When I was a kid one of the best things in my life was my grandma’s cooking. I loved eating at my Grandma’s house. She was a cook for one of the most popular restaurants in her little home town, so her food was always so good. In addition to eating good food at her house was the fact that she always, always and I mean always had sweet tea - oh man, how I loved that southern sweet tea. The only thing I hated about eating at her house was the fact that there were a few unwritten rules such as the whole family sits together to eat and we all eat at the dinning room table. While we’re eating all electronic devices will be turned off, so it could be Superbowl Sunday and everyone else around the country was eating wings and watching the game - if were at my grandma’s house more than likely you were eating some good ol’ home cooked meal and drinking sweet tea. The thing I disliked most about eating at my grandmother’s house was the fact that my grandfather would sit at the head of the table and from there he would look over everyone and choose someone to give “the blessing.”

As a little kid it never bothered me because my grandfather never called on anyone from the kid table to give the blessing, but as I got older and moved up to the adult table the chances of being called to give the blessing suddenly became real. Since my grandfather was a Baptist Preacher from the heart of the Bible Belt praying was a serious business and if you wanted to go to Heaven you better know how to do it because as my grandmother used to say “Praying is just speaking to God“ and if you can’t speak to God then there is no way you’re getting into Heaven. It was crazy because all my family members could pray at a moment’s notice and they could do it so well, even my father who was the beer drinking, cigarette smoking black sheep of the family could pray if called upon to do so - I’ve heard him do it and I bet I was just as surprised as God must have been to hear him pray so well.

In my house I never had to worry about praying we never gave the blessing and if we did I could easily get away with the kids prayer “Rub-a-dub-dub. Thanks for the grub.” but that wouldn’t go over well at my grandparent’s house. My grandmother would be horrified at her grandson’s blatant attempts to make the Devil himself come up through the floorboards and take him straight to Hell and I’m sure my grandfather would go into a whole fire and brimestone sermon of how the entire world is going straight to Hell because parents don’t teach their children to pray.

I tried to sit low in my chair so my grandfather wouldn’t call on me to say the blessing, but thinking back on it now, that may have just caused me to stick out more.

“Junior” my grandfather said. He always called me “Junior” or “boy” I have a cousin who’s named Ray and he’s a junior too so my grandfather called him “Ray Junior” but he never called me “Tony Junior” he just called me Junior - at times I wondered if he ever even knew my name. ”Junior, would you please say the blessing?”

I wanted to say “No, grandfather. I don’t think I’ll say the blessing today. I’ll pass it to Ray Junior, he can knock himself out with it, but thank you for asking.” Of course I didn’t say that, not only would that get me grounded but I’m sure it would be a ticket straight to Hell.

“Junior, would you please say the blessing?” My grandfather’s voice brought me out my thoughts.

In my mind I started with “Rub-a-dub-dub” “No,” I said to myself as my grandmother’s words came to me “Praying is just speaking to God” I looked around the table, everyone had their heads bowed and their eyes closed. I thought about grabbing a piece of friend chicken and making a run for it, but I would surely go to hell for that so instead I took a deep breath and began my prayer…

“Dear God. It’s me Tony just checking to see what you’re up to? We’re fine…we’re all fine…how are you? I just want to thank you for giving me a grandma who can cook and not one of those grandma’s who just heats up stuff and makes you eat it even if it tastes like crap.” I thought I heard my grandma chuckle a bit there, but I can’t be certain. “Lord , now that I have you on the line I’d like to remind that we have a big math test on Friday. If the answers just happen to pop into my mind that’s not considered cheating.”

“uhmm.” I heard my grandfather clear his throat or make some sort of noise that sounded like a wild animal about to eat it’s young.”

I continued my prayer. “You know God, it really wouldn’t be so bad if Mean Margaret was transferred to another school in another country…”

At that point my dad took over the blessing and again I was surprised at how well he could pray. In my mind I imagined that God had the same puzzled look on his face as I did on mine and we were both thinking the same thing, “how the Hell does he know how to pray?”

I received a message from Ann of Ann’s Rant’s a blogger who I admire and love - love in that I love her style of writing and her blog - asking if I would like to participate in her project “Man’s Rants: From Boy To Blogger” After doing my happy dance because this is the first time anyone has asked me to do anything like this I composed myself and sent her a message saying I would be thrilled to be part of her project. So, if you’ll head on over to her blog you can read my post entitled “Forever” I should tell you that the requirement for this project was that I write a coming of age blog - so for all you people that know me and have ever wondered what that story was check out the blog and let me know what you think - you can post comments here, there or both places. I look forward to your feedback.

