Spell Bound

Now that the National Spelling Bee is in the news again and children younger than my hip replacement are spelling words like Laodicean that we all use in every day conversation (How about a Laodicean? It’s 5:00 somewhere.), I can’t help but think what would have happened if I had won the Great Spelling Bee of ’67.

The bar would be set a lot lower for the kids of today, that’s what.

And I might have been better prepared for the Embarrassing College Incident of ’81, which, as humiliating events go outranks even the Lost Bikini Top Episode of the Summer of '74, mostly because there were no witnesses to that one except family members and they don't count.

In the third grade I was quite confident since, as spellers go, I’ve always been quite adept, whereas I’ve never been as successful at more intricate endeavors, such as walking across the living room without tripping over dust. People always ask me how to spell random bits of language, and more often than not I know the answer without having to locate the bifocals I use for Googling. But even now that I’ve been out of third grade long enough for Webster to publish more editions than I have nervous tics, I’ll stop to check the spelling on the more difficult words, such as grade.

Which is what I spelled g-r-e-a-d in the Great Spelling Bee of '67, which lead to the Stunned Silence of Room 109, and my Wish I Was Dead experience of the same place and time.

Turns out that spelling itself wasn’t the source of my trouble. I can spell anything that’s necessary, which is not the case with Laodicean or with thylacine, which is some kind of doggie dinosaur that doesn’t require shots or a license or cleanup baggies since there haven’t been any for a quadrazillion years, and which put my hometown girl, Keiko, out of the running in the National Spelling Bee this year.

My trouble, as described by academies full of teachers as I wound my way through the public education maze, is that I’m a visual learner. If I could see the word, I could spell it. Now, that doesn’t seem quite fair to the other contestants, but as a listening-impaired speller, that’s a nice way to eliminate guesswork.

But the teachers always explained that I didn’t get to see the words, they only told me that as a study aid, which seemed unfair, if not downright mean of them for harping on it in the first place.

So it’s probably my third grade (which I just spelled quite properly without even a glance at the answer written in permanent ink on my palm) teacher’s fault about the college thing.

I did quite well in higher education, what with selecting English as my major because I had an active, if misdirected crush on William Faulkner, instead of a something that would prove to be profitable in the job market, and ended my collegiate career with honors and an award for the Most Outstanding English Major in the Universe.

(Actually I added the universe part after I read that it was quite common to fudge your qualifications on resumes and job applications. Since my degree was quite extraneous, I wouldn’t need either one so it made me feel one of the gang to fudge some along with the crowd.)

Even though my prize was a book instead of a shiny plaque I could hang on the wall next to my sister’s “I’m a Terrific Kid” certificate, I penned a note to the faculty of the college English Department, expressing my appreciation over the whole Outstanding thing.

And if I had it to do today, I would spell appreciation correctly. Which I didn't back then, as my advisor, the Distinguished Chair of the English Department pointed out the next time he saw me on campus. To his credit, he did not ask for the book back.

So to all those kids in the National Spelling Bee who got voted off the dictionary by words I can’t even pronounce, keep in mind that you did a great job. And long after the shine is gone from the champinship trophy and the winner spends the prize money on Webkins and Hannah Montana merchandise, you’ll still be telling folks about the Maecenas that got away.

Just a Jolly Holiday with Medication

True to tradition, my family celebrated the holiday weekend with liberal doses of picnics and prescription medication. Nothing says family fun like an undisclosed rash and a husband on muscle relaxers. I tried to schedule a major household appliance malfunction with expensive repairs as well, but it seems like no matter how hard you try, you just can’t fit everything into one weekend.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I love the outdoors. No matter how hectic my schedule may be, I try to peer outside through the dust on the living room blinds at least once a day. The stunning view of the sunshine on the amber waves of weeds helps me not to take my air conditioner with allergy filter for granted.

Given that I’ve even tailored my workout schedule (fork lifts and refrigerator bends—who put the mustard behind last month’s pot roast, anyway) to staying inside, it’s hard to fathom how I managed to cover myself in poison ivy. But cover I did, wall to wall, ankle to elbow. It's still showing up, so I can't name all the body parts affected specifically yet, but it's already passed PG-13 and is steaming upstream toward an R rating.

