Head in the Sand ... and other unpopular positions (5 page)

Now, I ask you: How many
times do I want to watch the series
Modern
Marvels
broadcast a show on why a
suspension bridge works without everyone falling off, or a two-hour
special on the story of a submarine that got lost at sea and killed
everyone on board when one tiny part busted off, all because no one
had bothered to watch the show on the history of concrete? What
kind of man watches a show called
Major
Engineering Disasters
? On purpose, I mean.
What kind of woman
marries
such a man? On purpose, I mean.

Those were rhetorical
questions. Do not answer them. There are no correct
answers.

I admit that my husband
and I both have somewhat plebeian tastes when it comes to watching
television. Like any decent Pittsburgh blue-collar male, I too
enjoy a good Steelers game, a filthy grub-eating contest on
Survivor
, and even the
occasional mobster series on HBO. My husband loves these shows even
more than I do, but he always comes back to those
“build-something-from-aluminum-foil-and-toothpicks” shows. It’s
only a matter of time before he starts taking notes during one of
those foil-and-toothpick shows. I swear, if he ever leaves the
confines of that La-Z-Boy and heads off to Home Depot while
mumbling something about remodeling the bathroom with Reynold’s
Wrap, I’m outta here.

And I’m taking the remote
control with me.

Oh no . . . I just
remembered that we have ten spare universal remotes in a drawer of
the coffee table, all programmed to work with the TV in case the
other nine break at the same time.

Curses. Foiled
again

The generation gap stops
here. I’m cashing in on the video game craze with a game my kids
can master with skills they already have. They grew up blowing into
Nintendo game cartridges to get them to work, so this stuff is
second nature to them. And since they’re already experts, they’ll
enjoy mastering the game in record time. Here’s my concept of how
the game would play out on the screen:

LEVEL 1:
“Are These Your Shorts, Young Man?”

Crazy, cute animal game
character Buster tosses T-shirts, pants, and bunched-up boxers
toward the hamper. If any laundry ends up
in
the hamper, deduct 10 points and
game play moves to the laundry room. Level ends by climbing inside
the dryer and locating the Missing Left Sock.

LEVEL 2:
“Your Eyes Will Freeze That Way”

Buster makes goofy faces at dinner without
being spotted by Mother. Ten points per face. Buster gets Bonus
Star if Sister tattles on him and Mother doesn’t believe her. Extra
points if Sister hoists peas at him. Deduct points if peas hit
Mother. Deduct 20 points if Buster is sent to his room without
dinner. Add 20 points if he hates peas.

LEVEL 3:
“Isn’t That Homework Done Yet?”

Buster hides behind a stack of schoolbooks.
Mother pops up intermittently outside the doorway, trying to catch
Buster downloading MP3s instead of doing homework. Extra points for
paper shuffling and pencil sharpening. Deduct 100 points if Buster
completes any homework before dinner.

LEVEL 4:
“Were You Born In A Barn?”

Buster avoids getting bopped in the backside
by the screen door on his way in and out of the house. Five points
for every insect that gets into the house, and 25 points for every
slam that elicits a shriek from Mother. If she makes him go back
out and come in quietly, he returns to the beginning of the
level.

LEVEL 5:
“Take Out That Trash!”

Buster stacks as much garbage as possible in
the trash without actually taking it out. “Ctrl-G” picks up paper,
banana peels, and spaghetti strands encrusted around old meatballs,
and the spacebar drops it all on top of the heap. If it topples
over and Mother makes him take out the trash, the game is over.

Why will kids play my game
instead of
Sonic Mario Bandicoot
Somethingorother
? Because I said so, young
man.
And just wait until your father gets
home!


October 12, 2000

Every Vegas update from me
contains a food section. It’s impossible to go to Las Vegas and not
comment on the food. Well, maybe Calista Flockhart could pull it
off, but certainly not me. (And that’s all I have to say about
that.)

Today’s food experience was a place in
northeast Las Vegas called Timber’s. It’s a burger joint. Doesn’t
sound very exciting yet, does it? What if I tell you that it has a
burger called the Hoss Burger? Impressed yet? What if I tell you
that the Hoss Burger is $8.95 and includes a huge basket of fries?
Still not excited? Okay, how’s this: The thing weighs 2½ to 3
pounds, sits on a huge bun, and takes up an entire nine-inch dinner
plate. It’s covered with cheese, lettuce, bacon, tomato, onion,
ketchup, mayo—the works. They serve it on a huge plate, with a
steak knife sticking up out of the middle of it. Apparently the
knife is to perform crude emergency quadruple-bypass surgery once
you finish eating the burger.

Normally, people buy the Hoss Burger and
share it in groups. Everyone gets a smaller plate, and they use the
knife to divide it up for everyone like an apple pie.

However . . .

There is this contest.

The Hoss Challenge.

It comes with four options.

OPTION 1:
You (alone) finish an entire Hoss Burger. You get
your name on their Hoss Burger Hall of Fame board.

OPTION 2:
You finish two (yes, two) Hoss Burgers in an
hour. You get both burgers free and your name on the Hall of Fame
board.

OPTION 3:
You finish two Hoss Burgers in half an hour. You
get both free, your name on the board, and $100.

OPTION 4:
You participate in their monthly contest to eat a
Hoss Burger in the shortest amount of time. Prize is
$100.

The bad news is that if you choose to
participate in Options 2 or 3, you have to sit at a separate table
from your dinner party and are scrutinized by the entire Timber’s
staff and probably the Nevada Gaming Commission.