Check out my entry in Ann's "Man's Rants: From Boy To Blogger" Forever

I’ve written a few posts about gaining weight and the comments people have made - ok, I’ll admit that since I moved to Vegas I have gained some weight but that’s normal. I think it happens to everyone who moves here. It’s pretty true for me, before I came here I used to be a strict vegetarian and would not eat any animal products whatsoever, but then I came to Vegas and I went to a buffet and as I was in line putting veggies and whatever else didn’t have a face at one time on my plate I looked over at a lady who was serving herself a piece of chicken breast in a creamy white sauce. That chicken looked so good and In a display of apocalyptic idiocy my mind started to think things through and rationalize things. I rationalized “one piece of chicken can’t possibly hurt me’ so I served myself a small piece. As I ate that chicken I could just imagine that the chicken I was eating was probably the same chicken they served in Heaven without the calories. I ate the chicken and then decided that another small slice would be ok. As I went to look for the smallest slice of chicken breast in white sauce I noticed all the other foods that had gone unnoticed. All these foods had that one ingredient that I had been missing for so long - dead animal. I got a little of this and a little of that - some meatloaf, a slice of turkey, some fried catfish, and some brisket. I ate fast and furious like someone was going to come to our table and take it all away from me. I knew that at sometime I would go home and unleash the mother of all turds but at the time I didn’t care. I just stuffed my face with piece after piece of dead animal and loved it all.

The next few days it felt like all the pieces of dead animal I had eaten had come to life in my stomach and were now stampeding throughout my intestines and everywhere else they could get to inside of me. I was sick, not the regular puke and you’ll feel better sick, but the kind where you puke and puke until there is nothing inside of you except for that hot, bile that you throw up too and you still don’t feel any better. I was so sick that I thought I saw St Christopher or whoever the Catholics think guards the gates to Heaven calling me to come and enjoy the goodness of Heaven where animals were our friends, but if ate them we wouldn’t be cramped over our toilet with tears rolling down our cheeks (just want to stress that I mean my face cheeks and not my butt cheeks)

Well, it’s been years since I ate that piece of chicken with white sauce and my body has adjusted to eating dead animal. It’s to the point where I can’t even bring myself to buy a tub of tofu or sprouts of any kind even though they were the things that made up a lot my meals for so long at one time. One bad thing that I’ve noticed and so has everyone else around me is the fact that when you eat animal products you do tend to gain weight - or at least I did.

I’m not to the point where I wobble when I walk or need some assistance to get off the couch, but it is to the point where I want to go back to the gym and workout. One problem I have is that I easily lose my motivation, so I need to find a workout partner or someone who can help me keep on tract. I think that may be one of the reasons I’ve posted this entry - it’s a little different from the stuff I usually post. I think that if I put this out here I can post stories of the workouts and nutritional changes I make on my journey to getting fit and maybe, just maybe I can get some encouragement and tips from some of the readers out there.

When I was a kid I used to go to church, man did I go to church. I think that by the time I was ten years old I had already filled my church quota for my lifetime. My grandfather was a Baptist Preacher so whenever I went his house or the house of any of father’s family I’d go and hear the fire and brimstone sermons of how God is a vengeful god who will send you to Hell for even one unclean thought and as a kid I had so many unclean thoughts that I was sure the devil was going to show up any second to claim my soul. On my mom’s side of the family, it was a little different. Her family was split on religion. Some of her brothers and sisters were strict Catholics while the others were Methodist. Now, to be honest, I really don’t know what the difference is except that when we moved next to a Morrom church and I decided that I was going to check it out I had everyone telling me that I was joining a cult and that I was going to go straight to Hell for even thinking of stepping foot inside of a Mormon church.

This story is when I was going to the Methodist church because my aunt felt so strongly about the church that she had me and all my cousins involved in the church youth group activities. I think that the reason she was involved in the church was because she had a crush on the pastor and by taking a load of kids with her to Sunday mass and to all the activities then she was guaranteed a place in the pastor’s heart. The funny thing is that in a way it worked. Well, I was the youngest in our group of kids which meant that I really wasn’t a youth at all but a kid who the youth tolerated. I was like everyone’s kid brother who was there pestering everyone but you couldn’t get rid of because then your mom wouldn’t allow your friends to come over.

All year long I participated in all sorts of things from bake sales, to car washes so I could help raise money for the annual church youth group camp. I remember that year I washed so many cars in the hot Texas sun that to this day I hate washing cars so my car will stay dirty until it goes from light blue to a brownish gray color or until it rains - whichever comes first.