A friend told me to rub banana peels on the rash to stop the itching. I tried that but I still itch, and now I’m craving cornflakes. And I’ve got a Chiquita sticker on my fanny pack. I've also got a husband who is out for the count when it comes to spreading on calamine lotion.

Which brings us to our feature presentation.

Experts polled at my kitchen table this morning agreed that after the age of 50 it is best not to attempt dangerous feats best left to a professional, such as rerouting the plumbing or bending over to tie your own shoelaces. Bill Dear, a daredevil of the highest order, having not long ago fixed the dryer all by himself with only one extracurricular part procured from ebay, chose to pick a holiday weekend when all doctors are off practicing surgery on home-grilled two-inch thick fillet mignons smothered in steak sauce and sautéed onions, to test his limits by bending over on purpose.

The resulting muscle spasm extravaganza threw him to the floor like Luke Skywalker on the receiving end of the Emperor’s wrath and required the requisite holiday visit to Urgent Care where he twice found himself on the business end of a pointy needle full of “happy place” medication in the form of muscle relaxers and pain killers.

Once back at the house, the patient began to exhibit mannerisms that lead us to believe the medication was taking affect and so, as they often will, the resident young people, with the spirit of their youth and the logistical problem solving ability they’ve learned in classes of higher mathematics and unsupervised homeroom, set up the video camera to photograph our hero in the throes of muscle relaxer mellowness. I didn’t even realize he knew the Lumberjack Song in German.

Of course, in keeping with the festivities, the toilet overflowed, the dog chose that moment to indulge in a particularly ambitious case of diarrhea, and the cat threw up on the living room carpet.

Given the nature of our traditional holiday celebrations, I’m considering signing up to work overtime on the Fourth of July.

But for now, I’m faced with a more urgent problem.

Should I go straight to You Tube with the Bill Dear footage or save it for a special Xtreme Edition of Funniest Home Videos?

Periscope of Time

Daddy served in the Pacific theatre during World War II on a submarine that was more like a prize in a cereal box than the sleek, nuclear vessels of today. When I was a kid I thought he was a great adventurer, having seen both oceans during his travels. It never occurred to me there might be more to see; more water than two oceans could hold.

My boundaries were limited by the amount of space I could imagine, and I was already pushing the envelope when I went the distance to the dime store downtown. Dad would laugh and shake his head at my excitement when he talked about being stationed on Hawaii or seeing Mount Fuji through the periscope.

“Did you ever see the Hollywood sign?” I asked once, my voice filled with wide-eyed wonder.

He grinned. “If I had, I’d have been going the wrong direction.”

When I was older, he sent for a copy of a Reader’s Digest book that showed all sorts of wonderful places to visit. That book visited more exotic getaways on the way to my mailbox than I've seen to this day. I’m not sure I believed it was real.

One year after I was grown and somewhat of an Authority on The Way Things Are, Son One conducted an interview with his Papa for a school report. He didn’t ask the same questions I’d gone on about as a kid, “Where did you go?” and “Did you bring anything back in case you ever had a little girl that needed a surprise?”

He asked about torpedo tubes, leaky oxygen bottles, depth charges, and assorted unpleasant ideas that made the war seem uncomfortably close and noisy. It finally seeped into my me-generation brain that if the folks causing the unpleasantness on top of the water had taken a page from Luke “Stay on Target” Skywalker’s book, I wouldn’t be around today to tell clever stories about other people’s adventures.

For the first time, I realized that tour of duty didn’t mean tour of luxury vacation spots. It meant that he did indeed bring something back from his travels. Memories.

My memories come from sitting in the comfort of Daddy’s lap and listening to tales of a faraway war that was already won. His memories come from standing in the face of danger and showing his heart.

His memories are of men who gave their lives so that I could look at pictures in a book and have hopes of traveling to them one day. Of men and women that knew what it meant to serve with mind and body and make whatever sacrifice it took to preserve the minds and bodies back home.

My heartfelt thanks go out to all of these men and women. And to you, Dad.

