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You Should Go to Church
I have pretty much done this anyway, but I should make a more formal proclamation, I suppose, that TGIF encompasses weekends as well as Fridays or simply Friday nights. In fact, I have been fairly shameless about using this space at times for pretty much anything I have felt the need to write about, waiting for someone to tell me I can’t do that. No one has yet said exactly that; but nonetheless I feel I should remind myself at regular intervals that readers might well look to this page for suggestions as to how they might spend their time and money on weekends or, oh yes, Fridays. Here are some:
Friday nights, party like it’s 1999. That may mean partying, I guess, like you’re 11 years younger. In my case that would make me 46 and already beginning to doze by 10 p.m., so, really, don’t ask me. It occurs to me that was my response nine years ago, when asked if I’d like to do this column. I didn’t say so, but I remember thinking: What am I, Mr. Friday Night? If you need counseling on how best to party naked, drunk, stoned, and with pagan abandon far past the break of dawn, I’ll get back to you after my past-life regression session or asking someone better informed. I’m more the guy you would come to and ask, “What should I read over the weekend?” Sorry, it has come to that.
On Saturday, sleep late. Then mow the lawn or do your laundry or something before watching the game. Maybe you’ve got to go to your kid’s soccer thing or ballet recital, whatever. Do it. I had to do that stuff (no ballet, thank God), and today I have a blossoming, nurturing relationship with my grown son who thinks I’m a dangerous idiot. Saturday night, take a bath. For the love of God.
On Sundays, do, for example, what I did last Sunday. Upon waking in my son’s apartment on a weekend sleepover, I decided to get the lad and his friend Curtis up at 8 a.m. No reason. It’s just that I was awake, and I’m old and they’re not. I remember being in my 20s and my father-in-law waking me ungodly early for no apparent reason other than, “The day is half shot! Get up, I’ve a little job for you which I’m going to think of in a few minutes.” It could be 6 a.m. The idea, I learned, was to instill in the young — who are still physically capable of enjoying a full night’s sleep to restore the body and mind — the carved-in-granite, existential reality that sleeping past dawn is moral degeneracy. The earlier you awaken, it follows, the more righteous before the God of Abraham will you stand on the day of judgment.
On Sundays you should probably go to church. I don’t, but that’s me, and I’ll undoubtedly pay for it along with everything else after a lingering, agonizing illness and slow death. After church, or if you don’t go, make French toast like I tried to do Sunday until I was thwarted by my evil offspring, who constantly conspires against me.
You see, I thought I’d snap the kids out of their satanic thoughts of sleeping more than six hours, and indeed their souls were in need of some first aid as the neighbors (next door in the Mayflower Villa Apartments) were making love noisily until three. I know. I stood on the balcony, trying to read Pilgrim’s Progress, despite the girl’s moaning (and the guy’s, “Pipe down!” every few minutes) and making sure the sliding French door was shut against this audio barrage of licentiousness. I knew the boys were feigning sleep, but oh, yes, indeed, I knew, all right, they were also straining to hear every godless cry of pleasure issuing from the undoubtedly full, rubrous, and succulent lips of the young lady next door. My heart went out to the fellows, who must at that very moment, be struggling manfully against the temptation of sullied thoughts much as I did with near success for hours between four and seven that morning.
So, French toast it was to be! I lined up ingredients: whole wheat bread, (a healthy alternative to the more palatable white bread), butter, eggs, milk, “Lite” maple syrup (half the calories of the less desirable but actually tasty, sweeter conventional syrup and with maybe a slight bitter aftertaste); and the single-portion remains of some rather expensive (price tag still on label) blueberry syrup for myself. I sprayed the pan with Pam, a nonfat, food-like polymer petroleum by-product, I believe, and turned on the burner. This is where problems began.
