Aggressive Kong Dropper

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Pretend as though nothing is happening. Avoid eye contact. Do not engage.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Don't smile. It isn't cute. Don't acknowledge the behavior or encourage the persistent badgering. Like an ignored child throwing a showy tantrum, the unrewarded behavior will eventually be abandoned.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

The red, rubber kong bounces randomly, knocking ankles and ricocheting off chair legs and kitchen cabinets. It is empty, an objectionable offense if you're a seven-pound Havanese in need of your daily dose of melted American cheese. Pick up the kong with your teeth and launch it where you will.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

It lands on my shoe. I have to look down. How frequently does your dog toss a toy in the air only to have it land perfectly on top of your shoe and stay there? In doing so, I spot her a foot away staring up at me with the expression of someone having a difficult time explaining a very simple concept to a very stupid person. The kong is empty. She wants cheese. If she were bigger and had opposable thumbs she'd solve the problem herself, but she isn't and she doesn't and she's annoyed at how staggeringly thick I am that I haven't figured out what she's trying to tell me.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Some people fill kongs with peanut butter, or kibble. We cram it full with American cheese and stick it in the microwave for several seconds. If she's forgotten about the kong, simply pulling open the refrigerator drawer containing the individually wrapped slices of processed cheese-like stuff is enough to bring it top of mind again. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Take out the cold cuts to make the boys' sandwiches for school. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Take out the leftover grilled chicken to make yourself lunch. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Walk through the kitchen in the vicinity of the refrigerator. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Or, perhaps most egregious, sit at the breakfast table eating your breakfast while she is clearly faced with the challenge of an empty kong. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Avoid eye contact. Do not engage.

2016 Mark Feggeler

Sputter and a Thud

All my life, the one thing I have never been troubled with is allergies.

On just about any day during the last 45 years, if you were to have asked me how I was doing, I could easily have answered without any hesitation: "Well, I'm not suffering from allergies, that much I know!"

Oh, sure, on the rare occasion I might experience a fluke reaction to something or other.

Like that time, twenty years ago, when My Lovely Fiancee and I were at Sunday brunch with her parents. There I was, minding my own business, feasting off a plate mounded high with buffet delicacies, when suddenly my skin puffed up, red patches flared and vanished and flared again on some very inconvenient parts of my anatomy, and my throat closed up so tight I could barely draw a breath. Let me tell you, nothing puts a damper on a fancy buffet faster than the unexpected sensation you might not survive to digest it.

Whenever hives have hassled me, it's been impossible to tell what might have been the cause. But lately, over the past three weeks, I have experienced a lingering constriction of the throat that my doctor assures me is the result of a mid-life food allergy. After a week of abstaining from most everything one possibly could be allergic to, it's time to start investigating the usual suspects.

Nuts?

I've eaten my weight, and probably your weight, too, in peanuts, almonds, cashews and walnuts. Peanut butter and almond butter, both the hippie tree-hugging natural varieties and the good old chemicalized mega-processed kinds, are no strangers to my diet. I fully understand some people can't get within 60 yards of a shelled nut without a HazMat suit and an EpiPen, but I am not one of those people. I could strip naked, slather myself in peanut butter and frolic through plantation fields in Georgia without fear of contracting a single itch. A little chafing, perhaps, but no itching.

Dairy, then?

Same story with dairy. Considering the quantities of milk and cheese I've consumed in my lifetime, there are probably hundreds of cows laying low, like mob informants in the witness protection program, deathly afraid of being hooked back up to the milking machines. If it turns out I am allergic to dairy, I'll bet the daily quota per cow at every farm across the nation gets cut by a third.

Then there's things like gluten and grains. I don't even want to go there. No bread? That's just cruel and unusual, especially at a time in my life when I've finally learned how to make a perfect pizza dough.

So, now begins a period of trial and error, during which I slowly reintroduce those items I have been avoiding. Take tonight, for instance. A slice of pizza will no doubt test the potential dangers of cheese, tomatoes, yeast, flour, oregano and basil. Okay, maybe four slices.

If you hear a muffled sputtering for air and a loud thud, you'll know half a pizza wasn't a very good idea. Kind of makes me wonder where I might have left that EpiPen.



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Prettiest Puke Ever

Fourteen years ago, during the first thirty days of her pregnancy, my Lovely Wife had reason to believe she might be in for a smooth ride. She woke in the morning feeling well and maintained a normal appetite throughout each day.

It would seem Our Daughter's prenatal interests did not include instilling the kind of nausea, hunger, hot sweats, chills, mood swings and homicidal tendencies we'd been warned were the potential side effects of the typical, healthy pregnancy.

Then, at the end of that first month, the turkey incident unfolded.

The turkey breast, rubbed down liberally with our signature combination of herbs and spices, went into the oven while my Lovely Wife rested in the bedroom. Our house at the time being relatively small, it wasn't long before the gamey aroma of roasting fowl hung heavy in every room. I opened the oven door to baste the half-baked bird when I heard a weak voice calling me.

