Now that we’ve got that out of the way: I eat at Chick-Fil-A all the time. I love it. I especially love their trademark condiment/slice of heaven, “Polynesian Sauce.” Every single thing they serve there can be slathered with Polynesian Sauce and it will only taste better — the fries, the wraps, the salads, the paper liner on the tray.

And they know they’ve got a good thing going on there. You know they know. They must. What I’d like to know is: why are they stingy, old misers when it comes to giving it out?

While the ketchup, the mustard, and the mayonnaise are widely available, next to the napkins and the straws, you have to ask your cashier for Polynesian Sauce. They keep it in some mysterious nook under the counter, as if it’s produced by specially-trained artisans who are crouching behind the deep fat fryers carefully combining rare ingredients before lovingly placing their creation into those little packets and hermetically-sealing them one-by-one, and who knows how much longer these masters will be around, practicing their craft? And therefore this sauce must be hidden from the world and then rationed out shrewdly. Yes, when a customer asks for “some Polynesian sauce” — with a look on his face not unlike the look a jonesing crack addict gives his dealer — we must hand him but one packet!

That’s right! If you’re lucky they hand you two, but that’s still ludicrous! Crack dealer, Chick-Fil-A cashier, we both know the deal with Polynesian Sauce: 1) it is delicious and 2) my order entitles me to an unlimited quantity of it, free of charge. I ordered the number one and I would like to proceed to my table and drizzle everything with a drippy, gooey, 1/2″ thick layer of tangy gel that will saturate the bun of my sandwich so thoroughly that I will barely be able to pick it up without it sliding out of my hands which, incidentally, I will need 50 napkins to keep clean during the course of the meal.

I suppose I am only complaining because I will no longer just straight-up ask for more sauce.

This is because, as that description I just gave probably conveys, when someone is a fanatic about a particular type of sauce and they get a hold of a large amount of it, it turns their dining process into a borderline-disgusting spectacle. I can’t be that guy anymore. I mean, I most certainly still am that guy, but I don’t want the Chick-Fil-A person to know.

Also, the process of getting more P-sauce just never seemed to go smoothly. After I’d receive my meal and make an initial request for sauce, harried cashiers would often toss a packet on the counter in front of me, and then immediately scamper off to tend to the fries or whatever, meaning I’d have to flag down another employee to get some more. Then there are some Chick-Fil-As (usually the ones in or around college campuses, where the clientele will come in droves, devouring any food item they can get their hands on and making a huge mess in the process) that just refuse to give out more than one packet of sauce. Or, there were times when the person behind the register would ask me how many additional packets I wanted and I would say “three” and they would look at me, utterly shocked, and announce “Three!?!” so loud that everyone around could hear. The very last time I simply requested more sauce I had an inexplicable feeling that there was going to be a full-blown “incident.” Perhaps something like:

Cashier: “More Polynesian Sauce? Sure. How many packets? Three!?! Um…alright. [Under her breath:] What is he gonna do with that much sauce? [Talking to me again:] Oh, I don’t have that many up here. Hold on, I’ll have to ask my manager to get some from the back.” [Yelling over to her manager, who is busy at another register:] “Alice! Hey Alice! I need more Polynesian Sauce up here. I got a customer who wants four packets. It’s wiped my supply out.”

Manager: “Four!?! Who in the world uses four packets of sauce?”

Cashier (shrugging): “It’s what this guy wants.”

Manager: “Sigh. Well, sit tight a minute, I’ll have to go get the key to the sauce room from my office. [To the crowd behind me in line:] Sorry everyone, we’re going to have to cease transactions at both registers until we get this guy’s sauce needs straightened out.”

Crowd (somehow transformed into an angry mob with pitchforks and torches): “Kill the sauce-hog!”

So I’m done with it.

It’s enough to make me just quit cold-turkey (cold-chicken?) and stay away from that restaurant and its confounding condiment etiquette forever. There are reasons not to do that though. For one, even though she doesn’t like Polynesian Sauce, my wife’s affection for the food at Chick-Fil-A dwarfs my own. Also, seeing as how I am rarely at Chick-Fil-A without Steph, I’ve devised a way to get a little extra Poly-Juice, on the sneak. What I do is I frantically beg Steph to ask for sauce too. She doesn’t seem to understand why she has to do this, but she’ll usually humor me.

