I Could do That!

March 8, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

Have you ever watched any of those survival shows or National Geographic where someone is trekking through a jungle deep in the heart of Africa against all odds? My favorite was Man vs. Wild. I would sit in my comfy recliner with my bowl full of ice cream while a guy named Bear faced temperatures of -30° and a pack of rabid polar bears and I would think, “I could do that.”

I once watched him squeeze water from elephant poop to avoid dehydration. I could totally do that.

Seriously, that’s how guys think!

We think that if forced into such a situation, our natural instincts would take over and we could do anything. Of course, the first month or two in the wild would force us to shed our extra thirty pounds of office-chair flab to get down to our raw fighting weight. Never mind we aren’t former Commandos with years of training – that isn’t what we lack. We lack only the opportunity. If we had the opportunity, we could discover new lands just like Magellan or lead armies like Alexander the Great. It’s just that we came along too late; there is nothing new to discover. The lack of opportunity is what is preventing us from being bold and daring… oh, and a slight case of bursitis.

But I was recently forced into a survival situation.

My situation started in Walmart. Now I know that can be the very edge of humanity, but I didn’t have to wrestle a 400-pound man in a thong or anything quite so appealing. I had to get dinner. My wife and daughter have been busy with a show, leaving me to spend many evenings as a bachelor.

Let’s define “bachelor” because I was certainly not a good-looking, rich single guy chased by thirty beautiful women. Wrong reality show. No, I was just a lonely man facing dinner choices. I’ve been there before. I have lived in a world of condiments, nachos, and little substance. Granted, it has been nearly twenty-five years. But I can do that!

With errands to run, I stopped at Walmart, which has a full grocery store – two birds, one stone. Saving precious resources already. I meandered the meats and seafood but thought they looked long on preparation and dirty dishes, so I grabbed a what I thought was a name-brand frozen pizza. When I got to the register, my first clue should have been that it rang up for $2.89. Seriously! A large pizza. I should have taken it back to the freezer section immediately. But then I thought, maybe I was about to discover a new delicious, low-cost meal. Maybe it is good. And besides, the frozen food section is way over there…

When I took it out of the box, it looked very segmented. Not at all like the picture on the box. A glob of frozen sauce here, some meat there, and fake cheese in an altogether different location. At $2.89, you don’t get mixing. That internal voice in my head told me to abandon ship and go to Zaxby’s, but being a man, I shunned reason and baked it.

I don’t know what price-point the people at Walmart are afraid of. Maybe the $3.15 pizza guys really have the market cornered. But this thing was nasty. The crust was cardboard, the cheese rubbery and the ranch sauce tasted like the antifreeze that dripped into my mouth once during a car repair gone wrong. I seriously considered calling poison control.

I threw it out and left a scathing review on Walmart.com which I am sure will cause them to change their ways. I made a condiment sandwich and turned on the TV to catch a Survivor episode where they were standing in chest-deep, shark-infested water fishing with twine.

And although I cannot master bachelorhood, I knew in my heart that I could totally do that.

*feature image credit:Lwp Kommunikáció via CCI

The Other End of the Line

March 1, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

Did you ever have to make a hard phone call? Maybe you were going to let someone down, quit a job, or end a relationship and for whatever reason, the phone was your medium of choice. You likely picked up the receiver to practice a few times before you actually dialed the number – rehearsing lines and contemplating potential reactions. These things almost never go as planned.

I remember a difficult middle school conversation. I found myself in a frustrating relationship with Meg Sutter and decided to make the ultimatum call – him or me! Of course, you don’t do these things in person, this was middle school!

After memorizing what I planned to say, I steeled my nerves and dialed her number only to get a busy signal. This was before call-waiting and that annoying tone mocked me for hours. Just when I gave up, the phone rang. It was her! I was so glad to hear her voice that I forgot my plan – which didn’t matter anyway because she dashed my heart beneath her feet in two seconds flat. She chose the other side of the ultimatum without even knowing about my ultimatum… Ah, middle school love.

That wasn’t anywhere near the most difficult phone call I have made, but it seemed so at the time.

No, the most difficult phone calls I have ever made came two years ago as Kylie’s health descended. When she realized she was going to die, she asked me to call her closest friends and tell them before making the news public. Eight friends… eight calls.

I steeled my nerves. I thought about how hard these conversations would be from my side of the line. I wept a little before each one, but dialed every number in turn. I spoke to parents and gave them the terrible news, considering only how hard it was on my side. I never truly considered what would follow on the other end of the line.

One by one, eight parents had to digest the news and figure out the best way to tell their thirteen-year-old daughter that one of her closest friends was soon to die. I sometimes get so wrapped up in my own loss that I forget that besides her immediate family, there are grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, classmates, friends, and eight girls who lost someone special to them when Kylie died.

I am always delighted to flip the calendar to March. February contains the anniversary of her birth and death within 11 days of each other. This past Friday should have been her fifteenth birthday. Instead we huddled together and ended the day at her favorite hibachi place. Saturday held the third Smiley for Kylie Cabaret which raised over $10,000 for pediatric cancer research – the mission she gave us. You would think we would rest on Sunday. But instead, we did something very special.

We invited those eight girls – all now freshmen in high school – to dinner at a local restaurant without telling them why. We had a nice meal together before I finally drummed my fingers together and said, “I supposed you’re wondering why I’ve called you here tonight.” (I’ve always wanted to do that.)

I would like to introduce to you Smiley For Kylie’s Junior Board of Directors:

While our course is uncertain, we are dedicated to funding safer and more effective treatments for childhood cancer. These beautiful young ladies are vested, valued, and will have a great deal of say in what happens in the future.

They were chosen personally by Kylie on February 11, 2015 and will be engaged as long as they desire.