorite activity was going out to eat. She loved buffets. She could really put the food away for a tiny 85 year old woman.
• Ice cream: Grandma's favorite food was ice cream. The easiest and surest way for us to show love for her was to buy her ice cream. She loved ice cream her whole life, and by the time she came to live with us, she no longer had to restrict her intake of her favorite food. But she didn't like eating ice cream alone. I gained at least a couple of pounds while she was here just from all the ice cream we ate together.
  
• A new side to Little J: Grandma had a special relationship with Little J. She would let Little J help her and tell her things that she would not accept from anyone else. Little J spent hours helping Grandma eat breakfast, move around the house, and find interest in day-to-day life.
  
• Floppy's friend: No matter how bad things were for Grandma, she would not forget Floppy. She regularly checked to see that he had food and water. She let him out several times during the day. She would bend over, risking personal harm, to fill the food dish or clean the water dish. She never complained when he climbed on top of her. They spent hundreds of hours being couch and bed buddies. And when her memory was especially bad, she would follow him around the house, always trusting him to lead her to where she needed to go.
  

Taking care of Grandma brought feelings of joy that frequently warmed and filled me completely. I connected with her at times on a level that felt like old friends, a relationship that seemed to stretch beyond the present to both the far past and distant future, as if this were but a moment among many pleasant moments we had known and would know together. Although her illness had changed her personality a lot by the time she moved in with us, I'm grateful that I got to know her in at least one phase of her life. All the scary and hard times we experienced taking care of her made those good moments even more precious. Toward the end they seemed like fragile, almost illusory gifts that we dared not inspect carefully for fear that they would transform into her bouts of rage, frustration, impotence and fear.

Along with joy came sadness. Watching my grandmother's health and mental state deteriorate before my eyes crushed my understanding of human life. I began asking the questions to which I thought I already had answers. I struggled to see the beauty in the snow-covered mountains because I couldn't see past the devastation in front of me. I questioned the reality and promise of the good moments. They seemed unreal compared to the darkness of pain, anger, and fear.

When I heard that my grandmother passed away last Tuesday, I did not cry. How could I grieve death when life contained only horrors for her? I hope for her that death comes as a release from living hell. I hope that she and Grandpa are together. I hope that they both know how much I love them. And one day, maybe soon, maybe in ages, I'll sit with her again and we'll continue our conversations of the present and close by. We'll feel inside, once again, that connection that transcends the bounds of mortal life, and we'll rejoice.

I live next door to a genius

I opened up Facebook today and once again faced the ad for the IQ test. That's when my suspicions were confirmed.


My neighbor is a freakin' genius, but her daughter is dumb. Sorry Konnie, but Facebook doesn't lie. (Obviously it might have been different if you're mom had married someone smarter.)

Making the world a McBetter place

McDonald's has finally come out with a product that makes any situation better: it's the line up of McCafé products. For example:

machine gun

machine guné

death

deathé

puke

puké

poop

poopé

Finé!