Month: October 2003

Peanuts? Cracker Jacks? Okay, you laugh, but I bought some in our cafeteria just to throw around the house like I was selling them at Fenway. I was happy with the quality of the popcorn portion, but the nuts were WAAAAAY at the bottom of the bag, and the “prize” was crap. CRAP I TELL YOU?

Dear Frito-Lay,

Are you kidding me? You call that a prize? A little graphic puzzle that takes two seconds to solve, even if you don’t accidentally see the solution which is obviously right there on the next piece of paper. I have to ask you this: Why Bother? Don’t call it a prize. Cereal boxes give you a prize. McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, even the place my kid gets his hair cut gives away a “prize”. A 1 x 1 piece of paper with a drawing of a puzzle on it? I wiped my butt with it. There’s your prize.

Sincerely,

The DumpTruck Driver

(Okay, maybe it got a little harsh at the end, but after struggling to locate the peanuts, I was faced with that? Harrumph.)

Bad pie makes me mad. If you can’t make pie properly, don’t make it – that’s my motto. But that’s not the motto in the cafeteria. I’ll give them some credit – they’d don’t bake there. I don’t know if it’s an effort to keep everyone thin, or laziness, but the cafeteria doesn’t really have a dessert section, other than some random puddings and a few cookies. They aren’t prominent and I think if you didn’t know where they were, you wouldn’t know they had them.

Anyway, when I was at Allmerica they had a huge sinful “pay by the ounce” dessert every day that was just killer. Blueberry crisp, chocolate trifle, strawberry shortcake, etc. Every day there were a couple of cakes. But here there is none of that, which I can deal with.

So it was a big deal to me that they had a big pile of “Fresh Baked Pie!” today. Apple, of course, but I like apple. Everyone was buying a piece because it looked good, and because it was so unusual.

It was horrible. The apples weren’t cooked, the crust was just mushy dough, and the spices were off a bit. But it was the apples that got to me. How hard is it to cook the pie enough so that the apples don’t taste like you just picked them off the tree? Hell, even *I* have been known to make apple pies, tarts and crisp and cook the apples. Grrr.

I got all excited that there was pie and then I couldn’t even finish eating it, so you know it was bad. And THAT is what makes me mad.

I can’t watch the Sox game live anymore, it’s just killing me. KILLING ME. I can’t handle the stress of these playoff games a single second longer. So I told Junior he could have control of the television. He decided to pull out the Playstation. His game of choice? Major League Baseball. Oh good God, he’s set it up so the Sox are playing the Yankees, and the play-by-play keeps making me look up, because I forget it’s the game. In his capable hands, Nomar homered, Nixon got a double, etc. etc. So he didn’t want to watch baseball, but this is different? Not from where I sit.

I keep switching to the gameday live coverage online – that’s about as much stress as I can handle. Can they keep the lead? I guess we’ll know shortly. One more inning and I can breath again.

All you parents out there know that when it comes to dealing with kids, there are times you tell them the truth, and times that you protect them with the time-honored tradition of making stuff up. I should have done that this morning.

I’m feeling pretty crappy about choosing “truth” this morning – one look at his horrified little face and I thought to myself “Oh, that wasn’t good.”

See, he was watching Jimmy Neutron, and Sheen and Carl are arguing about where balony comes from. One said balony trees, the other said something else, which escapes me right now. Junior asked me which one of the two was correct.

“Neither,” says I. “It comes from pigs.”

“How do the pigs make it?”

Now see, this is the point where I should have shut the heck up, you know?

“They don’t make it. They kill the pig and make it from the pig meat.”

Insert look of horror here.

“Uh, they, uh, don’t kill the little babies to make it, do they?”

“No, just the big old fat ones.”

“Oh, so they have to kill them because they’re old.”

At this point, I just agree with him, but I do throw in that we get other meats from pigs too – ham, hot dogs (ya, I know they make beef franks), pork chops, bacon, sausage…

I have no idea why I decided this morning was an appropriate morning to explain where meat comes from. But it’s not like he eats it anyway. We didn’t discuss chicken nuggets, for the record.

I had to make a big decision Monday. It was time to choose which candy I’d be giving out to trick-or-treaters this year. We camp at my sister’s house, and it’s a popular spot. The kids know they’ll get a LOT of candy at her house, because there are three families giving it out. This year my sister is actually giving out glow bracelets, so you know it’s going to be the hot, happening house to hit.

I went for M&Ms this year (plain and peanut, I don’t discriminate) because it just seemed like a good idea. Not enough people give them out, and I think they make the perfect snack. Of course, the fact that they were on sale helped. I was going to supplement with something else, but I decided I always have too much left over at the end of the night. If I really need a Snickers fix, I can just buy one from the vending machine, right?