The overwhelming smell of the turkey had somehow jump-started the morning sickness my Lovely Wife had so far been able to avoid. With a skin tone matching that of the uncooked bird, she informed me of the need to remove both the turkey and its scent from the house with an urgent alacrity. I must confess, I momentarily struggled with the idea of chucking a perfectly good meal in the trash, but I quickly came to my senses.

Within minutes, the roasting pan was sitting out on the back porch and every window in the house was opened, ceiling fans drawing in the fresh, frigid winter air. I tried spraying Lysol to help cover the offending odor, but it only added to the nauseating mixture. The upchuck bucket -- a small, spare plastic trash can -- made it's debut that evening. It didn't leave our presence for four solid months.

It took us a few weeks to settle into a mealtime routine. Dinner options were limitless, providing dinner had no detectable aroma. All meals were eaten at home, since eating out would mean being within unreasonable proximity of a functioning kitchen in which heat was being applied to one ingredient or another.

We eventually found the one meal her stomach and nasal passages could handle: chicken tenders and French fries from Golden Corral, both smothered in the melted cheese from the potato bar. The checkout girl at our local Golden Corral could spot me from a mile away. Before I could open my mouth, she had my take-out order rung up. As a show of moral support, my staple meal became steak & fried shrimp with French fries. I even applied a generous covering of the melted cheese sauce to prove how much I loved her.

Just because we'd discovered an acceptable staple meal, however, did not mean my Lovely Wife's stomach suddenly stabilized. If Tums antacid tablets were habit forming, then my Lovely Wife would have been a hardcore addict. Deposits in the upchuck bucket were as prolific as they were predictable. I consider my time spent cleaning that bucket amazingly appropriate preparation for the diaper changing that would come.

But one day -- when the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week morning sickness had an exceptionally tight grip on her -- my Lovely Wife handed over the upchuck bucket and I recoiled in shock. There, in the bucket, was an assortment of pastel colors, each color separated from the others like some delicate frothy pousse cafe. In retrospect, it really was exceptionally pretty, as upchuck goes.

Unnerved and confused, I searched for just the right words to express my loving concern.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

After a few minutes, we realized the picturesque layers in the bucket were caused by the various colors of the Tums tablets she had taken leading up to her latest deposit. We laughed until it was time for her to throw up yet again.

I've cleaned up my share of bodily fluids since then, but never anything quite so artistically expressive.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

A Bowlful of I'm-Still-Hungry

Kids are a pain in the butt to cook for, which is not a secret, but I really didn't expect it to be this difficult.

I could understand if we were constantly cooking exotic meals seasoned with curry, star anise, or cumin. If our preferred protein were, say, rabbit or eel or boll weevil, I could again understand our children's reticence to eat what we dish out. Even if we served up items only slightly off the beaten path, like sushi or jambalaya, I could excuse their finickiness.

To be fair, our Daughter tries just about everything and has a very short list of disallowed menu items. No chili. No Brussels sprouts. No ham, although bacon is A-OK and close to the top of the list of things for which she might hurt somebody. She amazes me, really. When I was thirteen, my favorite meal most definitely was not grilled marinated salmon with broccoli and a twice-baked potato. I wouldn't have sat on a plate of that, much less eaten it.

No, our Daughter is a great eater. It's the boys that bother me.

For starters, the Italian doesn't like pasta. That's wrong in so many ways, I have trouble processing it. I find myself time and time again standing in the kitchen staring dumbstruck at him when he says he doesn't like pasta. How is that possible?

He likes macaroni and cheese, right? Right.

Macaroni is pasta, right? Right.

But if you take the cheese off the macaroni and give him a bowl of it, he won't eat it because now it's just pasta and he doesn't like pasta!

And if that weren't bad enough, he also doesn't like hamburgers or hot dogs. Not only is he refusing to live up to an ethnic stereotype by not eating pasta, he's refusing to live up to the most basic requirements of an American child by not eating hamburgers and hot dogs. Even if he disliked only one of those, I could let it slide. But both? Patently un-American.

But as difficult as he is, he pales in comparison to the German.

It's much easier for me to offer a list of the foods the German does eat than to attempt summarizing what he won't. Quite simply, he eats bread, cheese, bread with cheese, macaroni and cheese, and plain pasta. It's a miracle the boy has had a bowel movement at all in the past five years. On the odd occasion we are able to blackmail him into eating a kernel of corn or a wedge of apple, his intestines must go into shock.

For a while, taking our family out for a meal was an experiment in pissing away money. As my Lovely Wife put it: "I don't want to go to a restaurant just to order them each a seven-dollar bowl of 'I'm still hungry.'"

These are the same children who, when they are in their twenties, will discover how good food with flavor can be. They will want to bring us to their favorite restaurants, or cook their new favorite meals for us, and behave as though they are introducing us to some previously undiscovered culinary world.

That's when I'll tell them I don't like whatever it is they want me to try, and I'll order a basket of chicken fingers with fries off the kids' menu.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler