The Compound

Yeah, well, wish in one hand, crap in the other, and see which fills up first

My dad was never one of those dads you could ask for a quarter if you saw a gumball machine. Instead he had one of those black American Express cards not available to general public. Gumball machines didn’t have slots for those.

Place unopened pouch in warm water for 5-10 minutes. Unopened pouch may be laid on a warm surface. Lay unopened pouch in direct sunlight. Not much chance of that down here. Place unopened pouch inside you shirt, allow you body temperature to warm your MRE. I was surprised they left out: Place unopened pouch on ground and pee on it.

I would have rather had a dad with change jingling in his pocket; one who would have spent the last forty minutes of the world raking leaves for his kids to jump in, so that they perished in one loud, bright instant, giggles still bubbling up from their bellies, never suspecting a thing. Yeah, well. Tough luck, rich boy.

That night I dreamed of turduckens.

What is a turducken? An exclusive culinary creation available by special order from some little Cajun town down south. Entirely deboned, a turducken consists of a turkey, stuffed with duck, stuffed with a chicken, like an edible Russian nesting doll. Some were stuffed with alligator, crap, shrimp; my favorite was the traditional cornbread variety.

Most dads had hobbies that they passed down to their sons; hunting, fishing, auto repair. Dad’s hobby was nuclear war, which meant his sons knew everything about it.

I called out in Mandarin, “Si san ba.” Years ago I’d told her it was an affectionate term for a “big sister.” I’d have to find a new phrase if she ever discovered what nasty word it actually meant.

The people who didn’t eat meat wondered how to get out of partaking in what was obviously the pièce de résistance of the Rex Yanakakis Christmas Eve Dinner. The animal-rights people cringed, not wanting to voice their objections for fear of pissing off Clea Sheridan Yanakakis, who was very generous to their causes with her husband’s money. The people who did eat meat tried to ignore the jittery noncarnivores surrounding them.