“Wait,” you are thinking “you just said Steph didn’t like Polynesian Sauce.”

My dear reader, Steph’s sauce is not for her at all, but also for me! I am certain to get at least two packets! See what I did there!?!

Just please don’t let them know what I am up to. These people clearly have some really weird hang-ups about this sauce.

“…and then once we got there I had to deal with my mother-in-law. She has never been anything but kind to me and I enjoy her company immensely. Who’s with me…?”

“A few weeks later, my wife drags me to this big-budget Hollywood tear-jerker. I swear, this thing was so cliche. I had already seen the story, like, 100 times before! Let me tell you…over the centuries, humankind has parsed the basic plotlines it will tolerate as entertainment down to no more than five. Therefore, once you’ve seen a handful of movies, every narrative you encounter thereafter should seem vaguely familiar to you. And any production that receives the backing necessary to make it to the big screen, involves one or two decent actors, and has passable set design and editing…well, it automatically deserves some amount of respect, doesn’t it?”

“So, by the end of this movie, my wife was crying yet I was unaffected. Her reaction, which was like that of many females in the theater, made perfect sense to me. You see, there are evolutionary factors at work that make her more emotionally-responsive and therefore more suited to be the main nurturing-figure in a family unit. Thus I respected her reaction and did my best to comfort her. You know what I’m-talkin’-about!”

“Have you ever noticed how cars work really well most of the time? And how making minor repairs to one is not that difficult?”

“So how many people of people of African-American descent do I have here tonight? Man, I bet your life is all like: go to work, do a job, earn an income, go home, possibly interact with friends or family, then engage in some sort of personal recreation. What I am trying to say is: deep down, I feel we are all quite similar, as people. Amiright…?”

“And what’s the deal with this airline food? The airlines have established a way of efficiently providing 500 people with hot meals that they would otherwise miss, were the plane they were riding through the stratosphere at 550 mph not populated with flight attendants and a kitchenette. That is pretty amazing if you ask me.”

2. Driving with an object on your vehicle that might obstruct your vision, in any direction, is highly illegal, unless the vehicle is a four-wheel-drive pick-up, and the object in question is a gun rack, hunting dog cage, fishing rods stored upright on the truck’s grill, or a gigantic CB antenna. Who are we to take away your fun?

3. While approaching a “stop” sign, the motorist should observe the cross street. If oncoming vehicles do not seem to be in the immediate vicinity, the motorist may proceed through without stopping.

4. At a “yield” sign, motorists should come to a complete stop and stay there for several seconds, regardless of possible approaching cars.

5. In a traffic jam or crowded parking lot, a motorist must do the Christian thing and let one car that needs to get in line go in front of them. This means exactly one car. That’s the system. We all let one car in and everyone gets merged in in an efficient and orderly manner. Jesus himself would only let one car in. Even He wanted to get home at some point.

6. The official gesture for allowing a car in before you is making eye contact with the other motorist and then motioning towards the area in front you with a small wave. If you are piloting a vehicle that has been let in, you are obligated to remake eye contact with the driver holding up progress for you (do this as you are taking the spot, or once you have taken it, in your rearview mirror) and wave back to them. If circumstances prevent you from waving safely while operating your vehicle, a passenger may do it for you. If no one in your car has waved back to the car behind you within 15 seconds of assuming the position in front of them, they are well within their rights to ram into you.

7. When on a remote two-lane road, a motorist should acknowledge every passing motorist, as well each person sitting on their porch or standing in their yard — regardless of whether one actually knows them or not — with what we’ll call the “casual wave.” A “casual wave” is executed by lifting either the index finger, the index and middle finger, or all four fingers from a hand on the steering wheel, while nodding your head slightly.

8. When starting onto a remote two-lane road behind the wheel of farm equipment or a log truck, wait until you can pull in front of a group of at least two cars that just can’t bring themselves to use that oncoming lane to pass, even when it is obviously clear and they’ve got the dotted line and everything.