On Memorial Day and every day.

Dog Days

While I chased word count, Son One, The Zombie Slayer, whiled away his time decapitating The Undead.

“I killed another one,” he announced in the same tone of voice Howard Cosell would say, “another knockout for Mohammed Ali.”

He gestured smugly toward the TV. “I cut his head off and he can’t see me. Now he’s wandering around the swamp attacking cattails.”

I left a participle dangling while I paused. You can kill the undead? I realize we’ve made great strides in modern medicine, but this seemed a bit farfetched, even with insurance.

I paused in my frenzied attack on the keyboard and peered at the television screen. Zombies were meandering about their virtual world, fencing with random inanimate objects. “Why don’t you finish him off?”

Meanwhile the headless nonhuman took a futile swing at some nearby foliage. A battle ensued during which the zombie filled the air with random slashes from a deadly blade before tripping over a strand of swamp grass.

“I can’t do it. He’s just too cute.”

This from the kid who teased me unmercifully when I cried at the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials. He also remained unmoved when the uncles took out the barn—and themselves—in the movie Secondhand Lions. But let a herd of headless zombies thrash about in the tall grass and his heart turns to mush.

I shrugged and returned to my composition. Everybody has a purpose. Mine is writing essays about unsuspecting family members. His is cleansing the world of the undead.

About that time the dog entered the room, circumnavigated the video game area like Magellan on a world tour, heaved a sigh, and collapsed on the floor at my feet. If he were a teenager he would have rolled his eyes and sighed, “There’s nothing to do in this house.”

I cleared my throat. “Back in the real world, the dog wishes someone would take him on a walk.”

Son One paused in the midst of mayhem. “I’d do it Mom, but I’m at a critical point. I must turn people into chickens.”

I saved my document and retrieved the big Lab’s leash from a hook near the door. “C’mon fella,” I said as he pulled himself up like the Kraken rising from the ocean floor.

About that time I heard frantic barking and saw a virtual dog run up to greet my son’s character onscreen. He was cute enough, but didn't have near the tail action that comes with a real life Labrador.

“You can play with a fake dog, but you can’t take your lifelong companion on a romp?”

“There’s a big difference, Mom.” Son One paused as he decapitated another zombie. This one doesn’t chew up my shoes if I forget to take him outside.

“Maybe not. But this one can leave surprises you can’t get off with a power blaster.”

Son One pushed a button and the screen went blank. He met the dog at the door and they disappeared down the driveway together. If the boy were canine, his tail would be wagging, too.

It just goes to show that you can always improve yourself with a little Lab work.

Happy Birthday, Ry.

Turning Over a New Loaf
by Amy Mullis

My plan for the New Year was to introduce a wholesome influence into the family’s diet, but it’s impossible to provide healthy meals when one child thinks eating tofu is a Fear Factor challenge and another child only eats food that is covered in pizza sauce or stays crunchy even in milk. They rejected whole wheat bread like it was liver loaf, and the time I bought skim milk at the grocery store, I got voted off the kitchen island. Cooking healthy meals for the family shouldn’t be like an episode from Survivor: Spinach Casserole.

My kids are convinced that broiled chicken is a bird that stayed in the farmyard without SPF 30 and died from exposure. Their idea of fine dining is to supersize their fries. I can’t imagine where they got this attitude. Sure, I believe the road to down below is paved with exercise videos and sugar substitute, but that’s just geographical fact. I haven’t eaten a dessert in six months that wasn’t presorted into 100 calories packages.

“What’s for supper?” Son One strolled into the kitchen licking the icing off a cinnamon bun and tearing open the paper on a candy bar so sticky it looked like it was made of library paste. This kid’s idea of healthy eating is frosting a salad with honey-mustard dressing.

“I thought we’d combine two of your favorite food groups for something new.”

“We’re having Italian and Mexican? Cool!”

“Those aren’t food groups. They’re nationalities. We’re going to have a healthy meal.”

“Did somebody give you a bushel of cast off zucchini again?” Zucchini is the stray cat of the vegetable world. It always shows up on my doorstep at dinnertime.

