Sandwich Miracles

My last entry was for the kiddies. It was a fun little snack to nibble on while riding in the car on the way to a lake. This next entry is going to be a bit more serious.  It is about time that we talk about miracles.

Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” I know where I stand after this experience. Where do you stand? Einstein lay the gauntlet before all of us, luckily you will have this story I am about to tell you.

*Disclaimer – The events of this story are %100+ factual. As there was one other human witness, Marc Reilley, you may ask him to confirm the details. There was also an angel named Peitro watching over the event to make sure every bit of it was miraculous. You may contact his supervisor, Archangel Michael, or his boss, God, for any further questions.

My cousin Marc and I had just finished a night of light socializing, or it may have been the night we won the balloon volleyball tournament at the elderly home. We won on account of them not being able to dig very well. Either way, we had worked up quite an appetite. We said, “Look out Wendy’s, here we come.” As you could guess, we went to Wendy’s. But, did Wendy’s look out like we had told them to? You tell me…

As we pull up to the speaker, Marc read the menu twice over like it was the reading comprehension section of the SAT. I knew what I was getting already; A chicken sandwich(from the dollar menu) with cheese and a chicken sandwich(from the dollar menu) without cheese. You ready for Marc’s order? I hope you have TIVO, because you are about to miss Dr. Phil for this one.

One Double Stack

One Frosty

One Dollar Menu Fries

One Chicken Nuggets

We get to the window and they have to give us one those bags with the handles, which really does a number on our self esteem. We kept swearing to each other that we never eat this much, or this late. And in our minds we have decided not to finish the last bites of our food later just so we can say that we didn’t eat it all.

We get home and emptied the bag out like it was Halloween. Marc reminds me to check my food for razor blades. I grab my chicken sammy, but wait, this mamajama is huuge. Marc was talking to me but I completely tuned him out. Peeling the wrapper away, I felt like I found the last Golden Ticket. A slice of FDA approved  American Cheese lay peacefully across the chicken patty like a blanket. Not just any piece of chicken, however. A piece of chicken from the regular menu. The one that cost like $4. I payed $1.39 for this one.

(You may not want to push your jaw back up yet, because when I tell you that I wasn’t dreaming, it is only going to fall back down.)

My mind was beating and my heart racing. No, it was the other way around. See, I get excited just writing about this. The only other time I have EVER gotten this excited and confused was when I wrote two separate book reports on the same book for one class. I had forgotten that I had written a report on Prince Caspian for a class at the beginning of the semester and so when it came time to write another book report, I chose Prince Caspian again. I got a worse grade on the second report.

Back to the sandwich. I stopped Marc from talking. I showed him what had happened. Two tears dropped from one of his eyes, which was strange because I have only ever heard of the single dramatic tear. Marc, being the respecter of beautiful, fine things, requested that I did not eat the chicken sandwich, but rather have it frozen or cast in bronze to be shared with the world. He talked about how we would go on speaking tours and teach everyone about sandwich miracles.

We basked in the prospect of bringing joy to other people for a moment. For, while closely observing the inside of the sandwich, I think I saw the word “Carpe” spelled out in the mayonnaise. It reminded me of the phrase “Carpe the day”, which I think means “Eat something during the day.” I realized that miracles are supposed to be celebrated, not fossilized.

Miracles are active all around us. Choosing to ignore them takes 10X the amount of energy than simply acknowledging them. 3 generations ago, my ancestors were not even on the same continent. Plants eat light and water. I rocked a child to sleep last week. Did I mention that we live on a gigantic floating rock? Have you ever loved or forgiven someone?

In conclusion to my story, I ate the sandwich and it was amazing.

It Must Be Nice

“It must be nice,” My cousin said to me the other day when he walked into my room and I was still sleeping. I felt a little defensive because he said it with a tone of superiority, like he was some uber human that requires 3 hours of sleep. It was like he had already woken up and read half the Bible. “It must be nice” was my anthem for his every move the rest of the morning(morning for me, it was practically nighttime for him).

If he had the remote, “It must be nice, Mike, getting to watch whatever YOU want.” If he had to go do some stuff for school, “It must be nice to go do some stuff for school.” Checking out babes on facebook, “It must be real nice to be into that 35 year old.” “You mean, 32?” “It must be real nice to be into a 32 year old that looks 35.”

I love that phrase now. It must be nice.

One of the chefs said to me the other night, “It must be nice to be rich and go travel” after I told him that I was going to Spain later this summer. I say, it must be nice to be him. He gets 2 shift beers and usually works 2 shifts. That’s 4 shift beers. I get 0 shift beers. It must be really nice to get shift beers. To remind him of what no shift beers tastes like, I filled his Budweiser bottle with Ginger Ale. (Imagine if there was a smiley face that had devil horns. I would have put it here.)

People from the middle of the country tell me that it must be nice to live on an island. I tell them it is in some ways, but it must be nice to live in the middle of the country. Why? Here’s a few reasons; You don’t get sand in your car after you go to the beach. You don’t have a weird tan line on your foot because you don’t get to wear flip flops all of the time. You don’t have to wake up in the morning and wrestle with whether or not you have the goods to go European comfortably.

I have this Speedo question hanging over my head every day. It’s probably because I hang a Speedo hanging over my bed. I treat it as a visual metaphor. I will always have to face the question if the question is literally facing me. Yes, I also painted a question mark on the Speedo.

It is nice to be me.

I am very blessed. I have a lot of family around me. I have even more family about to come visit. My girlfriend is coming here soon, with her beautiful daughter. This will be nice, because then people will finally stop thinking I am gay. Which hasn’t been a bad thing, because I have sensed that a lot of people have wanted to make out with me, but I am not into that. I am going to do things like hold her hand and put my arm around her when people are watching.

A lot of people will probably point as us, because we are going to look super sexy together. I am not sure how I am going to convince people that she isn’t somebody that I have not paid in order to not look gay. I will probably have to hack into her bank account and give people printouts of her most recent transactions. That will really shut them up.