My friends at RedEnvelope.com have made it easy for you to pick out a quality gift for your Dad and look like a hero while doing it.  Just visit their Father’s Day Gift Page and choose from a wide variety of gifts.  You can get everything from a Home brewery set to cuff links, valets, MLB coasters to every BBQ accessory you can think of.  Full disclosure requires me to inform you that I was compensated for this endorsement, so I’ll go you one better and show you my compensation.  I chose one of Red Envelopes valets.  I had a good reason for doing so.  Here is a picture of how I used to store all of the things that go in my pockets and then come out of my pockets on a daily basis.

THE BLACK HOLE

Pretty sad, huh?  Everything just tossed in the front of the catch-all drawer in the kitchen.  It took me almost 5 minutes to find my car keys one day because one of the NukeKids had been in the drawer looking for AA batteries.  They didn’t find any batteries, but they managed to “lose” my keys.  I found them in the back in an envelope for a time share offer that should have been tossed out years ago.  Everyone has a drawer like this in their home; the “Black Hole” or “Bermuda Triangle” drawer where things disappear for years on end whenever you need them, only to re-appear when you’re looking for something else.  Then you go back later for it and it’s disappeared once again.  Well, no more for the NukeDad-I’m organized now.  Check this out.

ORDER IS RESTORED

Same items neatly placed in my new personalized valet that will sit above the old catch-all drawer and allow me the piece of mind that my car keys will never be lost again.  Pop on over to RedEnvelope.com and pick out something for your Dad for Father’s Day; there’s still plenty of time to get your order in and bring a smile to Dad’s face on Father’s Day.  Let’s face it, there is such a thing as too many neckties.  Enter the code 10offred  (Ten off Red) at checkout and receive 10% off of your order.  Tell them NukeDad sent you.

EVEN THE COMBO MEALS ARE RUNNING SCARED

A little girl in Texas accepted a Jolly Rancher from a classmate and is now spending a week in detention.  The “friend” is in detention too, but I think they should skip the trial and get straight to the execution.  The teacher had her taser drawn, but after shouting; “DROP THE CANDY AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!!” The terrified 8 year old did what she was told.  I don’t know if there is any truth to the rumor that the principal has authorized the use of deadly force for a Snickers bar, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

Is this seriously what our schools have been reduced to?  The school is claiming they did what they did because they were afraid of losing their funding due to the new “junk food” laws that the state had implemented.  The State of Texas said it was an incorrect interpretation of the law and that the school was in no danger of losing their funding.  That’s the nice PR department way of saying; “What the hell are you guys thinking?” and running as fast as they can the other way.  The school is refusing to talk to reporters.

It’s not like the kids were taking Butterfinger hits off of a chocolate bong and freebasing SweeTarts in the classroom, it was ONE JOLLY RANCHER IN THE CAFETERIA!!  The junk food laws being passed by States across the U.S. are designed to keep fast food vendors out of the schools, which is also bullshit and now Michelle Obama is getting ready to stick her nose in it, and I’ll rant about that in a minute, but; really?  You think teachers and administrators don’t have enough to worry about that now we’re going to make them our child’s nutritionists also?  Want to combat childhood obesity?  Here’s an idea: how about we go back to having PE everyday instead of every 3rd day?

Kids need nutritious food, I understand that; but do they honestly think that they have the right to tell me what I can pack in my kids lunchbox?  Or what food I can bring into school if I come to have lunch with my kids?  Just try and get my Chik-fil-A or McDonald’s bag away from me; I’ll take hostages.  A kid brought in a couple of Jolly Ranchers to share with her friend at lunch, so what?  Take the candy away, give a verbal warning and move on.  Instead their solution was to traumatize a little girl who had never been in trouble in her life and made her take home a form stating her crime.  Are those the memories and life lessons you want your kids bringing home from school?

DON'T WORRY, HE'S DRINKING DIET COKE

Before I go on, is there anyone out there that doesn’t understand that eating a Big Mac will not give you six pack abs?  Anyone unclear on the concept of a Wendy’s Triple Baconator being a bad idea if you’re trying to lose 10 pounds before the wedding?  Good.  Anyone not understand that we live in a free country and we can put pretty much whatever we want (and some people do) in our mouths?  I didn’t think so.  I’m overweight-it’s not like it’s some big mystery to me how it happened; I didn’t wake up one day and say; “Oh my gosh! I’ve put on 25 pounds!  I’ve got to lay off of those vegetables and quit going to the gym!”

For now, we are still a nation of choices: you can choose to take care of yourself, or you can choose not to.  You can choose to feed your children skinless chicken breast and steamed broccoli every night for dinner, or you can drive thru McDonald’s four times a week, either way, it’s your CHOICE.  Well, that’s getting ready to change.  Michelle Obama is heading up a task force to “end childhood obesity in one generation.”  Great, let’s do it; send her out to give speeches and promote healthy eating habits to school children and parents that don’t know any better; I’m all for it.  The problem is that isn’t what the true plan is.  Follow this link to see what I’m talking about.  Halfway through the article the FTC commissioner says they’ll see “whether we can make them do more” after giving a non-denial/denial that they are offering anything but a gentle push to marketers to quit marketing unhealthy food to kids by enticing them with toys (can you say “McDonald’s”?).  You know, like they did when we were young.  I can’t remember seeing ONE single cereal commercial telling me to dig down to the bottom of the box to get the prize.  Maybe they can get the Cracker Jack folks to pay reparations for the toys they’ve been sticking in their product since 1912.

There is also talk of implementing a tax on sugar.  They are letting the state and local governments test the waters right now, and though they deny it, a federal sugar tax is on the way.  NYC has toyed with the idea of a tax on trans fats; the “fat tax” is expected to raise over $400 million a year in revenue.  Even the Governor is defending it.  It’s almost like they are looking for new things to tax to make up for the shortfall from all of the other things they are already taxing.  How come every time there isn’t enough money to go around the government’s first reaction is to raise taxes or tax something else?  Why not cut spending first?  Why?  Because it means less money and power for them, that’s why.  Why is it that those that scream loudest to; “keep your hands out of my uterus!” and “you can’t tell me what to do with my body! I’ll have an abortion if I want to!” are the same ones wanting to tell you what you can eat?  Kill an unborn child, sure; but how dare you eat a double cheeseburger!

AVAILABLE WITH LOW FAT MAYO

The Do-gooders say all they are trying to do is help people.  They state that 1 in 3 children living in poverty are obese and they need the help.  My question is; if they are living on food stamps, then it’s obviously the government food making them fat, and if it isn’t the government food, then how are they able to pay for McDonald’s and KFC with food stamps?  Doing something about childhood obesity is admirable, but like most behaviors, it can’t be, and shouldn’t be legislated.  Do you really want the government telling you what you can and can’t eat?  Do you really think it would stop at food?  Do you want someone deciding what clothes you should wear?  Where you should live?  What movies you can watch?  Which books you can read?  What kind of light-bulb to use?  Oops, too late for that one.  They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions; I say it looks like they’re trying to make it a 6 lane expressway.  It’ll be a toll road, of course.

Some will argue that all of these behaviors raise the cost of health care and that these measures will curb those costs; a necessity now that health care has passed.  I would argue the opposite; there is no incentive to look after your health anymore.  Why bother?  The government will take care of us all now and it’ll be “free”, why should I worry about it?  Before you tell me to put my tin foil hat back on, I would encourage you to take a look around at what’s happening in the world.  You might want to start looking out for your own best interest, before somebody else does.

*A special shout-out to Cathy at Tadpoles and Teacups for the title inspiration.

JP HAYES

I had quite the full weekend.  I threw my back out on Thursday while I was in my crawl space installing electric and broadband lines for a computer relocation.  It was sort of like if John Wayne Gacy worked for AT&T or Comcast.  I didn’t wear my clown suit, though.  Then on Friday I drove to Charlotte to watch my brother in law; J.P. Hayes play in the PGA tournament.  It was a smart move; walk around a hilly golf course for 4 hours immediately after a back injury.  No amount of Motrin in the world could make me feel better on Saturday, and believe me, I tried.  I twisted my back pretty good getting in and out from under the house, but it didn’t feel too bad.  I had injured my lower back once before when I was younger and remember it being a painful injury with a slow heal time.  Can’t wait to see how the sequel turns out.  Walking around the golf course on Friday actually helped stretch my back out and made it feel better, or so I thought.  I’m fine while I’m mobile, but once I sit down to rest, or worse; lay down in bed to sleep for the night, my back seizes up tighter than a T-shirt vendor at a Taylor Swift concert.  The bad part is that I still have some crawling and bending left to do to finish the computer move.  Better go to Sam’s and buy the tub of Doan’s Pills.

