Tostitos and BBQ Sauce

My father has a unique approach to nutritional balance. Left to his own devices, I suspect his diet would consist of equal parts red beans and rice, nacho chips with barbecue sauce, and Spaten beer. This is the diet he traditionally adopts when my mom goes out of town and he lets his culinary hair down. I remember one night when my mom was out of town, I must have been a junior or senior in high school because my sister was not around, I came home kind of late and I was surprised to hear the TV was still on in the living room. I figured my dad would be in bed. Turns out he was, sort of. Let me redraw the scene. I walk into the living room. The Addams Family movie is blasting through the television (I am trying to imagine the thought process that went into that selection by a solo 45 year old man, but I am at a loss). KC is not in the room. There is, however, a half-eaten bag of Tostitos and a plate caked with BBQ sauce residue lying on the couch. I walk through the living room and enter the guest bedroom. I find KC. He is passed out in a white t-shirt and white skivvies, kneeling next to the bed, his upper body sprawled across the mattress. I am unsure how he came to assume this position. Though my father is not a particularly religious man, it appears he felt the need to thank his Creator for the bounty of Tostitos, barbecue sauce, and PG-rated home cinema that he had enjoyed on this particular Friday evening. I did not wake him up, figuring that I should not trifle with a Tostitos coma that was strong enough to literally bring a man to his knees.

Were KC to adopt the red bean, Tostitos, and Spaten diet, he would not survive very long. Not because of the obvious health effects. Rather because he would likely burn the house to the ground while enjoying a post-Spaten nap and forgetting to prevent his red beans and rice from exploding on the stovetop. I believe that this nearly happened once or twice during another of those brave weekends when I was a kid and my mom went out of town and left the King in charge of the Castle.

Anyone for spaghetti?

Like many Germantownians, my family has vacationed in Destin, FL on a yearly basis from the time I was two years old. For the first 15 years, we saved money by staying in a bare-bones cabin which required a coating of chlorine bleach before my sister and mother would step inside. Eventually, KC said, “Hey, we’re making pretty good bucks, it’s time we move up a notch.” So we rented a more expensive condo that provided a variety of modern amenities which were not available at our previous place, including pots and pans and a sofa that did not require the covering of a bed sheet in order to be safe for contact with human skin.

The drive from Memphis to Destin takes approximately 9 hours. To know my father is to know that he experiences approximately four bowel movements per day. So, in the average 18 hour day, he visits his congressman about once every 4 hours. Thus, after the 9 hour car ride, he was carrying more than beachware into the shiny condo. His first stop was the restroom. I am sure he was enjoying the peace and quiet that he had earned after absorbing 9 hours of Madonna and Hootie the Blowfish. He was probably also reflecting favorably on the new condo and our family’s ability to stay in such a nice place.

Then he flushed the toilet. And the water began to rise. And the water continued to rise. He hurriedly shut the toilet’s water spigot. But his dilemma had only begun. While this new condo had two televisions, it did not have a plunger. I am not quite sure what happened next. But decisions were made under extreme duress. The sum of these decisions resulted in my shirtless father bending over a poop-choked toilet, ladeling feces into one of the condo’s kitchen pots with a massive slotted spoon.

The condo had two bathrooms, so KC gradually emptied the turd pot into the other commode like a criminal destroying the evidence, making sure to flush after each dallop. You may be asking, “Seth, if the condo had two bathrooms, why not leave the clogged toilet alone and go purchase a plunger?” This is an excellent question for which I have no definitive answer. My guess is that KC did not want to waste valuable beach time by going to the grocery store. “Goddammit, we got up at 3 AM to get here in time to get on the beach. Patty, get me a pot and slotted spoon.”

The Young Bull and the Old Bull

KC and I built the fence in my parents’ backyard the summer after my freshman year of college, when my parents moved from Memphis to St. Louis. Though my father claims to adhere to the slogan “measure twice, cut once,” we approach many of our jobs together by not measuring at all and subsequently cutting many, many times.

This job was no different. Standard procedure is to place fenceposts eight feet apart in order to accommodate standard two-by-fours, which are usually eight feet long. I don’t remember how KC and I decided to measure the post placements, but suffice to say that our approach was faulty. We placed them ten feet apart.

We did not realize our error until the postholes had been dug and the posts had been sunk in concrete. Even if we had recognized our error prior to setting the posts, we were not about to re-dig 15 or so postholes, the completion of which had required two weekends, the rental of two augurs, and obscenity-earmuffs for all children within a 100 yard radius. So, what are two men to do when forced to span a ten foot gap with an eight foot board? Why, purchase twelve foot boards and saw them down to ten feet. This was another painful and profanity-laced operation. Incredibly, no appendages were lost.

Assembling the fence required carrying stacks of wood down a short flight of stairs into our backyard. When I reflect, at a very general level, about the work that I do with KC, I find that I usually have two goals, no matter what the project may be. The first goal is to finish the job as quickly as possible. The second is to remind KC of his physical and mental frailty. With these two goals in mind, I started carrying as many wooden boards as possible in each trip, challenging KC to keep pace. KC responded with this regal bit of fatherly wisdom.

“Have I told you the story of the young bull and the old bull?” he said.

“No.”

“The young bull and the old bull were on top of a hill overlooking the valley,” KC began, “Down in the valley were a dozen heifers. When the young bull saw the heifers, he started jumping up and down

‘Old bull! Old bull!’ the young bull said, ‘Let’s run down there and fuck us a heifer!’

‘No,’ said the old bull, ‘ Let’s walk down there. And fuck ‘em all.”

Two things were remarkable about this story. 1) I had never heard it before. KC has about 6 jokes in his inventory. He has not updated his inventory since 1977. 2) It was actually appropriate for the situation at hand.

As a side note, when our neighbors did a property survey several months later, they discovered that we had built the fence on their land. I was holding a razor blade over my exposed wrist, ready to end the misery before it began, when KC informed me that a professional builder would move the fence.

What is this blog about? What am I writing it?

This blog will consist of humorous stories involving members of my family. The title of the blog refers to the first story that I will post.

This blog has two purposes. The first, and most important, is to entertain my family. The second is to develop my writing skills, particularly the ability to write quickly. I am in grad school, and writing and using my time efficiently are requirements for success. I enjoy writing, but I do not write efficiently. I spend too much time editing instead of writing. I am going to try to use this blog to work on this weakness by limiting my use of the backspace button when creating my posts. The result may be some sloppy writing, particularly in the beginning.

My goal is to write one post per week, but that is probably too ambitious.