That first year I went to camp I was all excited because I had never been away from home before and more importantly I had never been camping before in my life, so I was excited and a little nervous about it. I remember my mom sent me with a brand new pillow and not my old ratty pillow that I’d been sleeping on since…well…as long as I can remember.

“Look at my new pillow” I said showing my pillow to my older cousin who was riding in the van with me.

“if you’re going to hang out with me this week, you can’t act like a little kid” my older thirteen year old cousin. He was still not happy that the preacher had made an exception and let me go to camp even though I was two years too young. The reason he had let me is because my aunt was going too and he figured she could keep an eye out on me.

“I am a little kid, how can I not act like one.”

“I’m just saying” my cousin threatened, “if you mess with me I’m going to leave you out there for the bears to eat.”

“There aren’t any bears out there” I said, but then I looked out the windows of the van. I could see tree after tree moving along at a scary speed as we drove on the little road to our camping destination. “There aren’t bears out here…are there?”

My cousin didn’t say anything he just looked at me and smiled.

It was dark as we made our way into camp. One of the older kids took us to our cabin. As he flipped the lights on I could see big roaches and other bugs run all over the place trying to get back into the darkness. I looked at my older cousin but he didn’t say anything it was if he thought giant bugs running around your room was a normal thing. We were staying in medium size cabins that had four bunk beds in each one. Of course my cousin claimed the top bunk, so I got the bottom one, but for some reason I was ok with that. I didn’t want to fight with my cousin and end up as a midnight snack for some bear waiting outside our door for the first kid to get pushed out the cabin for fighting with his cousin.

“Ok, guys get into your beds and try to get some sleep because we have a long day tomorrow.” the older kid said, I don’t remember but I think his name may have been Manny or something like that.

“Aren’t you going to sleep here?” I asked feeling that having an older kid even if his name was Manny around would be good just in case some ax wielding maniac was on the lose. Manny could fight him while we all escaped out the windows. That’s when I noticed that they’re weren’t any windows in the cabin except at the very end of the room and if some crazy ax wielding maniac came in he would get me before I even made it to the window. “Don’t you want to stay with us?” I didn’t want to sound like a little scared eleven year old, but I was and I couldn’t help it.

“No, I’m staying in the counselors cabin” Manny said as he made sure everyone was in their bunks. “We’ve some activities to plan for you guys, so get some sleep and do not leave this cabin for any reason.”

“What if it starts on fire?” I asked.

Manny looked at me with a “why did we bring the eleven year old to camp” look. “It’s not going to start on fire.”

“What if a bear comes through the window?” my mind was racing with possibilities.

“There aren’t any bears in this part of the woods” Manny’s words reassured me.

I punched the bottom of my cousin’s bunk, “see I told you, there aren’t any bears around here.” I said, as dust rained down on me. Don’t they even clean these things I thought. My cousin didn’t say anything.

“Ok, if that’s all then lets get some sleep.” Manny said reaching for the light switch.

“How do you know that the cabin is not going to start on fire?”

Manny didn’t answer my question, all he said was “goodnight” and he turned the light off and it was dark. It was very dark. I once heard my uncle say that when he was in the war it was so dark that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. I lifted my hand and moved it around in front of my face, but it was too dark. I couldn’t see it at all. Part of me thought it was cool and part of me thought it was a little scary. I closed my eyes but nothing changed - it was still dark. I was tired but it was too dark to sleep.

“Hey Patoon” My cousin’s nickname was “Patoon” because when he was little he used to be a big fat baby. There are pictures to prove it, at one year he probably weighed as much as a three year old. My uncle said he was so big that he was like a military Platoon so people started calling him “Platoon” but as time went on his name sort of became “Patoon”

“Shut up Pee-wee and go to sleep” The same uncle who said my cousin was as big as a platoon had looked at me when we moved to the states from Germany and announced to everyone that I was so small I belonged in the Peewee League and from that day on I was known as “Pee-wee” Even now, when I go back home to Texas there are few people that call me by my name; almost everyone back home calls me “Pee-wee” Some of my good friends here know me by that name too. It’s a name that has survived all these years and has gone unchanged even though I’ve grown to a towering five feet eleven or 180 cm.

“I’m scared.” I admitted to my cousin. “I want to go home.”