I almost didn’t make it out of the house on Friday morning.  NukeMom was home because she had fallen on Thursday and fractured her hand and NukeGirl woke up sick to her stomach.  NukeMom forced me out of the house and said that they would be fine.  I’d tell you more about NukeMom’s fractured hand, but I don’t want my back injury to get any worse.  That splint could cause some damage.  I got to the course just in time to catch J.P. as he started his second nine holes.  His group played the back nine first, so I got to the 1st hole just in time.  He was already 3 under par for the day (1 under for the tournament).  “Whoa! He’s already 3 under?” I asked the sign bearer.  “Yep, but he had 4 birdies.  He bogeyed 18″ the sign bearer told me.  Great.  Right when I get off the bus he gets a bogey.  I haven’t always been good luck for J.P. when going to watch him play.  I thought that maybe I should just go get back on the bus right then.  Of course, I’m a lot more superstitious than he is.  He played lights-out the rest of the way and got 5 more birdies coming in.  He tied the course record with an 8 under 64, just barely missing a birdie putt on his final hole to score 63 and take the record outright.  Any of you who watched on Sunday know that it would have been a moot point anyway as a 20 year old Irish kid named Rory McIlroy broke the course record by 2 shots and shot a 10 under 62 to win the tournament by 4 shots.  It was amazing to watch.  He’s already ranked in the top 10 in the world and he’ll only turn 21 on Tuesday.  An Irish Tiger Woods?  Maybe.  Let’s just hope there aren’t a lot of Waffle House waitresses and porn stars in Ireland.  J.P. had a tougher weekend and ended up tying for 38th place.  I know he would have liked to finish higher, but he’s having one of the best years of his career and even got into The Players Championship next week; a tournament he’s performed well at and one that I know he’s happy to be in.  Over lunch he told me that he was happy that the early success this year will allow him to play less and be home with the family more.  Maybe Tiger could take some lessons from a PGA Tour pro who has his priorities right.

NOT EVERYONE WAS HAPPY TO SEE TIGER

Speaking of Tiger, I got to see him in the flesh.  It’s not like I sought him out, he just happened to be coming out to practice before his round shortly after J.P. had finished.  I was waiting near the clubhouse which was also near the practice green.  It was a real bottle neck and the growing crowd didn’t help matters.  The tournament volunteer trying to keep the area clear was losing his religion trying to keep people out of the way.  To make matters worse, Phil Mickelson was 2 groups behind J.P.’s group and would be coming in soon also, so you had Tiger fans and Phil fans all gathering in the same place at the same time.  It was kind of like West Side Story without the music.  Or The Crips and The Bloods if gangsters played golf.  Everything was fine, of course, as we all know that golf fans are much more civilized than, say; English soccer fans or Justin Beiber concert go-ers.  When Tiger finally appeared there was an army of police officers around him and Lord knows how many private plain-clothes private security in the crowd.  I’m pretty sure the guy who elbowed me in my injured back as he quickly brushed past me was private security.  I was fully expecting someone to yell out; “Text me, Big Boy!” or, “Let’s go get some waffles!” because I didn’t want to be the one to have to do it, but alas, no one did.  He actually got a very cordial reception; probably more than he deserved, and more than he was expecting, judging from the look on his face.  He looked apprehensive, almost terrified.  He was staring at the ground trying to be inconspicuous, but once the cheers started and he realized ti was all positive, he looked up and acknowledged the crowd.  Right before I lost sight of him, I saw him actually crack a smile.  He looked completely out of sorts on Friday, though, as he played terrible and missed the cut for only the 6th time in his career.  Ouch.  I did see one picture of a woman who was none too happy with him giving him a thumbs down sign and I heard that one fan was ejected for a lewd comment.  So it goes.  A few minutes after Tiger walked by, Phil Mickelsons group came in and the crowd went crazy.  Stewart Cink came by, Jim Furyk, Zack Johnson, Kenny Perry, Padraig Harrington and a host of other Tour pros walked by while I was there.  When J.P. finished up in the press tent we went to get his car to go eat lunch.  Fred Couples walked by and gave J.P. a hello nod and me a “Who the hell are you?” look.

