Stop With All The Squeezing Already...

Is it just me or is it really odd how we pick out the type of fruit we intend to purchase and eventually eat? What other foods do we pick-up, touch, bump, rub and then put back if it does not meet our needs.

If you think about it, in many religions we don’t even let people who are getting married get as friendly as people do with the fruit they are thinking about buying.

Worse, when the fruit does not meet the requirements of the shopper, we don’t mandate that this fruit be purchased. We simply allow the individual to put the fruit back on top of the pile and walk away without thought or regard for the next person who actually buys the discarded item.

People handle products all day long, but those products come in a wrapper. Like gum. Can you imagine buying a piece of gum, which has been eaten and deemed unworthy for purchase and discarded for someone else? Or bread, butter, ice cream, ranch dressing. We don’t let people double dip at parties, but eating fruit from the store is fine. Grapes, strawberries, blueberries, they are all fair game.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not pointing the finger at anyone. I am no angel when I'm buying fruit. In fact, I'm the worst. Before I leave that isle, I almost feel ashamed for not marrying the apples I fondled. I love crisp apples, but can’t stand it if they are soggy, so I will test 20 or more before I find the perfect one.

The anonymity of the fruit buying experience is the key to our bad behavior. We do lots of things alone, that we would never share and, worse yet, never admit if we were in a group. We all know that if the person who had to buy the apple you were testing for firmness was standing in back of you, watching you, you would be less likely to grope, squash or taste it before passing it to him to take it home and make it into fruit salad.

So, is it just me?

If you dare...

My dad loves to tell a story about me and my breakfast choices. He will say, in a very entertaining fashion, “Matt used to love to eat pancake sandwiches, then we send him off to Micronesia and he comes back and all he’ll eat is a salad. A SALAD! No one respects a salad eater,” he bellows at the top of his lungs, as the confused waitress sends me a shameful glace, secretly acknowledging that my father is right and I should scrap the salad and make my dad proud.

As a side note, I think he stole the disrespect for salad eaters from Seinfeld, but I digress.

And while my dad is correct, I used to love to eat pancake sandwiches (two eggs over easy for the eyes; bacon for the mouth, hash browns for the nose, all stuffed on three huge pancakes, for the face), I don’t always get a salad. Sometimes it is a bowl of peaches, which makes him even more perplexed.

By the way, if you think I can tell a good story, you should listen to my dad. The apple, as they say, does not fall far from the tree. In fact, it is as if someone planted the apple in my brain. We are that closely related.

I love to sit next to him and hear him tell me stories. It is quite possibly the most entertaining thing I ever get to do. He, like me, never lets the facts or what really happened, get in the way of a good story. Which is essential to a good story.

However, this post is not about stories, but it is about things we ate when we were young, but somehow find the ability to refrain from currently. Somewhere in our make-up, we see the need to evolve, to eat something that is less likely to kill us and more likely to prolong our lives.

In that regard, my dad is correct. I am much more likely to eat a salad than a 3,500 calorie laden pancake sandwich, which may or may not be the second most delicious thing I have ever eaten.

The most delicious thing, and this is where it gets interesting, is listed below. My mother, being a saint, and putting up with three boys all growing up together, used to make Raisin Bars for us each Sunday night. We loved these bars and ate them by the pan, not the slice. She recently found the recipe, which she may have simply been hiding to benefit our health, and sent it to me.

Being a rigid and somewhat demented individual who may or may not have a slight inability to not engage in excess, I have not baked these yet. I’m sure we could all imagine what would happen if I did. And we should all agree that it would not, in every aspect of the word, be pretty.

But, you; you on the other hand, you have self control. You can look at a pan full of delicious and gooey deliciousness (yes that second deliciousness was on purpose) and partake without your spouse catching you excessively eating the entire pan and then licking the frosting off of it for good measure.

You are different. You, I trust. So, while I am doing yoga, please, make the recipe below and let me know how much you LOVE it. Somehow, knowing that you ate it, makes me feel like I ate it.

See, I told you I had a problem with excess.

RAISIN BARS
2 CUPS RAISINS
2 CUPS WATER
¾ C. SHORTENING
1 CUP SUGAR
1 CUP BROWN SUGAR
2 EGGS, BEATEN
½ t. SALT
1 t. SODA
1 t. BAKING POWDER
1 T. VANILLA
4 CUPS FLOUR

BOIL RAISINS AND WATER UNTIL 1 CUP LIQUID REMAINS.WHILE HOT ADD SHORTENING. SET ASIDE COMBINE SUGAR, EGGS AND VANILLA.SIFT DRY INGRED. ADD LIQUID AND DRY ALTERNATELY. GREASE COOKIE SHEET. SPREAD OUT ON LARGE COOKIE SHEET. BAKE 20-25 MIN. AT 375 DEGREES.COOL SLIGHTLY. WHILE WARM SPREAD WITH ICING AND CUT.

ICING
¼ CUP MARGARINE
1/3 CUP EVAPORATED MILK
1 t. VANILLA
2 CUPS POWDERED SUGAR.

MIX TOGETHER AND FROST RAISIN BARS.

If I were divorcing Madonna…

I usually do not care about divorcing celebrities, but I had to laugh out loud when I read a list of demands that Madonna had her people send over to Guy Ritchie, her soon to be ex-husband, in preparation for a visit with his two boys.

The following is a partial list of the 15 or so things that the pop diva mandated during their visit to spend time with their father:

· Under no circumstances should they read newspapers, magazines or watch TV or DVDs.

· They must adhere to a macrobiotic, vegetarian organic diet with no processed or refined foods.

· They should wear the clothes that Madonna sent with them on the flight and at no times should anything be purchased for them that is not 100 percent man-made by Burmese Monks.

· At bedtime, Guy should read the children the English Rose books Madonna wrote and nothing else that is not written by her.

· The boys are not to spend large amounts of time with Guy’s parents.

· Their hands should be regularly cleaned with disinfectant spray at all times.

While I am not a fan of Guy’s, I do know what I would do if I received a list like the following:

The first thing on my list would be a visit to the video store, where I would let my children pick out as many DVDs as they desired. Then, I would rush right over to a pizza restaurant and we would stuff ourselves until me, or one of the boys threw up. Then, before I did anything else, I would take them to a toy store and let them pick out anything and everything they wanted, including a number of gifts for my parents, which would be the next stop on our agenda.

After spending copious amounts of time with my parents, we would go home, lock ourselves in our home and watch TV and play video games for 24 hours, without taking one break to stop and wash their hands. Then, I would read them literally thousands and thousands of books, ensuring that not one of them was written by that pop princess.

After feasting on 24 hours of TV, I would take them out to the country and we would play soccer, rugby, golf and Frisbee until they were exhausted at which point we would head back to my parent’s house for some pie with whipped cream.

Before I returned the children to Madonna, I would take thousands of snap shots of my boys and their smiling faces and compile them all in a photo album for her to peruse. I would also make an additional album for her people who sent me the list, because I would hate for them to feel left out in any manner.

Then, without a prenup in place (because Madonna did not do a prenup with Guy) I would take half of her fortune or somewhere between $250 and $275 million and spend the rest of my life raising my kids how I wanted to raise them.

But that’s just me.

Only you can prevent social indignity...

Lately, as I am out to dinner or at other social events, I have been noticing a growing number of etiquette offenses that are overtly disrespectful to others.

Being the kind and compassionate person that I am, I have decided to bare the burden of eliminating these gaffes from our social landscape. And while you may mock my pain, I remind you, sharply, that without social graces, we will eventually lose our souls (OK, not our souls, but maybe we will not dress as nice).

Today, without fear of consequence or retribution, I simply ask why people think it is proper to sit in front of their guests or dates and text others while they are in the middle of a conversation?

Is it not obvious that this course of action is completely offensive? Can’t these texting offenders see that this individual who is a mere eight feet from their face is giving them their full time and attention?

Don’t get me wrong, I am an avid texter. I know the thrill of receiving a text and the excitement of responding. But this has gone too far. It has become an epidemic. How can we as a people sit back and enjoy our texting, when the person in front of us is sitting there, staring into space.

In all actuality, texting someone who is not with you is a ruse. This individual does not care about you at all. They did not drive across town to be with you. No sir. They are lazily sitting in their office or at home, texting you, and dare I say hundreds of others, looking for something to release the boredom from their uninspiring lives.

In proper context, the person in front of you is the person who truly cares about you. They are committed; they don’t have anywhere else to go. They care about you.

However, not one to be a scrooge in these types of instances I have created ten loopholes, where if these circumstances arise, you may feel free to engage in as much texting discourse as needed.

But remember, with knowledge comes power. Do NOT try to fake any of the following occurrences to satisfy your texting fix, as it will only come back to haunt you when you are discovered to have been unfaithful to your guest:

1. Your house is on fire. Note: This can not be a kitchen fire or a grease fire. Your entire house has to be engulfed in a full five-alarm fire. People must be evacuated and your kids must be in the process of being accounted for.

2. Your car has been repossessed, and you are currently up on all of your payments. If you are not up on all the payments, sit and suffer in a texting silence.

3. Your mother, who is over the age of 60, has just been told that she is pregnant. Your father was not involved.

4. You won the lottery or hit a hard eight hoppin’ playing craps in any Las Vegas casino.

5. You have to get an arm or leg amputated tomorrow. If this procedure will occur in a week or later, please text about it after your acquaintance has returned to his/her home.

6. Your kid or kids have just been sent to jail.

7. You just saw a naked and somewhat questionable photo of yourself in Playboy, which looks like it was taken while you were trying on new clothes at the Gap or Banana Republic. If the photo was taken while you were changing at Old Navy, then you lose all opportunity to text as you have to expect that this will occur in that store.

8. The University of Utah goes undefeated for the entire season and ends up in the BCS championship game.

9. Whenever Justin Brown is in town.

10. You see the perfect new suit coat on sale.

If your situation does not fall into one of these categories, you must not text. If you refuse to obey these rules, you are in grave danger of seeing your phone or texting device thrown out the window of a fast moving car; tossed in the garbage at a nice restaurant or dropped in the pool, ocean or any body of water.

Good night and may tomorrow bring about a new level of social awareness in you and throughout your family.

Class of 91...

This is the newest addition to my wardrobe. I did not even know that I could buy something like this, and now I am the proud owner of the coolest shirt in Las Vegas. Which reminds me that I used to beg my mom to buy me at least five new shirts every year before school started so that I would not have to repeat any during the week. Once I had five, I would always try to get eight of nine, but that rarely happened.

By the way, I am not counting the polo shirts that she made me wear in the five, as they were so not cool at the time, but she thought they made me look distinguished.

I posted the link below, in case anyone else wants to look as cool as me and buy themselves or thier loved ones a piece of Cyprus High School.

http://www.alumniclass.com/cyprushighut/index.php