“Shut-up you baby” the voice came from the darkness and it wasn’t my cousin’s. I had forgotten that there were other kids in the cabin with us and they weren’t too happy with sharing their cabin with a little eleven year old who was scared of the dark. Soon the cabin was filled with the voices of the other kids calling me names and threatening to throw me out into the woods. I was eleven years old and still a little kid, but at that moment I decided that eleven years old was old enough to almost be considered a man - I decided that I was a man and men didn’t cry not even when they were in a cabin out in the woods with a ax wielding maniac who could at that very moment be under his bed. A weird thing started to happen to me at that moment, I was an eleven year old man, but even so I started crying, which just made the other kids call me more names and laugh harder at me. I was still a kid and still acted like one. All of a sudden there was voice that rose louder than all the rest.

“Leave him alone!” Everyone was stunned and didn’t say a word, even I was stunned by the sound of my cousin’s voice in the dark. “he’s just a kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” I whimpered. “I’m a man.”

“Shut up Peewee” my cousin said as he jumped off the top bunk bed. “He’s still a kid and this is his first time away from home so just leave him alone.” My cousin yelled into the darkness of the cabin,” If you want to mess with anyone then you can just mess with me.” Nobody said anything. I guess no one wants to mess with a Platoon. My cousin sat on the edge of my bed and put his hand on my chest and leaned down toward me and said, ”Now, go to sleep. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

I closed my eyes and slept. The next day no one mentioned that I had cried or that my cousin had stood up for me, challenging the entire cabin, it was as if nothing had happened. Every night for the rest of the week my cousin sat on the edge of my bed until I fell asleep, watching over me.

No one ever knew that I cried my first night at camp or that my cousin had sat with me every night until I feel asleep. No one knew until now…as the years passed I almost lost this story to the forgetfulness that times brings with it. I’m posting it here so you can read it and so that I don’t forget it.

Recently it seems like I’ve witness a few crimes that sort of surprised me, but nothing like what my friend Linda saw the other night. She sent me this post and I thought I would put it on here so you guys could read it too. I was reading her facebook status updates as this was actually happening. What follows is her account of what happened and what she saw…

On a Friday around midnight, I was chatting and working on my Facebook profile. A nice breeze was flowing through the window and the neighborhood was quiet; just a few kids outside playing around. As I was working on the PC, I took a few occasional stares out the window for a minute and continued to type. I was trying to keep up with my friends’ posts when all of a sudden the sounds of gunfire went off……pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow…counting seven rounds of semi-automatic shots. I yelled to my boyfriend: DID YOU HEAR THAT? He was watching TV in the living room. In a calm and nonchalant voice he said, “Yeah, sounds like gunfire to me”. I jumped up from the computer and ran into the living room and then onto the balcony. I heard a man’s voice yelling at the kids to get in the house, now! A few minutes later, a helicopter was flying overhead with a spotlight that turned the night into day; circling quickly in the sky as it was flashing its beam all over the neighborhood, in every nook and cranny. Then, as I expected, I heard the sound of police sirens growing closer very fast and the next thing I knew, they were passing in several different directions, as one police car flew passed my balcony and stopped.

I ran in the house, slid on my sandals and ran out the door, my boyfriend a few steps behind me, as other neighbors were also approaching the flashing lights. I asked a young man what happened, as he was walking away from what appeared to be a body. He said: “I don’t know…some kid just got shot”. I said to him, “a kid!?” and he said, “Yeah, he looked like a young kid to me…F__k, I don’t know”. I moved a little closer and all I could see were the legs of somebody lying on the ground, his upper body obscured by a parked car, with yellow sweat pants and white tennis shoes. A crowd of people was growing and yellow police tape was rapped around poles to rope off the area where the body lay. More and more neighbors filed out of their homes and gathered in groups, whispering, some of them pacing back and forth. Approximately ten minutes later, cars began pulling up and people were jumping out slowly, holding each other, walking towards the yellow tape. A woman screamed and fainted as others held her in their arms. I guessed that was the Mother, due to the overwhelming reaction. Then a young girl and older young man began crying and cursing, “some MF shot my brother, he’s dead, he’s dead!” It turned out it was the brother and sister of the deceased. Then an older woman came up to the yellow tape and began crying. It turned out that was the grandmother. Then following was the grandfather, cousins and friends screaming and crying. Cell phones were ringing, people talking, giving their ideas of what could have happened, cursing, walking in circles, back and forth, and the family repeatedly trying to get close to their dead relative. I sensed for a moment that all hell was going to break lose, but that didn’t happen. I thought to myself: retribution isn’t far off.