9. Use of turn signals, while not illegal, is highly discouraged.

10. Once a stoplight has turned green the motorist closest to the intersection should take some time to ponder the meaning of their existence before moving their foot off of the brake and placing it on the accelerator and where on earth are you off to in such a hurry, anyway?

11. Cyclists are allowed the same use of the road as motor vehicles. Drivers wishing to pass a cyclists should take care to give them a full 2–4″ of clearance as they go whizzing by.

12. When using one car to tow another car of equal or possibly greater size over a portion of interstate, simply connect the first car’s back tow hooks to the second car’s front tow hooks with a single length of chain you bought at a hardware store and hit the road. Should be fine.

13. Regardless of the effect it has on one’s ability to operate their car, talking on one’s cellphone while driving is permissible, as is applying make-up, reading the newspaper, eating biscuits & gravy, etc.

14. Use of the car’s horn to do anything other than say “hi” to a friend or neighbor is an intentional display of rudeness and is punishable by death.

I don’t have much exciting to report. I live in Raleigh. Most days I just go to work and then come home. I write silly things like this. Sometimes I watch movies — stupid action flicks almost all of the time. Oh, I’ve spent so much time just playing the guitar that I now have arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome! I guess that’s what happens when you spend so much uninterrupted time playing the guitar.

One instrument I don’t play is the ukulele. My sister does, and I’d like to learn at some point, but no one’s ever given me one.

I don’t draw that much. I used to love to, but now it’s just frustrating because my skills haven’t improved since my first few art classes in college. If someone had encouraged me to pursue it more seriously I would have. Sometimes I think I really missed out there.

College, by the way, wasn’t the highlight of my life so far.

So, I didn’t marry you three years ago, but maybe I wish I had. Almost all of my friends are married. I have a few really good friends. I could stand a few more, but it’s harder to meet people on your own, don’t you think? I need some sort of cute counterpart that puts people at ease. Maybe if I got a dog? Right now, I don’t have one.

I haven’t traveled much. Doing it alone is daunting for me.

Money isn’t tight for me. Nothing much for me to put it towards. I do buy way more tools than I realistically need. I mean, way way more tools than I realistically need. Like say there were a guy who owned a house and had a few things to fix and tended to pick up two or three extraneous things whenever he went to the hardware store…I’m twice as bad as him.

I don’t own a house. I live in an apartment that is decorated in an “industrial” style. You know, big wooden wire spools as coffee tables, that sort of thing. Not much color or pattern in the place. And my dishes are always dirty.

I don’t drive a truck or anything cool like that. Just this ’88 Chevy Nova with a dented front fender, as I don’t know anyone whose father owns a body shop.

I don’t garden.

I have these certain thoughts and ideas and dreams that I can’t talk to anyone about. I’m almost embarrassed by how foolish they seem. Yet when I think about how I’m the only one who knows them, I get so worried. Those things are a part of who I am. If I forget them somewhere along the way, I don’t have anyone to remind me.

I didn’t marry you three years ago, and I don’t know what it’s like to look at someone and feel cared for and inspired, and to feel happy for at least a few minutes, every single day.

The last time he came to visit us as at our house was a little under a year ago. I had just raked and their was a large mound of leaves in the corner of our yard. Like any exuberant lad, he ran over and started playing in the pile. He would jump as high as he could, hurl himself in, and them drag himself out, laughing hysterically the whole time.

I was standing nearby, watching him do this and somehow, maybe from playing with grown-ups in a pool, he got the idea that if I were holding him, he could spring, from there, into the leaves and that this would be even more fun and hilarious. He wasn’t much on talking at this point, but one way or another he got his idea across to me.

Now I realize, at this age, most kids are tougher and more resilient than you’d think. (This is why I’m a fan of toddlers. You can grab them, shake them up, hold them upside down, etc. and they’re fine. Newborns on the other hand, you have to treat like glass cylinders of plutonium.) Still, I wasn’t sure about this proposal. I didn’t know the kid that well. Even though he was acting like he wanted me to pick him up, he could get weirded out. And there was a chance he could get hurt. Something in eyes seemed to tell me he could handle it though…and I am a champion raker. I mean this was a thick, fluffy pile. You have could dropped a Volkswagen off a five-story building into that leaf pile and it would have landed with a soft bounce, completely intact.