The range in that apartment will tick like an anarchist’s bomb once I rotate the dial even slightly. No matter at what angle I rest the control knob, it will continue to tick alarmingly, which annoys my son no end. I have seen that the stove responds this way only to me; if anyone else cooks, this magically ceases to be a problem. I could see that our night’s wrestling with sin had invited some dark forces into the apartment. I left the burner on high, a position where the thing would no longer tick maddeningly, resolving to keep a close eye on the batter-soaked bread. One side a golden brown, then...flip...and a blaring of some electronic saxophone from hell punctured our ears, rattling the glass on the French doors and windows. Curtis exclaimed (silently that is, you couldn’t hear him over the deafening smoke alarm tone) and covered his ears. “Dad!” my son shouted, “Turn it off! Jeez.”
Instead of immediately turning the burner off or even down, I thought to grab a dish towel from the rack and began fanning the air in front of the alarm sensor, batting smoke and heat away from the thing to silence it. It didn’t silence anything. There was a brief struggle for the towel with, I think, my son. By that time it was growing difficult to see. The towel left my grasp and sailed through the air onto the stovetop where it rapidly caught fire. By this time, the slices of French toast were turning to carbon. Both my son and I raced for the burner knob simultaneously and head-butted each other in front of the refrigerator at enough velocity so that we stood there and blinked at each other stupidly for the better part of a minute. Curtis stepped around us, saying, “Excuse me,” and turned off the burner, flung the towel into the sink and turned on the cold water. My son walked to the French doors and opened them, all the while glaring at me with fury.
I stood erect and with considerable dignity, if I might say so, and walked slowly back to my bedroom, pausing to carry my copy of John Bunyan with me back to bed. “Fine,” I tossed over my shoulder, “No French toast! Excuse the heck out of me!” The day did improve.
And so, following these cues, one should reasonably expect a full and gratifying weekend. One may also learn a couple of safety tips (oh, also, Pam seems to be quite as flammable as napalm; you might want to watch for that) and leave the cooking to say, women or some other minority with nothing better to think about. Have a prosperous workweek.
Here's something you might be interested in.
You Should Go to Church
You Should Go to Church
I have pretty much done this anyway, but I should make a more formal proclamation, I suppose, that TGIF encompasses weekends as well as Fridays or simply Friday nights. In fact, I have been fairly shameless about using this space at times for pretty much anything I have felt the need to write about, waiting for someone to tell me I can’t do that. No one has yet said exactly that; but nonetheless I feel I should remind myself at regular intervals that readers might well look to this page for suggestions as to how they might spend their time and money on weekends or, oh yes, Fridays. Here are some:
Friday nights, party like it’s 1999. That may mean partying, I guess, like you’re 11 years younger. In my case that would make me 46 and already beginning to doze by 10 p.m., so, really, don’t ask me. It occurs to me that was my response nine years ago, when asked if I’d like to do this column. I didn’t say so, but I remember thinking: What am I, Mr. Friday Night? If you need counseling on how best to party naked, drunk, stoned, and with pagan abandon far past the break of dawn, I’ll get back to you after my past-life regression session or asking someone better informed. I’m more the guy you would come to and ask, “What should I read over the weekend?” Sorry, it has come to that.
On Saturday, sleep late. Then mow the lawn or do your laundry or something before watching the game. Maybe you’ve got to go to your kid’s soccer thing or ballet recital, whatever. Do it. I had to do that stuff (no ballet, thank God), and today I have a blossoming, nurturing relationship with my grown son who thinks I’m a dangerous idiot. Saturday night, take a bath. For the love of God.
On Sundays, do, for example, what I did last Sunday. Upon waking in my son’s apartment on a weekend sleepover, I decided to get the lad and his friend Curtis up at 8 a.m. No reason. It’s just that I was awake, and I’m old and they’re not. I remember being in my 20s and my father-in-law waking me ungodly early for no apparent reason other than, “The day is half shot! Get up, I’ve a little job for you which I’m going to think of in a few minutes.” It could be 6 a.m. The idea, I learned, was to instill in the young — who are still physically capable of enjoying a full night’s sleep to restore the body and mind — the carved-in-granite, existential reality that sleeping past dawn is moral degeneracy. The earlier you awaken, it follows, the more righteous before the God of Abraham will you stand on the day of judgment.
