The Blog
I’m not an argue box, you’re an argue box!
My mother says I should have been a lawyer.
This is generally her way of ending an argument — if it’s one I happen to be winning.
She says I argue too much. I think what she means is that I argue too well.
What she calls an argument, I consider a discussion, a debate, an exchange of ideas that require the use of logic and reasoning.
Arguments don’t have to make sense. In fact, most of them are downright silly, and when they’re all over, it’s a little embarrassing to talk about.
Growing up with three little sisters, I am well acquainted with the difference between and argument and a discussion.
An argument is what you have with your sister when she comes home wearing your favorite dress, the one you’ve told her a million times not to wear, and not only has she worn it, she’s torn a big hole in it.
An argument is what you have with your sister when you make three trips across town to a junior high dance because A. she forgot her money B. nobody was there and C. never mind, my friends showed up and now I want to stay.
An argument is what you have with your sister after you come home after driving around with your friends to find your parents standing out on the lawn, waiting on you because it’s a little past curfew and your stupid little sister has gotten them out of bed to tell on you because “she was worried.” And to generate more drama, she’s standing next to them, sobbing. Yeah, I’ll give you worried.
Discussions generate ideas. Arguments degenerate into fights. Sometimes involving badminton rackets, scratching and once in a while, a bloody nose.
But of course, never on purpose.
I didn’t mean to give Sharla a bloody nose. It was an accident. Marla stomped on my foot and then I whirled around and hit Sharla in the nose with my elbow as she was jumping on my back. Besides, everybody knows, two against one is not fair.
And Marla and Sharla weren’t really going to hit each other with the badminton rackets. Of course, the Jehovah’s Witnesses standing on the porch, looking through the window had no way of knowing that.
I think Marla really did mean to scratch, though – she was always kind of a mean fighter. You’ve always got to watch the quiet ones.
We can’t remember what argument led to the badminton racket fight. Our arguments were usually over the same thing — unauthorized borrowing — clothes, jewelry, makeup, etc.
Despite an 8-year age difference between me, the oldest and Darla, the youngest, we all wore the same size clothes.
With the exception of Marla, who had unusually small feet, we all wore the same size shoes, too.
I’m sure my parents considered it a blessing that we could share each others clothes. It was good for us too, in some ways — we were guaranteed never to have to suffer the humiliation of wearing the same outfit to school twice in the same week.
However, there were times when we had to each have our own set of clothes — summer camp for instance.
The process then was to pile all the clothes in the floor and to take turns selecting one item until the pile was gone. It was a lot more civilized than duking it out.
I think the bloody nose fight began because I came home to find Sharla sobbing uncontrollably over something and had the audacity to try to find out what it was. I thought somebody had died, the way she was carrying on, so when she finally choked out that she was sad after reading “The Scarlet Ibis,” I felt I was justified in being a little put out. I may have called her a baby, which made Marla mad, even though it was none of her business, and next thing you know, Marla’s coming at me with her patented scissor-handed swing. Sharla was instantly healed of her short-story trauma and hopped out of bed and onto my back.
Like I said, we were all the same size, so it’s not like I had any kind of physical advantage being the oldest.
Even so, I was the one who got into trouble.
Which is why I have learned that it is best not to participate in an argument.
Maybe my mother is right. Maybe I should be a lawyer. I could specialize in personal injury.
Sweet Potato Pie
- 2 cups cooked sweet potatoes (boiled whole)
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup evaporated milk
- 1 stick butter
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp. vanilla
Mash potatoes, mix with other ingredients. Pour into 9-inch unbaked pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for almost one hour, or until set.
Marla says I pick on her too much, but I don’t think I do. This is her recipe, and it’s really good.
In Case of Emergency, Open Can
One of the items suggested by the Homeland Security Council for inclusion in an emergency preparedness kit is a manual can opener.
Being the sort of person who is never prepared for anything, it is of great comfort to me to know that my Swing-A-Way can opener has been quietly guarding me from untold disaster for decades.
I gave up my electric can opener nearly 20 years ago when the real estate boom of the 80s gained us a home with a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet.
It had about three square feet of counter space and one electrical outlet, so when I spied a manual can opener on one of those store displays aimed at pushing slow-selling items to impulse shoppers, I bought it.
It took up no counter space whatsoever, required no messy electrical cord, and no electrical outlet.
Even better, it never, ever built up that really gross gunky stuff that we’d prefer not to think about, but that we all know hides on electric can openers.
All I had to do to clean my Swing-A-Way was stick it under the hot water when I finished opening a can. Imagine, all this for the low, low price of $3.98!
I had no idea that such progress had been made in the world of manual can opening.
My previous experience with can openers was not a pleasant one. My grandmother possessed three, each one of them crude and difficult to use.
Can Opener from Hell No. 1 was basically a handle with a hooked blade at the top. Opening a can with this device required positioning it near the edge of the can, then pounding it into the can with one swift blow.
If you managed to do this without A. bruising your hand B. hitting the handle just a little off-center so that the can of mushroom soup somersaulted off the counter onto your foot or C. impaling your hand on the convenient corkscrew that always managed to dislodge itself from the handle, then you were ready for the next test of courage.