So cut to half-an-hour later, and I am swinging him back and forth by one leg, whirling him around in circles, twisting him around in the air, then letting go at the exact moment that maximized his altitude. And he is making crash landings and immediately coming back for more. And he is laughing harder every time. And I am laughing harder than him. And Steph and his mom are watching us and shaking their heads and rolling their eyes, as women are required to do when boys are having their rough and tumble fun. All was right with the world.

Steph’s sister Jaime and Bishop were stopping in to see all their family on the east coast during this trip. They went up to Virginia the next day, and we followed that weekend. There was some downtime the first full day we were there, so I thought “I’ll make a giant leaf pile. Bishop needs to get some energy out and I know it’s something he likes to do.”

I spent a good two hours working in the yard, sweating and straining, moving leaves from all sectors and amassing them. It was going to be worth it of course.

When I was done, I went back inside and showed Bishop what I had made out the window. He seemed sort of indifferent to it, but I thought maybe it was just because he couldn’t tell exactly what it was yet. Steph backed me up in assuring everyone that he was going to enjoy this and that this was something they might want to see. They got Bishop in his play clothes and put on his jacket, everyone put their shoes on, we all went outside, and Bishop just stood there staring at the big amorphous blob I’d created as if to say “What am I supposed to do with this, exactly?”

In retrospect, what I should have done was maybe introduce him to the pile slowly, sort of let him discover it on his own, and then make the associations with how much fun we had a few days ago, in his own time. I don’t know, I’m no child psychologist. What I do know is I abruptly snatch him off of the ground, like a sack of potatoes, and sent him somersaulting into the cushioning with a “Wheeeeeeeee!”

He plopped down, then picked up his head and shot me a look that I will never forget. It was shock, confusion, hurt, and anger all rolled into one. Then he started crying. So everyone had to come together to comfort him. And then it was “Well, thanks for raking the yard at least, Bob” and it was time to go back inside.

I stood outside a bit longer, alone and bewildered in the autumn silence. A slight breeze came through and carried a few leaves away from the top of the heap.

The moral of the story here is: you can’t go back again. Don’t force circumstances to try to make them like good times you’ve had before. There’s nothing but disappointment down that road.

That, and before you go violently throwing the youngest member of your better half’s family to the ground in front of all her relatives, make sure you’re good and married in.

So for today’s post all I’ve got is the fact that I captioned all of the spreads on Flickr. If interested, you can now read what is going on in those thousand little pictures of open books.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwitch80/collections/72157622569131296/

The raw images are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwitch80/collections/72157622569131296/ until I figure out how to gallery-ify (absolutely a word) them properly on this site, you can view them here.

As I think yesterday’s post revealed, sixth grade was the hardest of my academic career. Coming in a close second though, was first grade.

In the Bridgeport school district, in Michigan where I spent my early childhood, kindergarten was the, oh, say geology of the grade levels. (All we did was learn to draw the forms of each letter in the alphabet — an activity I excelled in — and to scissor out shapes along dotted lines — an activity which I’m ashamed to admit was the equivalent of…well, whatever the hardest part of geology is, for me. I got several crying-sad-faces on “cut along the lines” assignments, but I eventually mastered this skill, thanks to many well-supervised home practice projects during evenings and weekends.) What I’m trying to say here is Level-K was not treated as a full-fledged participant in my education. We didn’t even do nap time like they do in the beginning years in a lot of elementary schools, but this was only because there was no need, as we were only there for three hours. That’s right, kindergartners only attend school for a half-day.

So you can imagine my bewilderment when, once I began first grade, school went on for twice as long as I thought it would. It seemed like forever. Rather than eat lunch before or after we attended school (depending on whether one was in the morning or afternoon program that week) we consumed our food at school, in this giant room of substitute kitchen tables. This was particularly traumatic. I mean, what were we? Savages?

For months, I came home in tears. Was I really expected to submit to classroom life, for that chunk of time, five days a week?

