Valentine’s Day is coming up. I must buy chocolate — which I don’t eat unless it’s baking chocolate — and then take my wife, Anitra, to dinner. I also have to spring for a fine dining experience for the cat, who will have been seven years adopted on that day. He’ll get his favorite: minced variety meats.
My favorite recipe for baking chocolate: Make gravy. While it’s still hot in the pan, stir in baking chocolate. Bingo! Some kind of exotic, chocolate gravy. Make up a story about how you found the recipe during your last trip to [insert name of place you’ve never been to here].
Also coming up is the day I plan to file my taxes. It doesn’t have to be this week, but it might as well be. I’ve got a whopping three-figure tax refund coming. I remember the wait for my refund last year was five months, allegedly due to COVID-19. The USPS said that all their mail carriers were either sick or waiting for test results to come back. Now they all have their handy federal-issue rapid COVID-19 testing kits, but somehow I suspect I’ll be waiting five months again.
I just learned that Google text correction doesn’t know what “variety meats” are. I’m having things like this happen more and more often, each day I age. Hint to Google: that’s organ meats and a nice way to not have to say “offal.” Oh, great, now I’m craving liver.
I also found out a day or two ago that I’m just about the only staff member here who is old enough to remember that the end slices of a package of Wonder Bread have ever been called the “heels of the loaf.”
We ate so much Wonder Bread in my house when I was 8 years old that we bought it in bulk during sales and froze the loaves we wouldn’t eat right away. We ate slices of Wonder Bread rolled in balls and fried in lard. WE knew it was best for us. It “helps build strong bodies 12 ways,” after all.
I didn’t know there was any other flavor of sliced bread other than “white” until I started college. I had heard of rye bread, but thought what it meant was rye-crisp crackers. I still don’t believe whole wheat bread is a thing. It’s just caramel-colored white bread.
I liked to make mayonnaise sandwiches using the heels of Wonder Bread.
When I was growing up I also thought an omelet was strictly an item of French cuisine and therefore shouldn’t concern me. My reasoning was that I don’t eat snails, so I should avoid French eggs. French fries, obviously, are OK, because everyone knows they aren’t really French; they’re Belgian. Also, mayonnaise is not French.
I now eat omelets all the time. I have learned I can avoid snails without avoiding omelets and benefit thereby.
Speaking of mayonnaise, a New York Post headline this morning read, “Iowa man sentenced to life in prison after killing his friend in a fight over mayonnaise.” The New York Post is not on my list of great newspapers to read regularly. This story illustrates the problem. The person charged with murdering his “friend” is said to have first put mayonnaise on his friend’s food, causing his friend to get angry and resulting in a fight, which got the murderer’s “friend” killed by being run over by the murderer’s pick-up truck and then run over again, and then again.
Why did the murderer initially put the mayonnaise on his “friend’s” food? Shouldn’t the reporter have at least asked? Isn’t that what we all want to know? All I expect is for the reporter to reach out to the jailed murderer and say he would not respond to the reporter’s calls. Just put in something to show an effort was made.
I know a lot of people, especially Europeans, put mayonnaise on their French fries. Did the argument start there? “Come on, I’ll show you. It’s not that bad. Here, I’ll put some on your fries right now.”
“You have assaulted me, Sir! With a food frequently regarded as French, but which in reality is traceable to the Spanish. We must duel! What do you choose for weapons, ingrate?”
“Pick-up trucks.”
“I am not your friend anymore.”
“You have rejected my mayonnaise. You have never been my friend. Prepare to die.”
Dr. Wes is the Real Change Circulation Specialist, but, in addition to his skills with a spreadsheet, he writes this weekly column about whatever recent going-ons caught his attention. Dr. Wes has contributed to the paper since 1994. Curious about his process or have a response to one of his columns? Connect with him at [email protected].
Read more of the Feb. 9-15, 2022 issue.