Before I left town I was able to go and see my old friend Paul from El Paso.  He’s not the same Paul I wrote about here, he’s another Paul.  Let’s call him Ranger Paul since he was one of the first Army Rangers to hit the ground after parachuting into Panama during the invasion in 1989.  He’s cleaned up real nice for a kid who used to always smell like BBQ.  Well, I guess we all smelled like BBQ back then, you could just drive by The State Line (where we worked) and end up smelling like a brisket.  I remember the day he told me he was going to enlist thinking; “What is he thinking?”  But he had his plan all worked out, and he executed it flawlessly.  He served 4 years as a Ranger in the Army, used his GI bill to get an accounting degree from UTEP, got his law degree from SMU and retired as CEO and President from his company the very day I showed up at his doorstep.  At the age of 43.  Bastard.  Just kidding, Ranger Paul was always the one with the plan.  He’s going to take the summer off and then explore his options.  Sounds just like me, but with more options.  He told me about the 20th reunion he had attended to commemorate the Panama invasion and how one of his former squad mates was in Iraq with our friend Andy when he was killed in action.  Andy worked at the State Line with us as well.  I wrote about him here.  Ranger Paul says according to his squad mate  it was a 12 hour fire fight and that Andy was hit about 2 hours into it.  It was a one in a million shot that caught him on his side in the one spot where there was no armour.  He said that even if they could have gotten a helicopter in there immediately that Andy most likely would have died on the way.  Ranger Paul’s wife Stacy and I worked together at the Miller Beer distributorship in El Paso, but she was out of town for the weekend so I didn’t get to see her.

All in all it was a great weekend, if you take out the sprains and fractures.  I got to see family and friends and relive a few memories from my ever fading youth.  It’s good to get out like this every once in a while.  I’ll be doing it again soon.

HOPE I CAN FIND A BAG TO MATCH

Well, it isn’t dorsal bunions; it’s bone spurs.  On both feet.  I WILL need surgery, but I’m OK with that; anything to keep me from walking like Jabba the Hut during a Lower GI is fine with me.  The left big toe isn’t nearly as bad as the right, but the fact that the range of motion on it is about 15% is what prompted him to say it needed to be done also.  My right foot has about 2% range of motion, meaning when your big toe starts to bend when you stand on your tippy-toes, mine stops at about the time my heel almost comes off the ground.  It also explains the wear pattern on my shoes.  The Doctor looked at them with a “Dear Lord” expression on his face and told me to bring in my newest pair of shoes so he can give me inserts to help until the surgery.  The wear pattern starts about 1/3 of the way down from my toes, stays on the outside of the shoe and the heels are almost worn through.  I’m basically walking like a barefoot little kid on hot asphalt, on the sides of my feet.  The surgery on my left knee is also why my right toe is so much worse (this is my thinking, not the Doc’s), I can’t shift my weight to my left foot because I can’t straighten my knee all the way, so I constantly stand with my weight on my right foot.  What a mess I am!

I talked him into doing both feet at the same time.  I don’t know how wise of a decision that was, but it made sense at the time.  Given my history with anesthesia, I’d rather knock it out all at once than have to go under twice.  Economically it should keep the cost down as well, so I think it’s the right thing to do.  I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to drive with 2 surgical boots on my feet for 2 to 4 weeks, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Possibly on crutches or in a wheel chair with me pulling groceries and 3 NukeKids behind me in Radio Flyer wagons.  I know that it is going to be a pain for a while, but I’m anxious to get it over with and be able to move like a normal human again.  For over 17 years I’ve been asking my feet, knees and hips to work in ways they weren’t intended to and it’s catching up to me.  I’ve put undue stress on my knees and hips from over compensating for my feet and it’s making all of them suffer.  Take care of your feet while you’re young.  Whoa, I’m starting to sound like Lt. Dan.  I can’t say I’m looking forward to hobbling around in surgical boots, but I’ve been walking like a gimp for so long that it can’t help but be an improvement.