I was never a fan of school, but somewhere along the way I at least grew accustomed to it and accepted the fact that — save 10 glorious weeks every 12 months — this was what my life was going to be like for the next 12 years and I should probably suck it up and try to get something out of it. It didn’t take me all that long to come to this conclusion, but, up until very recently, I’d remembered this as a struggle I’d made it through all on my own.

Of course this wasn’t the case. When I burst in the front door to our house, there was one person ready to accept at least a hefty portion of the weight that I had to get rid of. I was too bogged down by my problems to reflect on this at the time, but I have no doubt that during the most agonizing parts of my longest days of searching for rooms numbers and trying to comprehend math problems and being forced to socialize, this person was thinking of me and worrying about me and praying for me.

And this one person is now in the middle of the most difficult period of her life (at least in the time that I’ve known her). And, though the fact that I’d ever have to do this came as a total surprise, it’s now my turn to do the thinking and the worrying and the praying.…

And I guess it’s her turn to show me that she can get through this, and come out okay on the other end.

I have a strained relationship with French though, as it made a hearty contribution to the most picked-on-iest (absolutely a word) school year of my life.

I was in sixth grade and about halfway through the year we started a unit on France in Social Studies. Our teacher somehow found an actual, real-life French person that was in the area and was willing to come in and talk to us about her country.

So the Frenchwoman gave us her pretty standard presentation, which took up most of a class period. There was a little time for Q&A at the end and, of course, rather than ask about the place’s history and culture, all anyone wanted to know was what everyday objects were called in a different language. We learned that “chemise” was shirt and “crayon” was pencil. Then someone got us onto names. So many people were so excited about hearing theirs, that she elected to just go up and down the rows and do a translation for everyone.

When she got to me and I told her my name was “Bobby” and she said “Bobby?” to make sure it she heard correctly. It came out: “Booby.”

Yes, she actually said “booby,” quite loudly, in front of a group of 30 middle school students. I have no doubt that the soundwaves from the eruption of laughter were visible from space.

Our teacher half-heartedly tried to get the bedlam under control, while clearly fighting back the giggles herself. For the rest of that day’s class, and every day after for the rest of the year, I was hounded relentlessly.

What can you do in a situation like that? I was one of quietest, scrawniest, least-threatening kids at my school. Getting mad would have done nothing but egg people on. And who would I have gotten mad at? Every single other person in the world, all of whom obviously found my predicament hilarious? So I just rolled my eyes to indicate to all these people who were now focused on me that I understood that I was being joked about, and then laughed along a little bit and acted like I didn’t really mind being teased.

Of course I did mind being teased.

The callous, unreserved way in which everyone (even the one or two people that I sort of considered friends) in that room poked fun at me made it obvious just what little regard they had for me. Looking back though, I sort of subconsciously understood that we were even. I didn’t have much regard for them either. To this day, I can’t think of a single middle school teacher or classmate I liked.

When they poked fun at me for the “Booby” thing they were basically indicating that, in their eyes, I looked stupid, but bullies had already informed me that I looked stupid for a myriad of other reasons. I was used to it.

I honestly think what bothered me the most is that it was just so lazy. When everyone was still riotously entertained by this incident five or ten minutes later, I remember saying to myself: “Ok come on, that only sounded that way because this lady has a foreign accent because she is from somewhere other than the five-mile radius where all of us live and, it would appear, don’t travel outside very much.” To make matters worse, I never got anything more interesting than “Hey Booby!” followed by the heckler cackling incessantly. For like four months. No one ever built on it. It was as if these people were our earliest prehistoric ancestors, and they’d been delivered the gift of fire on a silver platter, and all they’d done was stare at it blankly from 50 feet away until the flames died out. Even the f-ing cavemen knew when it was time to jump on an opportunity and make something more of it. Ya know, maybe try roasting some of that mammoth meat. At least those cracks about my Kmart shoes and my lack of athletic ability and the fact that I had a big head showed some interest in word choice and powers of observation.

Yes, at the tender age of 11, I had to admit to myself that there is a large segment of the human population that would be perfectly happy if every humorous experience they ever witnessed involved, say, a loud fart or a fat person falling down.

Incidentally, years later I found out that the way you would say my actual name in French is “Ro-bear.”

I’m sorry but that’s pretty lame.