Working the handle up and down around the edge of the can resulted in a number of uneven raggedy cuts, but eventually, after much work, slipping of the blade and an occasional puncture wound from the cursed corkscrew, it was possible to remove enough metal to free the contents from the can.
Can Opener From Hell No. 2 had no sharp blades or corkscrews. Its specialty was psychological torture.
It had nothing but a handle and these two blunt pieces of metal, which in theory, was supposed to scissor together, causing the blade to clamp down on the edge of the can.
Of course, it never stayed clamped down on the can. That is, if you ever got it on in the first place. Its particular evil was to create anxiety, frustration and enough desperation to drive you to use Can Opener from Hell No. 1, resulting in both mental and physical abuse.
What a pair, those two.
And then there was Can Opener From Hell No. 3.
The can opener wasn’t outrightly evil like the other two. It was easy to attach to the can, had no sharp poking things, but it was dull and lazy and never around when you needed it.
It would attach to the can all right, but the handle would slip — a lot. You could turn and turn the handle and it would just sit there spinning its wheels.
Most of the time, the only way to get the can open was to puncture the top of the can over and over again, until a series of perforations were created. Then it was necessary to jam a knife into the can and pry the lid off. Sometimes the lid would flip off — a jagged-edged projectile flinging food juice all over the place.
The thought of being trapped in a bomb shelter with one of those demonic devices and the million cans of pork and beans Mother had stocked up to tide us over until the radioactivity wore off made being vaporized seem the better alternative.
Considering the trials and tribulations associated with these primitive can openers, it isn’t surprising that the public flocked to electric can openers.
I sincerely hope that the Swing-A-Way can opener is a relatively recent invention. If I were to find out that such a can opener was available for purchase in the 1960s, and that I could have had a happier childhood for the price of a couple of candy bars and an Archie comic book, I’ll be very disappointed in myself.
But I’ll be happy to swing away at terrorism.
Seven Can Casserole
- 2 cans tuna fish
- 1 no. 2 can Chinese noodles
- 1 can chop suey or Chinese vegetables
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
- 1 soup can milk
- 1 can water chestnuts, drained and sliced
- 1/2 – 1 cup slivered almonds
- Potato chips, crushed
Mix all ingredients except potato chips. Bake uncovered at 350 for 35 minutes. Top with chips. Yield 6-8 servings
Linda Gohl of California provided this recipe after seeing Cousin Emma’s Seven Can Recipe in the San Francisco Chronicle. Cousin Emma’s recipe contained only six cans. Perhaps she was afraid having to open more would trigger a nervous breakdown.
Of Wives and Housekeepers
I had an occasion to speak to a junior high school class this week on the subject of “planning ahead.”
I am not now, nor have I ever been expert in planning ahead.
Neither do I anticipate this will change in the near future, although it won’t be for lack of a serious effort on my part.
I have read shelves of self-help books.
I have bought every kind of diary, calendar and organizational aid available to mankind.
I have journaled, listed, and prioritized my goals.
None of this has worked, and I do not anticipate that any of it will, because I am missing the one key element necessary to an organized life – a genie.
Actually, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a genie, although their living space requirements are pretty convenient. Any being with supernatural powers would do – a witch like Samantha Stevens, a maid like Hazel or a house-keeper like Alice.
In other words, I need a wife.
The thought occurred to one day as I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, trying to figure out why my personal life was in total disarray.
More than a year had passed since I changed jobs, but I had yet to finish unpacking. A repairman had commented, “Just moved in?” and I wondered what had given him that idea.
I had been in the house for months, and so had the unpacked boxes. The mirrors and paintings were more at home being propped up against the wall than hanging from them.
A friend of mine had done the very same thing — sold a house, bought a house, moved and totally unpacked — within six months. This was all accomplished as he commuted more than 160 miles a day, all the while putting in a full day of work learning the job and negotiating new challenges.
I commuted almost the same distance, but after six months, I had an apartment that looked like a three-bedroom storage shed.
If he could do it, why couldn’t I?
I’ll tell you why. Because I didn’t have a wife.
His wife picked out the house. His wife organized the move. His wife enrolled the kids in school.
Where was my wife?
Oh wait. That’s me.
I thought about the single fathers I knew. All of them had housekeepers. All of them had a cadre of women, employees, church members, relatives, neighbors — who showered them with dinner invitations, casseroles and assistance.
Women? We don’t need any help. We’re supposed to do it all.
And then I thought of the words of a really irritating commercial from those “enlightened” 80s.
It featured a frying-pan toting woman dressed in a Qiana dress singing — “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let you forget you’re a man!”
The implication there was that women could “do it all.” I remember that phrase. I thought it was stupid then, and I think it’s stupid now.
Doing all the work is not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very, very bad thing.
I am not ordinarily a violent person, but I found myself replaying the commercial in my mind, ending it with a scene like something from a Warner Brothers’ cartoon. The woman gets her frying pan all right – smack in the kisser.