On Sundays you should probably go to church. I don’t, but that’s me, and I’ll undoubtedly pay for it along with everything else after a lingering, agonizing illness and slow death. After church, or if you don’t go, make French toast like I tried to do Sunday until I was thwarted by my evil offspring, who constantly conspires against me.
You see, I thought I’d snap the kids out of their satanic thoughts of sleeping more than six hours, and indeed their souls were in need of some first aid as the neighbors (next door in the Mayflower Villa Apartments) were making love noisily until three. I know. I stood on the balcony, trying to read Pilgrim’s Progress, despite the girl’s moaning (and the guy’s, “Pipe down!” every few minutes) and making sure the sliding French door was shut against this audio barrage of licentiousness. I knew the boys were feigning sleep, but oh, yes, indeed, I knew, all right, they were also straining to hear every godless cry of pleasure issuing from the undoubtedly full, rubrous, and succulent lips of the young lady next door. My heart went out to the fellows, who must at that very moment, be struggling manfully against the temptation of sullied thoughts much as I did with near success for hours between four and seven that morning.
So, French toast it was to be! I lined up ingredients: whole wheat bread, (a healthy alternative to the more palatable white bread), butter, eggs, milk, “Lite” maple syrup (half the calories of the less desirable but actually tasty, sweeter conventional syrup and with maybe a slight bitter aftertaste); and the single-portion remains of some rather expensive (price tag still on label) blueberry syrup for myself. I sprayed the pan with Pam, a nonfat, food-like polymer petroleum by-product, I believe, and turned on the burner. This is where problems began.
The range in that apartment will tick like an anarchist’s bomb once I rotate the dial even slightly. No matter at what angle I rest the control knob, it will continue to tick alarmingly, which annoys my son no end. I have seen that the stove responds this way only to me; if anyone else cooks, this magically ceases to be a problem. I could see that our night’s wrestling with sin had invited some dark forces into the apartment. I left the burner on high, a position where the thing would no longer tick maddeningly, resolving to keep a close eye on the batter-soaked bread. One side a golden brown, then...flip...and a blaring of some electronic saxophone from hell punctured our ears, rattling the glass on the French doors and windows. Curtis exclaimed (silently that is, you couldn’t hear him over the deafening smoke alarm tone) and covered his ears. “Dad!” my son shouted, “Turn it off! Jeez.”
Instead of immediately turning the burner off or even down, I thought to grab a dish towel from the rack and began fanning the air in front of the alarm sensor, batting smoke and heat away from the thing to silence it. It didn’t silence anything. There was a brief struggle for the towel with, I think, my son. By that time it was growing difficult to see. The towel left my grasp and sailed through the air onto the stovetop where it rapidly caught fire. By this time, the slices of French toast were turning to carbon. Both my son and I raced for the burner knob simultaneously and head-butted each other in front of the refrigerator at enough velocity so that we stood there and blinked at each other stupidly for the better part of a minute. Curtis stepped around us, saying, “Excuse me,” and turned off the burner, flung the towel into the sink and turned on the cold water. My son walked to the French doors and opened them, all the while glaring at me with fury.
I stood erect and with considerable dignity, if I might say so, and walked slowly back to my bedroom, pausing to carry my copy of John Bunyan with me back to bed. “Fine,” I tossed over my shoulder, “No French toast! Excuse the heck out of me!” The day did improve.
And so, following these cues, one should reasonably expect a full and gratifying weekend. One may also learn a couple of safety tips (oh, also, Pam seems to be quite as flammable as napalm; you might want to watch for that) and leave the cooking to say, women or some other minority with nothing better to think about. Have a prosperous workweek.
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