The most odd thing was wondering how did the family get to the scene so fast – or was I in a time warp; not realizing how much time had passed between coming outside and the cars pulling up. I was frozen in spot with my arms folded. A group of young men were standing next to me saying, “I heard the shots but didn’t see anybody”. I turned to them and said, “you were out here when this happened?” Their response had additional information: “Yeah, we heard the shots and saw somebody running away, dropping his hat and a towel. He doubled back picking up the stuff and ran away. He had on red and white!” One of the young men asked his buddy if he was going to tell the police what he saw but the kid describing all these things said, “No, no!” and changed the subject to “I heard the shots though”. The group of kids kept repeating what they heard and saw over and over, coming up with ideas that maybe the towel had the gun in it. I turned away and watched as more police personnel arrived on the scene. There was the photographer, investigators and a Review Journal newspaper reporter who eased his way up to me and Russell. He said, “Hello, my name is_____(I forgot). How are you folks doing tonight?” I knew what was coming next (been there/done that) as he began asking questions of what we heard and saw. The group of young kids slithered away. I gave my account of hearing the shots. That’s all. He asked some other mundane questions such as, how is it living around here in North Las Vegas and has the crime increased….blah, blah, blah. Then he said thank you and quietly left.

In all, the entire process to investigate the shooting took three and a half hours. The conversations with my neighbor turned from sorrow to slight humor, back to sorrow. Photos were being taken, moving of the body back and forth, putting up a screen to hide the body, and counting bullet shells and holes all over the place. I stood there for three and a half hours with my neighbors in complete disbelief. The coroner arrived and then a funeral service van. There was complete silence as the body was photographed again a few more times and placed in the van. It drove away with a police escort in front and back of it. As the van disappeared, neighbors slowly made their way home. Later in the morning around 8:00am, I came out to go grocery shopping and it was if nothing had happened. It was quiet with no one in sight. The yellow police tape, cars, everything, gone. I drove away looking in my rear view mirror at the spot where the young man had laid. Tears came to my eyes and I drove off thinking…NOTHING.

My brother is a very private person - you won’t find him on myspace, facebook, or any of the other social networks. I usually don’t write much about him in this blog either because I respect his need to keep things private. Today I almost didn’t do this post because I thought he would not like the idea of me letting everyone out in the internet know that it’s his birthday, but I figure everyone has a birthday so telling people he has one is not really much of a secret.

Awhile back my brother wrote a guest blog for me and it was really good - at least I thought it was and so did everyone else who commented on it. It was posted back in a time when fewer people read my blog, but more people posted comments - I can’t figure that one out J

Well, I thought that I would re-post his blog today, on his birthday - he may kill me for this so if the posts on here stop abruptly you know why. Here is my brother’s original post I hope you enjoy it and I’d like to wish him a very Happy Birthday. 

My first thought is that I’m still not sure I want to do this. It feels like I’m at the edge of the rabbit hole and I’m not so sure I want to jump into this alternate universe. My life is already too busy as it is - work, kids, school, etc. Plus, I’m the kind of person who runs all his emails through SpellCheck and uses the proper punctuation marks on text messages. Blogging seems so … informal for someone like me. Are you sure I could pull it off? I’m not funny and I don’t have any profound thoughts I’m dying too share with the world.

That’s ok, my brother assured me as we pulled into my favorite bookstore. Neither are most of the other bloggers out there.

So, somewhere between being bribed by books and sushi and a sincere desire to write for a different audience, I’ve decided to jump into the rabbit hole in the name of aesthetics. After all, I’ve bungee jumped, gotten tattoos, lived in foreign countries, worked as a high school teacher. After experiencing all of this, how hard could it be to write a blog?

Initially, I thought I would talk about what my brother was like as a child, how he once convinced me I had been found in a shoebox outside a dumpster and wasn’t really part of the family. I was in pre-school at the time and I think he wanted me out of the house so he could make room for his growing Star Wars collection. He tried to get me to leave out the backdoor so my parents wouldn’t see me. Good thing our mother came in to see if we were ready for dinner. Otherwise, I might still be roaming around Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri.

I’m still a bit traumatized by the whole thing and have been waiting for payback ever since.

However, this is not the place or the time for that. Instead, I am going to talk about what it has been like to grow up in a home where we were all encouraged to be artists. My brother with his stories and his paintings. My sister with her music. Me with my words. Our parents always encouraged us to pursuit our artistic talents and, like most artistic families, it seems like we were all touched by that magic. I can’t say that we all listen to the same music or appreciate the same visual artists. We certainly don’t read the same books. There are no vampires or spaceships in the books I read or hope to write one day. However, we can all be found immersed in our art on any given day. And we have all learned to communicate to each other and to the world through the special role of an artist in society.