Fry bacon up in a pan? I didn’t even know where my frying pan was, and frankly, I didn’t care.
Who had the strength to shop for, fry up and clean up after the bacon after spending all day earning it? And that “never letting you forget you’re a man” thing? Forget it, you bacon-eating bum!
Of course, the commercial wasn’t aimed at women. It was aimed at getting men to buy a perfume they hoped would transform their ordinary woman into a Martha Stewart Living Doll.
I bought pre-cooked bacon, called up a single dad and got the name of his housekeeper.
She starts Thursday.
Sugar and Spice Bacon
- 1 pound bacon, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
Mix cinnamon and sugar. Cut bacon in half, crosswise. Coat bacon in sugar mixture. Place on baking sheet, twisting each piece. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. Watch carefully as sugar burns easily.
Meet the Arla Sisters
“I really hope this doesn’t offend you,” the lady from New York wrote, “but I think the fact you and your sisters are named Karla, Sharla, Marla and Darla is HILARIOUS!”
“Yeah, we think it’s hilarious too,” was my reply. “Hi-larious.”
Actually, it is. Well, maybe not hilarious, although I could see how someone from New York would think so. Having rhyming names does come in handy for those “Let’s share something about ourselves with the group” situations that seminar leaders are so fond of. Sometimes it becomes the subject of discussion.
“Hello. My name is Karla, and I have three sisters, Marla, Sharla and Darla,” (the sound of amused murmuring.) “Our middle names kind of rhyme too. Karla Jo, Marla Jan, Sharla Nan and Darla DeAnn.” (Louder murmuring, gasps of incredulity and outright laughter, followed by, The Questions.)
Are y’all twins?
No we aren’t. We aren’t even quadruplets.
Did your Mother plan it that way?
Amazingly enough, she did. As a child, growing up in an ordinary family with unimaginative non-rhyming names such as Gladys, Mary, Marie and Louise, she dreamed of one day having four daughters, spaced two-to-three years apart, and giving them names so unique and wonderful that they’d never struggle to come up with an ice-breaker at a party! And so, she did.
She had seen the name Karla somewhere (probably in a novel condensed by Reader’s Digest) and thought it sounded “interesting.”
Jo was the name of her favorite character in Little Women, and my father’s best friend’s name was Joe Bill, so she named her first daughter Karla Jo.
When her second daughter was born, she saw the name “Marla,” thought it was unique. Plus, it rhymed with Karla. Karla Jo, Marla Jan. How cute!
Sharla probably received her name simply because it rhymed with the other two. In fact, my mother probably just made the name up.
Mother faltered a little with the fourth and final “arla.” Enamored of the name “Deanna,” she wanted to give it to her fourth daughter, if indeed, the fourth baby turned out to be a girl.
My father intervened. “You’ve gone this far with it, you can’t quit now,” he told my mother. “If three of them rhyme and the fourth one doesn’t, she’ll feel left out.”
Quite an astute observation coming from someone who always spelled my name with a “C.” But I digress.
So the fourth daughter was named Darla DeAnn. The last of the rhyming Whiteheads.
What if your parents had had a boy?
My dad says he would have named him Willie. Willie Whitehead. I think he was kidding. Let’s hope so.
What if your parents had had a fifth daughter?
The suffix, “arla” can be applied to many consonants producing an endless variety of names. In the event that we were ever to appear as characters in a daytime drama, my sisters and I came up with rhyming names for our evil twins — Garla, Harla, Smarla and Tarla.
Are there any benefits to having rhyming names?
Well, in addition to the sheer entertainment value, as children, when my mother called one of us to come do some unpleasant chore, we had a good excuse for not paying attention to her, i.e., “I didn’t come because I thought you said ‘Marla’.”
Unfortunately, my mother, a very clever woman, outsmarted us by occasionally rewarding the one who finally responded with something good, say, a candy bar or a new package of crayons. I learned a lot of good mothering tricks from her.
Our names are also a good memory game that friends, relatives and even perfect strangers never seem to tire of playing. “Sharla, Marla, Karla, Darla … No wait. Don’t tell me! I want to see if I can get them in order.” Bonus points were awarded for reciting the first and middle names correctly.
Did your mother ever get your names mixed up?
Everyone gets our names mixed up. WE get our names mixed up. I don’t know how many sentences I’ve started with “Dar … I mean Mar … I mean SHARla …” Very frustrating.
And then there are conversations such as this. “Hello, my name is Karla DeLuca, I’m here to pick up a gift that my sister, Marla, ordered for our sister, Darla.”
Blank stare from sales clerk, then “You’ve got sisters named Marla and Darla?”
“Well, yes, and another sister named Sharla, but I’m in a hurry and…”
“Are y’all twins?”
Alphabet Soup
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 1 and 1/2 cup water
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 large carrot, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. olive oil
- 2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 3 ounces alphabetini pasta
In a large saucepan, bring broth and water to a boil. Add bay leaves, onion, carrot and garlic. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add chicken, cook and stir until golden brown.
Add chicken and pasta to soup; simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes, or until pasta is cooked. Remove bay leaves before serving.
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