I
am privy to information which could change the
course of human events, or at least what you
think about the next time you eat salmon. I've
been harboring this dark secret for at least
five days now, and it's got me rattled. I need
to come clean with it, you know, get it
"off my chest," because if I don't
I'm liable to forget about it and then when I
remember it again it will be too late to write
a humor column about it.
Before I divulge this information though, I
need to ask you to promise me you'll not let
my wife know you've read this column/blog/whatever
you call this venue for posting really
irrelevant, meaningless, and self-promoting
information. It will be our secret. Oh, she
knows about this information—you know, the
human-events-course-changing-information. She
knows about that
information. She just doesn't know that I'm
going to tell you about it. That's what needs
to be our little secret. She would be
mortified if she knew I disclosed this
information. And besides being mortified,
she'd be "caused to experience shame,
humiliation, or wounded pride;
humiliated." (i.e., mortified) But that
happens all the time around here. The real
issue is she'd be mad at me. And let's face
it; life is way too short to have your wife
mad at you more often than she's mortified.
You might be asking yourself at this juncture:
"But won't she be reading this blog?"
To which, I would answer: "Don't rightly
think so." To which you might respond:
"Please get on with the story." To
which I might then ask: "Why don't you
want to know why she doesn't read the blog?"
To which you would then say: "Isn't that
self-evident?" To which I would most
surely say: "That's hitting below the
Mendoza Line!" At which point you might
wonder what having a baseball batting average
of less than .200 has to do with the above
reference to salmon...and that, my friends, is
how I draw you back into my story.
I'd like to utilize a few more words and
paragraphs to weave a gluten-free web of
mystery, intrigue, and boredom, but it'd be
pretty light on the mystery and intrigue.
Thus, I'll just come out and say it: There has
been, and likely remains, a rodent in our
refrigerator…. <allowing for ample time
to gasp>
If you're at this point exhaling and wondering
what's with people who live in the country
eating squirrel and porcupine and the like,
you need to understand that this rodent is
alive. Yes, ALIVE! This rodent, the one of
which I'm speaking, is neither filleted nor
field dressed. It has not been prepared in any
fashion for consumption of people who live in
Cass County, Missouri, or for that matter any
other county that reluctantly gave up cock
fighting.
Now to fully understand this predicament you
need to trace its roots to the South Beach
Diet. That's where our woes began. My wife and
I decided to start the South Beach Diet
because my doctor told me I had acquired
something called "metabolic
syndrome." Now I'm all for syndromes if
you can handle them. They're better than
diseases and usually don't require medical
"procedures." But I told him I'd
never taken steroids in my life. Sure, I could
hit a baseball at least to the third baseman
"back in the day," but that was
during the dead ball era. The closest I'd ever
gotten to steroids was when I grabbed a couple
of Omega 3 chews at GNC.
Anyway, the South Beach Diet is big on protein
and down on carbs. So, we went to the grocery
store and bought a variety of meats, cheeses,
and ricotta cheese. We asked our children to
put these items out in our extra refrigerator
in our garage. We need an extra refrigerator
in the garage because the one in our kitchen
contains approximately 473 different types of
condiments. These condiments are designed to
be spread, slathered, and squirted on various
meats, cheeses, and lesser proteins, but since
there is no room for these in the inside
fridge—because of the condiments—they are
placed in the fridge in the garage. One would
think the "inside refrigerator"
would be utilized to hold staples like milk,
orange juice, and leftover pizza. But if these
"staples" were placed in the inside
fridge, there'd be no room for important
condiments like cranberry horseradish sauce
and pepper jelly and jalapeno slaw—items
that are used at least once a month and need
to be handy for just the right sandwich.
I should note here that if you ask your
children to place food in any refrigerator,
but especially one outside of your general
viewing paradigm, you must ask them to
actually close the refrigerator door upon
placing the items inside the fridge. This
isn't really important for keeping items cold,
because if your fridge is in the garage and
it's winter it is likely to be warmer inside
the fridge than in the general vicinity of the
garage. However, the bigger picture suggests
the door be closed so that unwanted pets,
neighbors, or even rodents, are kept out. But
if you want your refrigerator to say to all
area rats and mice: "allee allee income
free," then by all means teach your
children not to close the door. Or teach them,
like we did, to close the door after the
critters have made their way inside.
How do I know that a rodent is in our
refrigerator? Well, I don't for sure. But last
Wednesday when I opened a package of salmon I
noticed the cellophane had a hole in it. I
didn't think this was too big of a deal until
I opened the cellophane and discovered that
little black pieces of Styrofoam were
underneath the
cellophane—"shavings" if you will.
Upon further investigation, I noticed that a
piece of the salmon's flesh was missing and
that the missing flesh was eerily shaped like
the Strait of Gibraltar. Thus, I deduced that
a live rodent had gotten into our refrigerator
and had been treating himself to fresh seafood
and miscellaneous cholesterol. What did I do
with the salmon? I did what any red-blooded
American man with a knife in his hand would
do—I trimmed the Strait of Gibraltar off of
it. Then I got to cookin' it.
Well, I guess once this story is out in the
open it's not as bad as it sounds (unless
you're my wife, then it's worse). But there's
more. Most people would rummage through their
fridge if this happened to them. They'd go out
to the freezing garage in a haz-mat suit and
quarantine all of the food then scrub it down
with Clorox. But I'm way ahead of them. I
figure the rodent will get cold at some point
and head for the door. Then he'll play into my
hand. He'll undoubtedly find the large
rat-strength glue trap I placed inside the
refrigerator. That'll get him. I just hope
he's not staring up at me the next time I open
the door. By the way, does anyone really
release the rodent "gently" out of
these glue traps while they're still alive?
That's a good one... like he couldn't find his
way back to my Ro-Tel dip.
But seriously, a growing fear, after doing
some forensic study on the bite mark, is that
it may be one of the larger rodents. Larger
than a mouse, rat or porcupine, it may be the
Mother of All Rodents—the Capybara.
The
Capybara is the largest rodent known to men
like me who visit Zoo World in Panama City,
Florida. If there were a Capybara in our
refrigerator, however, there'd be no room left
for much else, as they grow to over 4' tall
and weigh in at 140 lbs. That's a big ol'
rodent!
So
if I go out to the garage tomorrow morning and
find a Capybara in my refrigerator, I'll first
"release him gently" from the glue
trap. Then I'm going to encourage him to build
on that meal of salmon and join me on the
South Beach Diet.
Copyright
Greg Finley
_______
When
not brokering commercial real estate in the
Kansas City hinterlands, Greg Finley writes
humorous pieces about business, sports, and
life in the country at http://www.finleyriver.com.
Greg’s been published in the Wall
Street Journal under the headline For
Sale: Staples-Anchored Shopping Center in
Rolla, Missouri. Perhaps his greatest
work of fiction was crafted while serving as
the lead author of the 1988
Olathe, Kansas Comprehensive Plan. In
this capacity he was accused of feeding at the
public trough. Indeed he was.
Contact Greg at gregfinley@fiduciaproperties.com