“You’re so suspicious,” I said, nonchalantly raking chopped zucchini into the dog’s bowl. “I thought I’d make that baked chicken they had at church.”

“You mean Death Chicken? Count me out.” He peered into the freezer and extracted a pizza that had been in limbo so long the pepperoni was petrified and the cheese came in crystals instead of shreds.

“It’s not really death chicken. We just call it that because it’s so easy to make that a lot of times we’ll take it to someone who’s had a death in the family.”

“Yeah. Ever wonder what they died from?”

“Probably from eating zombie food that was in the freezer so long all the vitamins turned to dust.” I managed to sneak a few small zucchini out of the bag under cover of the answering snort.

He peeled off the wrapper and shoveled a layer of ice from the crust. My kids think perma frost is a basic building block of the food pyramid. “What do I set the oven on for undead?”

“Very funny. It wouldn’t hurt you to try something that’s good for you.” Just then the dog wandered through the kitchen to check his dish for food molecules left over from breakfast. He picked up a zucchini slice, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then looked at me reproachfully and spit it out on the floor.

“See, even Bo hates vegetables.” Son One plopped the pizza down on the oven rack. It sounded like he’d launched a hubcap at the dumpster.

I put my hands on my hips. It was time for decisive action. “From now on we’re watching what we eat.”

“You’ll need to spring for something with a wide angle lens,” Son One mumbled, scraping up a shred of zombie cheese off the counter with a fingernail.

“I’ll start by cleaning out the refrigerator. We’re going to throw away everything that’s bad for us.” I held up a pack of withered bologna. To me, lunch meat is the gastronomic equivalent of an Elvis painting on velvet. Everyone thinks it will gain in value the longer they save it and their children end up using it as a gag gift at a holiday party and complaining about their inheritance.

Next came a cheese product that had so many additives it no longer qualified for any of the food groups. When I finished cleaning out the refrigerator, all that was left was a mushy, brown stalk of celery left over from Thanksgiving and a frozen diet dinner left over from the healthy eating binge I launched after the baby was born.

Just then the baby trotted through the kitchen jingling his car keys, and clutching a breakfast pastry made of simulated cookie dough and synthetic chocolate frosting. Eighteen years after his first bowl of sugar frosted cocoa bombs, artificial flavoring is still his favorite food group.

“I’m late for class. What’s for supper tonight?”

I smiled sweetly and chopped the remaining squash into miniscule green bits.

“Not zucchini.”

“Good. Last time I slipped mine to the dog. He had indigestion for a week.”

So I’ll cover it with fat free cheese. They’ll never recognize it.

Squashed

My plan for the New Year was to introduce a wholesome influence into the family’s diet, but it’s impossible to provide healthy meals when one child thinks eating tofu is a Fear Factor challenge and another child only eats food that is covered in pizza sauce or stays crunchy even in milk. They rejected whole wheat bread like it was liver loaf, and the time I bought skim milk at the grocery store, I got voted off the kitchen island. Cooking healthy meals for the family shouldn’t be like an episode from Survivor: Spinach Casserole.

My kids are convinced that broiled chicken is a bird that stayed in the farmyard without SPF 30 and died from exposure. Their idea of fine dining is to supersize their fries. I can’t imagine where they got this attitude. Sure, I believe the road to down below is paved with exercise videos and sugar substitute, but that’s just geographical fact. I haven’t eaten a dessert in six months that wasn’t presorted into 100 calories packages.

“What’s for supper?” Son One strolled into the kitchen licking the icing off a cinnamon bun and tearing open the paper on a candy bar so sticky it looked like it was made of library paste. This kid’s idea of healthy eating is frosting a salad with honey-mustard dressing.

“I thought we’d combine two of your favorite food groups for something new.”

“We’re having Italian and Mexican? Cool!”

“Those aren’t food groups. They’re nationalities. We’re going to have a healthy meal.”

“Did somebody give you a bushel of cast off zucchini again?” Zucchini is the stray cat of the vegetable world. It always shows up on my doorstep at dinnertime.

“You’re so suspicious,” I said, nonchalantly raking chopped zucchini into the dog’s bowl. “I thought I’d make that baked chicken they had at church.”

