The No Brownie Birthday

Today is the Captain’s birthday and he’s not getting a brownie.

I blame it on Mrs. Williams. She was my third grade teacher. Up until third grade, I loved school. I was all about fat crayons and recess and seeing if Dougie Jenkins would really eat the prunes off of everybody’s plate during lunch.

Then in third grade we started learning things. Other things than what happens when you eat 26 prunes at a time, which would technically count as biology and not comprise a major part of my career path, which was Major League Baseball. Either that or ballet. Turns out I never took a dance lesson, but I could hit a line drive that would give Dougie Jenkins an extra navel if he didn’t hotfoot it off the pitcher’s mound in time. Dougie dropped out of school not long after that.

Anyway, I’m not sure if we ever had fractions in Mrs. Williams’s class, but it sounds like something she would get all “it’s a party” about. So, I’m pretty sure it’s her fault.

Anyway, yesterday at work a very nice man, who isn’t nice just because he can cook or because he tells me jokes that I understand, but because he's just an all-around good guy that likes chocolate, brought a brownie to me at work. It was fairly extensive as brownies go, and made from something called scratch. I’m not exactly sure what is in scratch, but it makes terrific brownies.

So, looking at the whole thing logically, I knew I should eat that brownie before someone else came along and I had to share. But I also knew it would be good to share the brownie with the Captain, because today is his birthday. (That's where the term brownie points comes from.)

I decided to eat half and take home half. Hopefully he wouldn’t want his half, so I should probably go ahead and eat part of his half and he wouldn’t mind, and it would keep the scratch that was in it from going bad.

So I took a bite.

And another bite.

And one more bite.

And a series of nibbles.

Eventually his half was a good deal smaller than my half (the technical term "smidgeon" might apply) except there wasn’t any of my half left to compare. So if there was only one half, there was really only one brownie and shouldn’t I get half? I tried to work out the mathematical equation on my napkin, but new math can get really complicated when you have to carry a one in the fudge column. So I ate the rest of the brownie.

Mrs. Williams, I hope you’re happy, wherever you are. Now I have to find out where to get some scratch to make brownies with before the Captain’s birthday is over.

I’m fairly sure you can't find it in third grade. Maybe I'll just get prunes.

Doggerel Days

Once upon a weekend sunny
Tried to think of something funny
Searching through lines of illegible notes.
While I scrambled, thumbing pages
Looking for the laugh of ages
Came there then a scratching sound
Pawing at the kitchen door.
“Darn the doggies evermore!”

I was deep in concentration
Humor lost to contemplation
Dialogue from his Playstation
Which as parents we deplore
Curious, stilted conversation
Made me chuckle even more.

Then the doggies made their entrance
As it is in every instance
Muddy feet on my clean floor
Paws and tails were wildly flailing
Patience in persistence failing
I succumbed to waily wailing
As they muddied up the floor.
“Darn the doggies evermore!”

I lost my pen and grabbed a pencil
Wrote a tale with hands prehensile
Shining like the Christmas tinsel
Of the doggies at the door.
Lashing through the kitchen wildly
Hit a spot to put it mildly
Slid across the kitchen floor.
Dog ballet; I laughed still more
They crashed into the outside door
Thank the doggies for this lore!