Learning to be an artist, a writer, has been the most important lesson I have learned from my parents. It has had a profound effect on my identity and how I see the world. It has been with me through every dark moment and every blissful day. I have filled my soul with words the way some people fill their soul with religion. Like a true believer, I can say these words have never let me down. As I watch my two young children develop their own individual personalities, I see that they have also been bitten by the bug. My son goes around the house making up his own songs and singing all day long. My daughter asks for paint, paper, and jazz music every evening. And because they are my children and literacy is important to me, they have been inundated by a flood of books since before they were born. This is my gift to them. I am providing a room, a space, where art is not only appreciated, but loved, nurtured, and created by the girl and the boy who call me Papi.

I was talking with the Tough Guy at work when I heard the familiar sound of footsteps coming down the hallway and that sound automatically triggered in my still just not quite so mature mind the song by the Pussycat Dolls. The song started to play in my head as our clinic dietitian walked around the corner and came into view.

“don’t cha’ wish your girlfriend was hot like me…don‘t cha‘…” She’s the only person I know in real life that can actually walk down the hall and make it seem like she’s walking in slow motion with a wind machine blowing her hair behind her like a teenage boy’s fantasy girl in the movies.

“Don’t ‘cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me…”

I remember the fist day she started working at our clinic one of my co-workers, whose mind is not quite so mature either, ran up to me all excited. “Have you seen the new dietitian?” He was out of breath as if he had been running.

“No,” I said, “I’ve been working too hard.” I couldn’t help it and neither could he - we both started laughing uncontrollably at that statement.

“Dude, she’s not like other dietitians at other clinics that are big and chunky. You know what I’m talking about they try to tell you how to lose weight but they can’t take their own advice. They say their not really fat they just have a thyroid problem and once they get on medicine they‘ll be skinny again…”

“What are you talking about?” I asked my friend. He’s a talker and sometimes it takes him twenty minutes of talking to get a point, sometimes it takes him longer.

“Dude, she’s not just hot, she’s freakin’ hot.” I looked up at him from my work wondering if she was Michelle Rodriguez in leather with a bullwhip hot or just plain geeky superhero Haley Berry as Storm in the X-men movies hot.

“Hey!” the Tough Guy’s voice brought my thoughts back to the present. “you’re staring at her.”

“I’m not staring. She’s a friend and you just don’t stare at your friend’s ass no matter how hot it is. Besides, She reads my blog” I laughed because I knew as I said those words, they were going to end up in here.

She walked to the copy machine, made her copies and then started her walk back to her office. “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me…Don’t cha’ wish your girlfriend was a freak like me…”

The Tough Guy said. “Our patients seem to like her.”

“Dude, we have skinny guys saying they’re getting too fat and need to see the dietitian just so they can get into her clinic.” We both laughed. “I bet if we checked, she has the lowest “no show” rate of the entire clinic.”

As she passed us she handed me a copy of the packet she just made. I looked down and saw that she gave me a list of exercises and times you’d have to do them in order to burn off popular fast food items.

“Hey, what’s this?” I asked the Tough Guy

“Maybe she’s trying to tell you something.”

“Huh? What could she be trying to tell me.”

“Maybe you’re getting fat.” That’s the Tough Guy. He doesn’t sugar coat things.

“I’m not getting fat. I swear that the cleaners shrunk my green shirt, that’s why I don’t wear it anymore.” The look on the Tough Guy’s face told me he didn’t believe me about the shirt being shrunk - no body seems to believe me about that, but it’s true. I think hey may have shrunk a few other shirts.

“Hey, maybe she just wants me to go see her ‘cause she thinks I’m hot.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it” The Tough Guy rolled his eyes. It’s not cool when a tough guys rolls his eyes, something about it is just not right. “Besides, she’s married.”

“Just ‘cause you’re married doesn’t stop you from checking out the goods and thinking that doesn’t stop you from thinking your co-workers are hot.”

“Dude, you’re not hot.”

“Well not to you I’m not." I looked at the Tough Guy with a goofy look on my face. "If you thought I was hot then I’d be worried.” The tough guy didn’t say anything to that. “Now, let me go see her.”

I walked down the hall to her office and in my mind I could almost hear the song “Don’t cha’ wish your boyfriend was hot like me…Don’t you wish your boyfriend was a freak like me…”