“You mean Death Chicken? Count me out.” He peered into the freezer and extracted a pizza that had been in limbo so long the pepperoni was petrified and the cheese came in crystals instead of shreds.

“It’s not really death chicken. We just call it that because it’s so easy to make that a lot of times we’ll take it to someone who’s had a death in the family.”

“Yeah. Ever wonder what they died from?”

“Probably from eating zombie food that was in the freezer so long all the vitamins turned to dust.” I managed to sneak a few small zucchini out of the bag under cover of the answering snort.

He peeled off the wrapper and shoveled a layer of ice from the crust. My kids think perma frost is a basic building block of the food pyramid. “What do I set the oven on for undead?”

“Very funny. It wouldn’t hurt you to try something that’s good for you.” Just then the dog wandered through the kitchen to check his dish for food molecules left over from breakfast. He picked up a zucchini slice, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then looked at me reproachfully and spit it out on the floor.

“See, even Bo hates vegetables.” Son One plopped the pizza down on the oven rack. It sounded like he’d launched a hubcap at the dumpster.

I put my hands on my hips. It was time for decisive action. “From now on we’re watching what we eat.”

“You’ll need to spring for something with a wide angle lens,” Son One mumbled, scraping up a shred of zombie cheese off the counter with a fingernail.

“I’ll start by cleaning out the refrigerator. We’re going to throw away everything that’s bad for us.” I held up a pack of withered bologna. To me, lunch meat is the gastronomic equivalent of an Elvis painting on velvet. Everyone thinks it will gain in value the longer they save it and their children end up using it as a gag gift at a holiday party and complaining about their inheritance.

Next came a cheese product that had so many additives it no longer qualified for any of the food groups. When I finished cleaning out the refrigerator, all that was left was a mushy, brown stalk of celery left over from Thanksgiving and a frozen diet dinner left over from the healthy eating binge I launched after the baby was born.

Just then the baby trotted through the kitchen jingling his car keys, and clutching a breakfast pastry made of simulated cookie dough and synthetic chocolate frosting. Eighteen years after his first bowl of sugar frosted cocoa bombs, artificial flavoring is still his favorite food group.

“I’m late for class. What’s for supper tonight?”

I smiled sweetly and chopped the remaining squash into miniscule green bits.

“Not zucchini.”

“Good. Last time I slipped mine to the dog. He had indigestion for a week.”

So I’ll cover it with fat free cheese. They’ll never recognize it.

The Legacy

As far as legacies go, my tastes lie with something simple, like a check. Or stock. Or heirloom china. Unfortunately Mama wasn’t the heirloom china type. What I got when she departed for the peaceful place where mothers don’t have to cook, clean, or say, “If I told you once, I told you a million times,” was not the inheritance I assumed was my birthright. What she left me was the very thing I was the least qualified to handle. Wisdom.

Giving me a lapful of life lessons is like tossing me a copy of the Atkins diet and a size six sheath dress and telling me the party starts at seven. You may as well shove the plans for building a biplane into my arms and tell me to be in Paris by midnight. When it comes to legacies, it’s best to just go ahead and hand me a gold bar.

Now that I’m in the stage of life where good advice usually involves a recipe loaded with fiber, I realize that what Mama left me was a handbook for life. Thanks to the seeds my mom planted in the rocky garden of my mind over the years, I’ve sailed through many of the stormy seas of life without having to evacuate to life boats. Turns out Mom knew best all along. Here are Mama’s Rules to Live By—along with some of my own observations for those who, like me, have trouble following directions.

1. There is something to love in every person. However, there are some people who hide that something really well. Actually, Mama just said that first part. I learned the second part from my sister.

2. If you rip a page out of your brother’s comic book, he can rip a page out of yours. This is a mother of four’s version of The Golden Rule. I learned to treat friends, family, and their possessions with respect. And I’ll never know what happened to Archie and Jughead that day at Riverdale High.