My mom, Gracie, and I shared one Hoss
Burger. I still don’t feel well. Wayne wanted to try Option 2 or 3,
but we didn’t want him to sit somewhere else, so he chose the first
option. He has now carved out his niche in this town! His name is
on the Hall of Fame board! It took him 27 minutes to finish it, but
he did it (after cutting it into quarters). He insists he was just
practicing and that he wants to go back tomorrow and try for Option
3. I insist this is a stupid idea. I win.

For those of you wondering if Option 3 can
be done, or how fast Option 4 has been done, here are the stats
(which are listed on your placemat when you sit down):

Fastest Hoss Eater:
Dan “The Hoss” Gordon, Age 29,

130 lbs.

Time?
One Hoss Burger in 3 minutes 20 seconds

Two Hoss Burgers in 22 minutes

Three Hoss Burgers in 25 minutes, 34
seconds

If he ever ate a fourth Hoss Burger, it was
probably on his way to the cardiac unit.

For those of you still perversely fascinated
by this contest, here is the fine print that keeps the faint of
heart (and arteries) away (and I quote):

•
You must let your
waitress know at the time of your order that you are taking the
challenge.

•
You must choose one
challenge.

•
You must complete both
burgers, which are served at the same time.

•
You must remain seated
throughout the whole challenge. [
Author’s
Note:
Apparently there has been at least
one binge-and-purge cheating incident.]

•
You may not make any
substitutions except for special sauce, catsup, or
mayonnaise.

•
You must clean your
plate. No food can be left on your plate, in your hands, or mouth,
or on the floor.

•
All challenges are the
complete Hoss Burger with cheese.

The only good news in this massive list of
qualifiers is this one:

•
Your fries are not a part
of the challenge.

Well, that changes everything. You don’t
have to eat the basket of fries? Then sign me up.

I’m going into such detail about this
because I found the entire experience oddly fascinating. The Hall
of Fame board is actually now three boards filled with names. Some
people put the dates they completed the challenge; some put their
ages (the youngest I saw was fourteen—where were this kid’s
parents?). Among the hundreds of names, I personally spotted only
two women’s names.

I want to meet these women. I don’t know
why. I just do.

Tonight (after we pry Wayne out of the
recliner with a small crane we’ll borrow from the construction
workers outside), we’re going to roll him down the Strip to two
nearby casinos.

Then we’ll wheel Wayne back to the hotel on
a flatbed truck and hoist him with his own petard into bed.

Later, I’ll flip him over like a burger so
he doesn’t get bedsores. Excuse me while I go find a spatula.

Continued . . .

When you’re a woman who
falls asleep in about 2.5
hours
, it’s interesting to be
married to a man who falls asleep in about 2.5
seconds
.

But it ceases to be
interesting when that same man starts snoring in about
2.
6
seconds.

And, the snoring isn’t
your typical loud snorrrrrrrre. Instead, my husband snores by
breathing in, in a regular snore-noise. Then his exhale-snore
sounds like he’s puffing out a little puff of air:
puh!
It’s kinda
cute.

So, it’s:
zzzzzzzzzz
... [wait two
seconds] ...
puh!

zzzzzzzz
... [two seconds] ...
puh!

So, every night I lie in
the dark, hearing the first part (
zzzzzzzzzz
. . .) and . . . just . .
. waiting . . . silently . . . for the . . . second . . . part . .
.
where is it? where is it? wait for it .
. . one . . . two
. . .
puh!

Whew.
I was beginning to wonder if he’d stopped breathing there for
a minute. Yeah, that’s real easy to fall asleep to. Not.

After trying to spend the
rest of the night on the sofa (a colossally bad idea when you own
an ancient sectional sofa with bumps where the sections meet), in
an act of pure self-preservation I searched the shelves of Walmart
and bought a bag of little green foam ear plugs. I was amazed to
find they sell ear plugs at all. Turns out they even have them
listed on the little overhead aisle marker sign:

Contact Lens
Solution

Eyeglass
Accessories

Ear Plugs

They’re apparently
that
popular. After
reading all the labels on all
ten
brands they sell, I now know more about ear plugs
than any human being needs to know. Even in a capitalist society of
competing brands, I assumed they’d have one set of little plastic
cork-like things stashed in a corner somewhere. One size. One
brand. No descriptions. Just, “Here are your ear plugs. They plug
your ears. Now you can’t hear. Now go away.”

Instead, for a couple of
bucks, I came home with ten pairs of green foamy stuff shaped like
little bullets. That first night, I put them in as I finished my
nightly reading in bed. I settled in for the night and my husband
came in. I could barely hear anything. He sounded like the adults
in a Peanuts cartoon.

I said (a few decibels too
loud), “I can’t hear you. I have these ear plugs in so I won’t hear
you snoring.” He just kept talking, saying who knows what:
“
Wah-wah-wah-wah-wahhhhh
.”

In the middle of the
night, I got up to use the bathroom. When I came back to bed, my
husband was snoring. Granted, I could barely hear it, but I could
still hear it. Same rhythm. Same noises. The worst part of the ear
plugs was that this was now
all
I could hear. There were no extraneous noises of
the cat upstairs or the whistling noise the old refrigerator makes
in the next room. That was all mercifully muffled out by the ear
plugs, leaving only the muted
zzzzzz . . .
puh!
of my sleeping husband.

As I lay there
contemplating the pros and cons of hari-kari, wondering how fast I
could buy a ritualistic sword on eBay, I must have fallen asleep
anyway. Apparently muted snoring isn’t as insomnia-producing as
full-blown snoring.

My only concern now is
whether or not these little green foamy things are reusable or not.
The package label is unclear, but: