Head in the Sand ... and other unpopular positions

by Linda M Au

  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 …

  The Good, the Bad, and the Plugly

  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:

  a) There are ten pairs in the package. Why would there be ten pairs if they were reusable? I’m trying not to think too hard about the alternative answers to this question. (Oh, no she di’int.)

  b) I can’t stop myself from wondering what kind of ear gunk gets on the little green foamy things—gunk I won’t see because, well, they’re foamy and they’re … green.

  I’m waiting for the day when this is the biggest problem in my day. Until then, it’s back to my Internet research on the least painful forms of suicide. Just in case.

  What Happened in Vegas: A Diary: Part Three

  October 15, 2000

  Night of the High Rollers, or Why I Won’t Be Changing My Name to Bugsy Siegel Any Time Soon

  Most of you have probably never been to Vegas (and certainly not to visit your parents), and therefore wouldn’t realize that the “old” Las Vegas is really downtown Las Vegas, with Main Street as its, well, main street. The currently famous Vegas Strip is a several-mile long stretch of roadway called Las Vegas Boulevard. Up until last night we’d been concentrating most of our sightseeing to the Strip. Last night my folks took us all downtown to Fremont Street to see the shops and to view the Fremont Street Experience.

  Fremont Street used to be a regular street populated with cars, but a few years ago they closed it off, paved it over with new cement, set up outside kiosks, and kept up the “traditional” casinos there (inc
luding Vegas Vic and Sassy Sally, that neon cowboy guy and gal seen in the movies). They also hoisted a huge canopy over the street—not a typical cloth canopy, but one comprised of over two million light bulbs. These bulbs are computer-programmed to change color and give off different synchronized light shows (complete with music) every hour.

  It’s one of the few situations where casinos voluntarily turn off the lights on their marquees, and that in itself is saying something!

  We got some splendid pictures last night, including a doozy that I can’t wait to post on my Web site. There were three women walking around as living promotions for some “girlie” show, dressing in neon-colored skin-tight leather-like body suits, black bobbed-haircut wigs, and Matrix-like sunglasses. I think they were each about eight feet tall (their legs came up to my chin) and wore size 2 bodysuits. (Then again, who would make those bodysuits in size 18W anyway? That would have to be against the law, wouldn’t it?)

  We bought a few souvenirs. (Doesn’t everyone need personalized Las Vegas condoms with a pair of dice on the package? There are way too many jokes here about taking chances and gambling, but I’m too genteel to mention any of them. Except, I kind of just did.) My folks took Gracie back to their place and left Wayne and me to break the bank at a casino of our choosing. It was about nine-thirty p.m.

  We had been mentally budgeting an “entertainment” amount of a certain dollar figure, assuming that we’d still be spending far less than most folks spend on vacations, and far less than even the price of going to the movies. The machines are fun, the “ping!” is pleasant, and frankly, the people-watching is better than anywhere in the world.

  We ended up at a downtown casino called Fitzgerald’s. There is a huge 3-D leprechaun on the side of the building, tipping his hat mechanically twenty-four hours a day and pointing toward a gaudily lit pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It beckons you in. It entices you to get that pot of shiny gold.

  However …

  What they don’t tell you is the obvious fact: The pot of gold is ON the building and not actually IN the slot machines.

  Every casino has its own buffet, café, or restaurant—all designed with one goal in mind: to keep you from leaving. If you’re hungry, they want you to eat there, at any loss to them financially, as long as you don’t leave their doors to eat and probably never come back because you meandered into a different casino instead.

  Fitzgerald’s has an added distinction: It boasts its own McDonald’s, complete with glitzy lights, of course. (Why there is an obviously Scottish restaurant like McDonald’s in an Irish casino is beyond me.)

  Wayne and I played nickel poker for a long time, sitting adjacent to the hourly Tribute to Elvis singer who’d serenade us all loudly with his renditions of “Love Me Tender,” “Viva Las Vegas,” and other things he assured us were Elvis songs. He looked the part. He sounded the part. But I could have done without the continuous gush of “This is only a tribute to ‘The Kaannng’ … No one can really imitate ‘The Kaannng’ … ‘The Kaannng’ is my idol and I don’t pretend to be nearly as good as he was… .” And I think I also heard him mutter, “But do I have to wear the polyester jumpsuit with the fake love handles sewn in?”

  More later in another section… . My dad is calling us to a dinner of grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. You can grill out all winter in Vegas.

  Dad, thank you … thankyouverymuch!

  Continued …

  Pennies in the Couch

  Did you ever have one of those days where you spend inordinate amounts of time trying to save money? Clipping coupons, flipping through sale flyers, driving the extra ten miles to a better thrift store? Well, I seem to be having one of those lifetimes.

  I freely admit that I brought this on myself. I’m a self-diagnosed underachieving genius. Actually, the genius part is self-diagnosed; the underachieving part is well-documented with empirical data. I came to grips with this tendency one day while I was still a single mom when I asked one of my sons to help me find some penny wrappers I’d stashed somewhere so we could wrap the stray pennies hidden around the house.

  I tried to make the penny-hunt a game for my youngest daughter.

  “Let’s see who can find the most coins!” I said, thinking myself very clever until she scampered from her bedroom with her entire set of pogs, thinking they were coins.

  My plan was to walk to the convenience store and annoy the clerk by paying for a jar of overpriced spaghetti sauce with rolls of pennies. I was at the mercy of the corner store that day because the car was in the shop with an expensive, debilitating illness—curable, but tragically, not until payday.

  We didn’t find enough change in the couch cushions—or the candy dish, or the junk drawer in the kitchen, or the pockets of my jeans, or the kids’ jeans, or even in all the piggy banks in the house combined. And we never found the penny wrappers.

  I thought, How did I get into this predicament? I’m a bright girl—but here I am, typesetting business cards for a living and using paper napkins for the next thirty-six hours because we just ran out of toilet paper.

  In dire circumstances, I often want to leap immediately to the too-easy answer: “I must have done something wrong and God is punishing me.” My mama taught me well, though, because when other folks are in dire circumstances, I never think ill of them. Instead, I weep with them, watch their faith grow and flourish under adversity, and admire them from afar. But when I’m the one in a bad way, I’m positive it’s because I flubbed up big-time. This day was no exception.

  As I ran down the steps, holding aloft the grimy quarter I’d found wedged in a corner of my room between the baseboard and the carpet, I wondered what my mother would say if she saw me like this. I had never wanted for anything as a child, and my parents were doing twice as well in their retirement as I was doing now in the prime of my scatter-brained life. Oh sure, I could blame my sorry financial state on the modest full-time job I was forced to hold after the unforeseen divorce, or on the distraction that comes with being back on the chopping block again and dating for the first time since the Reagan administration. There were plenty of places to shift the blame—and all my supportive friends would pat me on the back for my efforts as a single mom. I could easily dodge this shameful bullet.

  Yet, as I searched the pantry for a stray can of decent vegetables I might have overlooked, and as I contemplated using the Hamburger Helper as a side dish without putting meat in it (which works, by the way), I decided to take the time to pray a little. God’s always had interesting ways of getting my attention away from the mundane day-to-day stuff and back to Him where it belongs. He knows even better than I that self-inflicted poverty will get me every time. Prayer born of poverty refocuses one’s perspective.

  I stopped measuring the worth of my life by money that day. Good thing, too, since I didn’t have any. I started measuring it by relationships—with God first, then with family, then with others. Was I communicating with God? Was I teaching my kids by word and example? Was I faithful in the little things? (Answer key available upon request.) There was plenty lacking in my life that needed even more attention than the pantry or the car or learning to decipher a bus schedule again.

  I said grace that evening at a dinner of cheap chicken salad sandwiches, Zesty Italian Three-Cheese Hamburger Helper minus the hamburger, and half a bag of miraculously un-freezer-burned frozen corn heated and slathered with cheap margarine and salt. The kids were happy—these were some of their favorites, and to them this was better than the fancier roast beef and vegetable dinner I would rather have served them.

  Seeing the simple smiles on their unknowing faces, it was easy to be thankful for God’s many blessings— again.

  Say Ahhh!

  I obsessively checked my e-mail for the umpteenth time. Keeping in contact with friends and family across the globe was a cinch with e-mail. I had become the E-Mail Queen. Nothing could distract me now.

  My toddler came to my desk and began to play doctor with me using her
play-doctor kit. She tested me for all sorts of disorders, the names of which I didn’t recognize as they tumbled out of her preschool mouth. She grabbed a fat pink thermometer and poked around inside my ear as I typed. When she hit a sensitive spot, I jerked my head away from her and asked, “Addie, what are you doing?”

  She blinked at me, looked into my ear, shook her head, and said, “Mommy, I’m going to have to take your brain out now.”

  I balked, then chuckled and went back to my online mission field. She climbed onto the footrest of my chair and took my face in her hands.

  It might have become a poignant mother-daughter moment, if only she hadn’t whipped my head to one side and stared into my eardrum again, hoping to find something—anything!

  She planted herself between me and my keyboard. I heard “You’ve got mail!” wafting from the computer speakers, but was powerless. I sighed, trying to ignore the urgent sounds of the computer.

  I spoke to her as she continued her poking and peering. “You have to take my brain out? Why?”

  She rolled her big blue toddler eyes at me. “Because you’re done with it.”

  Was it that obvious?

  I’m Hoping You’ll See Less of Me

  Diet Diary: I’m down eight pounds so far, having gone up two pounds over the holiday season for reasons I can only blame on everyone around me:

  • The neighbor brought over homemade cookies.

  • My mother gave me a non-refundable gift certificate to a Chinese buffet.

  • There was a one-pound chocolate bar in my stocking. At least I think it was my stocking.

  • That eggnog poured itself down my throat when I wasn’t looking.

  And the list of credible excuses goes on.

  I will allow myself one real excuse: It is impossible for the woman of the house to go on a diet unless she takes everyone else down with her. And I doubt anyone in my house is willing to take a bullet (or a celery stalk) for me. This time I’m on my own … but I still have to cook for everyone else. And, in my case, “everyone else” includes one teenager on a sugar-free diet, another teenager on a sugar-free low-carb diet, yet another who comes into the house just long enough to drink a gallon of milk in one gulp, and a man who eats anything I put in front of him as long as he doesn’t have to cook it or clean up after it … or even put his own one lousy plate in the dishwasher after he’s done inhaling the food like a shop-vac. But I digress.