3. Give a child two cookies; one for each hand. This is a smart idea because it keeps the child busy for twice as long, diverts him from "helping" with your biscuit dough and prevents you from having to walk every morning for a week to work off two cookies that you would have eaten to relieve stress if your child had two hands free to plunge into the dog's food.

4. Don’t honk your horn at anybody. At first I assumed this was Mama’s version of traveling etiquette, but now I realize that she understood road rage long before anyone held up traffic trying to read road signs through the wrong part of skinny designer bifocals.

5. Always have a skill you can fall back on. By this, I know now that she meant a skill that will continue to be of service to the Community of Man. Unfortunately the skill I chose was typing, which caused typewriters to immediately become extinct.

6. If you’re not tall enough to see out the car window, sit on a pillow. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Even the Marines agree with her.

7. If something particularly unpleasant is happening to you, there’s probably a lesson involved. Wade through a puddle or two on the linoleum and you’ll remember to let the new puppy out. You’ll also remember to buy a mop.

8. Don’t sell things you can give away. That might not make sense in an e-Bay world, but knowing that someone who needs it will have a warm coat for the winter goes a long way toward offsetting the thrill of bagging $1.50 for your old hula lamp in an online auction.

9. Play to win. Unless that gets in the way of playing for fun. When playing Scrabble with an elderly woman who can’t see past her elbow, give her a break if she thinks she drew five blanks. Come to think of it, that’s how Mom always won at Scrabble, so there’s probably an extra lesson tucked in there.

10. Always take time to watch the birds at the birdfeeder. Time spent with nature is a peace of mind investment. And last winter, a tiny chickadee who muscled his way through a crowd of rowdy cardinals to have lunch gave me some great ideas for handling the next family reunion. And the big project due at work.

11. Don’t worry, it’ll get worse. This was my mom’s slogan. When I was three and ran to her with a skinned knee, she said it. She was right. I broke my arm. When I was thirty-three and getting divorced, she said it again. And soon my kids became teenagers. But by then, I had it figured out. If things can get worse, the problems that seem overpowering right now aren’t the end of the world. Things can also get better. So if teaching two teenaged boys to drive and adding them to my insurance is the worst life has to offer, I can handle it.

But I sure wouldn’t turn down a check.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Pressing Matters

Last weekend I was sick. As nature dictates when a crisis occurs, the dryer broke, the dishwasher turned sulky, and the oven raced from 0 to 5000 degrees like it was on the appliance Autobahn. I should have expected it. Nothing in the house is the same when the Mama is out of sorts.

I realize now that I should have taken time to explain to the appliances that I was planning on taking sick leave, but who knew? That sort of thing is not built into the job description, and besides, appliances are too sensitive these days anyway. Who can deal with a microwave that flings its turntable across the kitchen like a Frisbee when you push the wrong button?

When I was a kid, Mama’s washing machine could jog around the back porch with a load of delicates like it was the pajama marathon and be ready to take on sheets and towels without even stopping to empty the lint trap. On the other hand, my washing machine is very particular about how things are packed and when and where extracurricular items like, say, laundry detergent or fabric softener are added. And don’t even think about taking it for a spin unless you’ve distributed your blouses carefully in a crisscross design. One shoulder pad out of place and you’re unbalanced. Then the thing buzzes in an insulting manner like the wrong answer signal on Jeopardy.

I can remember back in the precomputerzoic era, Mama peacefully ironing basketfuls of clothes while we watched Password together on our black and white television set. Our clothes were fresh and clean back then, hanging neatly pressed in rows in our closets. These days I can Twitter on my cell phone and catch up with movie reviews on my laptop while I yank the clothes out of the dryer and toss them at the kids to put away.

But just now I’m huddled in front of a screen full of static showing on my television that needs a digital converter, my computer won’t load You Tube because my dial up connection is flaky, and I’m wearing my last clean pair of jeans because even with special delivery, the part I bought on e-Bay to fix my dryer won’t arrive until tomorrow. My damp, wrinkled clothes are hanging like monkeys in a rain forest from shower curtain rods, unused televsion antennae, and taller family members.

I wish Mom were here. She could show me how to turn on the iron.