IGNORE THE NEED FOR A PEDICURE

NukeMom noticed a bump on my right foot the other day.  I hadn’t paid much heed to the pain down there because I always have pain in my feet, it’s the norm for me.  When I looked at it and realized that she wasn’t joking, I reached down to touch it, thinking it was a cyst, but it wasn’t.  It’s hard as a rock, just like bone.  An internet self diagnosis brought me to conclude that it’s a dorsal bunion.  I knew that bunions formed mainly on the side of the foot, and since my toes weren’t pointing east and I haven’t worn heels since my tragic broken heel spill in 1995, I figured I was OK, but a dorsal bunion?  This thing came out of nowhere, and over the last few days has started to become more painful.  I have an appointment with a podiatrist (seemed logical) next week, so we’ll see what he has to say.  I’m not so much worried about what he is going to say as opposed to what the X-rays are going to say.  You see, there’s a reason my feet hurt all of the time, and it’s mostly my fault.

I was born with high arches and a high instep.  A double whammy if you ever want to find a comfortable pair of shoes.  The reason for my toe pain is a little less genetic, and a little more behavioral.  I broke the big toe on my right foot when I was in the 6th grade.  It healed nicely and I didn’t have anymore problems until 1993.  In that year, a friend and I rented a house from a kindly, wealthy gentleman who owned 2 apartment complexes and 4 or 5 houses.  He was a retired lawyer who didn’t need the money, he just liked interacting with his tenants (house tenants, not apartment).  The house sat on 3 acres, had it’s own irrigation system and our landlord did the yard.  Seriously.  Rent was $375 a month.  Not each; total.  It was awesome.  We were finally able to convince him that 2 healthy young men having their 70+ year old landlord doing their yard could be detrimental to our reputations.  He finally relented, and that afternoon came by our house and delivered a brand new lawnmower.  The man was a saint.  My roommate and I had quite a time at the house, as I’m sure you can imagine-I believe I’ve mentioned it before but I’m too lazy to go back and link it.  Anyway, one fateful night in 1993, our house had become the gathering spot once again for an impromptu gathering.  That night, at that gathering, my foot troubles began-I broke every toe on both feet.

How does one manage to break every toe on both feet at the same time you ask?  Simple, just play barefoot soccer on a field that is bordered by cement porches and cars.  Yeah.  I think I finished 3rd that year in the Darwin Awards: Survivor Category.  Driving for a score, I drove my left foot into my friend Mario’s Nissan.  I didn’t notice the pain right away, copious amounts of Coors Light ensured that.  After a few minutes I realized that I’d definitely done something to my left foot, so I hobbled off of the front lawn to check it out and refresh my beverage.  “It’s not that bad, you wus-get back out there! Besides, Mario can bang that dent out, no problem”  my roommate said.  So I did.  A few minutes later I was on defense and went for a sliding block, leading with my right foot.  A slight depth perception problem (my glasses were on the porch) revealed that the foundation forming, immovable cement porch was a lot closer than I thought it was.  All of the toes on my right foot folded nicely underneath my foot.  I felt this one.  I hobbled up to the porch and sat down knowing my time in the game was over.  I moved my toes around the rest of the night until I finally went to bed.  Bruised, but not battered; or so I thought.  Boy, was I wrong.

The next morning I woke up and was sore from head to toe.  That probably explains why I didn’t notice the pain in my feet like I should have before attempting to get out of bed.  I swung my feet out of bed and stood up-and immediately fell back on the bed.  My toes screamed at me to; Retreat! Retreat!  I sat on the bed and took a first look at my toes-it was ugly.  I had purple slash marks at the base of each of my toes.  One on each side, like an inverted “V” sitting below each toe.  The big toes were worse.  My left big toe had the purple slashes at the base and a solid purple line going all the way up to the toenail.  The right big tow was completely purple.  The same big toe that has a large dorsal bunion growing on it right now.  Being a young man with no health insurance, I did the only thing I could do; I toughed it out and wore sandals for a couple of weeks.  My friends told me that I walked like I had a corn cob placed somewhere that it shouldn’t be, and I’m sure I did.  Any pressure on the toes was excruciating, so I walked flat-footed for bout 2 weeks.  I think at that point I looked like a penguin that had a corn cob placed somewhere that it shouldn’t be.  From that day forward, my feet have been toast.  I always knew this day was coming, I just didn’t like to think about it.  My right big toe, rather than being a normal 3 bone, flexible appendage is basically one fused bone from toenail to about where you see the bunion.  The left big toe isn’t much better.  Everytime I walk you can hear the cracks and pops of the bones in my feet.  It’s like I’m wearing Rice Krispies for shoes.  So, I venture to the Podiatrist next week hoping that it’s a simple case of bunion discomfort, but I know, deep in my heart, that I may end up being this Doctor’s career reconstruction achievement.  And this is the year we switch to a high deductible health insurance plan.  Thanks, Karma!

THIS IS 2 DAYS WORTH OF POLLEN

I have asthma and allergies.  Since I possessed both, I figured I would do the smart thing and move to the worst state in the nation for allergies; North Carolina.  I think there is a 2 week window in the month of January where allergy sufferers get a reprieve from the onslaught, that’s it.  For the other 11 1/2 months of the year, you pray that your pills are working and that you can remember where you put your rescue inhaler.  The pollen count scale goes to 100.  Yesterday, the tree pollen count in my county was 149.  On Tuesday, it was 153-the highest they had ever recorded.  Walking out in that as an asthmatic would be like someone with a peanut allergy eating a 32oz jar of Peter Pan Chunky Peanut Butter.  On top of that, I finished my allergy shots back in January.  I had been getting allergy shots once a week for the last 7 years.  They weaned me off of them like a heroin addict with methadone.  The funny thing is, though; that I hadn’t even noticed the pollen.  Well, except for the 13 metric tons that I’ve brushed off of the car this week.

ONE DAY AFTER BEING WIPED CLEAN

Since I was doing so well with the pollen, I thought I’d live on the wild side and tackle a project that required contact cement, stain and varnish; 3 things that aren’t exactly friendly to your lungs.  AND, I would do it all without a respirator, I’d only use one of those little white surgical masks.  DANGER SEEKER!  Well, some might say idiot, I don’t know, but the point is; I’ve been completely unscathed by this pollen storm.  I took a couple of pictures of our van and our patio table to give you an idea of the dusting we’ve received.  I have to admit, I’m feeling a little cocky-I’m thinking of lighting some leaves on fire just to see how far I can take this.  Of course, now that I’ve written this, karma will bite me in the butt and send pollen spores the size of those things in The Langoliers to teach me a lesson.  Until then, I’m going to enjoy my first pain free allergy season in a decade.  Now, where’s my rescue inhaler?

SHOCKING, I KNOW

I was out running errands when I saw it.  It was too late to swerve, and besides, on a 2 lane highway, one never swerves.  We learned that on day 1.  I followed my training; I grabbed the wheel firmly at 10 and 2 o’clock, let my foot off of the gas, lightly tapped the brakes and prepared for the worst.  Nothing.  Not even a bump.  I looked up into the rear view mirror and caught a glimpse of white, green, tan and a tiny bit of red.  Not enough red to be a femoral bleeder, but enough to notice.  I also noticed the lack of anything that looked body-ish.  Thankfully, there was no one behind me and I was able to peruse the image in the mirror a little more closely.  That’s when more details began to emerge.  Details like; the victim(s) were more round than I would have expected.  They also had obviously not been wearing their seat belts, which would explain the debris field that now littered the road.  There were parts all over the road, in the grass along the shoulder and probably on the tires and undercarriage of many a car.  My last look at their vehicle confirmed what I already knew, I had done it; I had killed a box of Krispy Kreme donuts.

JUST SEEING THIS MAKES ME TEAR UP...AGAIN

About a quarter of a mile further up, I took a right headed towards my house.  Up ahead I could see something in the road, something eerily familiar; a rectangular white, green and red box with the souls of 12 more poor donuts smashed underneath it.  It was at this point that I felt the first tear fall upon my cheek.  I looked further still, another hundred feet down the road there were 2 more boxes, both of them torn apart like so much busted plumbing.  Donut bodies were strewn across the road, a few survivors lingered in the grass.  I pulled over and did what I could, but without a glass of milk my efforts would only go so far.  I just thank the lord that these were all glazed donuts, I don’t know if I could have held down my breakfast if there had been any jelly-filled in those boxes.  Imagining the horror of a box of eclairs scattered across the blacktop was enough to get me back into the car.  I came upon 3 more accident scenes before turning on my street.  Who could do this sort of thing?  What kind of animal leaves the backdoor to his Krispy Kreme donut delivery truck open while flying down the road?  When they find the perpetrator, I hope they throw the book at him.  He obviously bears no remorse for his actions; hell, he didn’t even stop, people!  He could have saved some of those poor donuts; maybe not for the front row of the display case, but he could have dusted them off and handed them out as free samples to customers around the coffee machine at his next stop.  No, probation is too lenient for this animal; he deserves to be dragged behind his panel truck, like that poor dog in Vacation.  And I know, as surely as night follows day, that somewhere, right now, in a convenience store near me: a policeman silently weeps next to an empty donut display case.

KA-CHING!

NukeGirl lost her first tooth the other day.  It was a long road to extraction, but when I noticed that it was laying back at a 45 degree angle in relation to the rest of her teeth, and that it was black, I told her maybe it was time to try another tug.  She had been toying with it for days.  At the dinner table: “Daddy!  Look!”  I’d glance up from my plate to see her tongue rotating the tooth back and forth, manipulating it like a NASCAR driver downshifting going into turn 3.  “That’s nice, honey, but I’m trying to enjoy my dinner and that isn’t making it any easier.”  Being that it was her first loose tooth, she was a little unclear on the concept.  We went to dinner one night, and after a four and a half year precedent of ordering fries with her meal, she decides she wants corn on the cob.  The next day she asked for an apple in her lunch.  She hates apples.  Maybe nature gives us that extra nudge to request things to eat that it knows will get that sucker out of there and take away the pain.  I remember as a kid, I once lost a molar to an over exuberant Sugar Daddy.  It got stuck back there and I pulled and I pulled and I pulled, and it wouldn’t come out.  I twisted, I yanked, I twisted and yanked.  It was…well, it was like pulling teeth, I guess.  After about 5 minutes I finally got it out and immediately noticed that this particular Sugar Daddy tasted like crap.  The taste, of course, was the 1/2 liter of blood that was now mixing with the chocolate and caramel of my candy.  I looked at the Sugar Daddy and saw my molar sticking out of it.  Cool, I thought; a dollar!  I don’t think I’ve had a Sugar Daddy since.

The experience did teach me that caramel is good for getting out stubborn teeth.  Later I used a box of Milk Duds to extract another molar, and a Brach’s caramel chew to eradicate an incisor.  My dentist lost money on me that year.  I also remember the weirdness of running your tongue in the gap where your tooth used to be.  NukeGirl has discovered that as well.  “Daddy! Look!”  I look up to see a tiny piece of her tiny little tongue peeking through where her tooth used to be.  Then she went and got a Capri Sun and realized that she could lock her jaw and still drink it; she just slides the straw in the hole where her tooth was.  She thinks this is the coolest thing in the world.  “DADDY! LOOK!”  I look up to see her, jaw clenched tighter than a Rottweiler, with a straw stuck through the gap and can’t help but join her in uproarious laughter.  She tried her pinkie finger, and while it can be wedged in there, she learned the painful lesson that she can’t clench her teeth.  She also tried a pencil and almost lost the 2 neighbors.  “Daddy! Ow!”  Since then I’ve caught her with her toothbrush, a hair barrette, a bigger straw and a paper towel folded to various thicknesses.  She just keeps folding until either she can’t fold anymore, or it won’t fit anymore.  She’s doing all she can to find out exactly what will and will not fit where her tooth used to be.  It made me think of an old skit from SCTV; the great Canadian show that gave us John Candy, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Catherine O’Hara and many others, called; “What Fits In Mother Russia.”  It was a recurring skit that featured Dave Thomas as a Russian who got great delight figuring out what countries could fit inside the footprint of the Soviet Union.  The video is below.  One of my first posts ever was a tooth post-you can click here if you want to read it. Enjoy.