Jeffrey Makes the Cake

As a tribute to Moms everywhere, I'm spending this week exploring motherhood with old and new stories. This tale is a favorite of mine because the Little Boy in the story, who is now 18 years old and studying robotics in college with an eye toward taking over the world, has learned, under my care and tutelage, to call for pizza all by himself.

“Mom, you have to make a German Chocolate cake for my social studies project.”

“Excuse me little boy, but I’m neutral. I do not sew, neither do I bake.”

Further negotiations found me and Little Boy at the kitchen table surrounded by supplies. We have eggs, vegetable oil, box of cake mix, and can of frosting. I do not want an “A” badly enough to make this cake from scratch. Nor do I want to miss out on seeing this kid cook. It’s the principle of the thing. Sooner or later he’s going to have to face the consequences of volunteering. Don’t bang the can on the counter unless you’re willing to bake the biscuits.

Besides, I am a firm believer in teaching children to make their own way in the world. Survival skills are necessary for kids who live in a world that evolves so rapidly that the prize in the cereal is obsolete by the time you open the box. With this concept in mind, and with the attitude of a pioneer, I decided it was time to teach my son to cook.

“These are modern times and there’s not always going to be a Pizza Hut on the corner,” I intone sternly as we head into the kitchen. Sure, they were harsh words, but sooner or later a kid has got to learn more in the way of survival skills than how to microwave popcorn. I’m sure Orville Redenbacher is a nice guy and a snappy dresser, but he should not be a young man’s role model in matters involving the food pyramid.

The Kid is 12. He is cooler than Doublemint gum. At present, he is wearing his cooking clothes, which are pretty much the same clothes he wears for everything else: socks without shoes, blue jeans with the top button missing, red silky boxer shorts, and no shirt.

“Why wear a shirt?” he shrugged when I send him to get dressed. “If I get anything on my skin, I can just lick it off.” He runs his tongue around his mouth for practice. This kid will never need a compass to draw circles in math class.

Once things get underway in the kitchen, the kid discovers that he loves to cook. It’s like working in a secret underground laboratory only without the eye of newt. His favorite part is cracking eggs. He’s been practicing his cracking while I don protective gear. Removing a Kevlar glove, I scrape all the spare egg slime into a bowl and plan an omelet for supper.

“Okay,” I call out in my best Martha Stewart voice. “What’s the first thing we do?”

“Eat the icing!” he chimes.

I stop and consider. It’s not too late to solo on this project. Although I might not bake like Betty Crocker, I can mix like a cement truck. But the principle of the thing still dangles like a participle above my head.

“Read the directions.”

“Preheat the oven,” he says slowly, underlining the words with egg yolk.

“Wrong. Wash your hands.” I cringe as he wipes egg yolk racing stripes down the legs of his jeans.

“With soap and water.”

Under my patient instruction, and with an extra helping of creative engineering, a cake rises haltingly from the crumbs of dry ingredients.

“No, No, No! You do not beat the cake batter like it’s the last horse around the bend at Churchill Downs.”

He gazes up at me with puppy dog eyes. His face and chest is dotted with chocolate splashes. He looks like a Dalmatian. “It said to mix well.”

“Mix. Not flog. We want to blend the ingredients, not torture them.”

After taking out our inner hostilities on the mixture, we pour the batter into the pan.

“Do we have to put it all in?” The kid’s cake mix targeting computer has been activated as I can see by the tongue that is already swimming in circles around his mouth.

“We have to put enough in to make a cake. You barely covered the bottom of the pan.”

He licked the spoon. “You said it was a sheet cake.”

“Well you short-sheeted it. Pour the rest in.” He poured in another teaspoon of batter.

“Enough?”

“We want a layer cake, not a pancake.” He eyed the batter, judging just how much would be left at bowl-licking time. I sensed mutiny hovering on the horizon.

“I have an idea. Why don’t you make cupcakes and eat one early?”

Later, I watched The Kid lounging in front of the television, licking the icing off of a tattered cupcake liner. He grinned, licked chocolate off his chin, and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Sometimes the most important lesson is establishing priorities. I’m a slow learner, but this kid is a great teacher. Especially when the lesson involves chocolate cake.