The 25-Cent Dividend: A Hockey Billet Dad’s Survival Guide

I wrote this post a few months ago, but as time goes by, it feels almost like yesterday.

With the house filling up with hockey players—all three arrived yesterday—my life has officially relocated to the grocery store. My brain is currently a constant loop of logistical questions:

  • Do I have enough snacks for the kid with the tree nut allergy?
  • Does anyone here survive solely on chocolate milk?
  • Does tortellini count as a “high-performance fuel,” or are we strictly a spaghetti operation?

Between the uncertainty and the sheer volume of food required to fuel teenage athletes, I’ve hit Aldi, Sam’s, Winco, and Costco a combined five times this week. The frequency usually drops once the season gets going and I learn their eating patterns, but for now, I am a professional errand runner.

The Aldi Encounter

My first stop at Aldi this week offered a rare chance to be a decent human being. As I was walking out with my non-bagged groceries (I refuse to pay for bags—it’s the principle of the thing), I saw an older lady parked in a handicapped spot. She was visibly struggling to get out of her car; it was clear she needed something to bear her weight before she could even make it to the cart corral.

As I popped my trunk, I called out, “Just hold on! I’ll bring you my cart as soon as I get it unloaded.”

She looked at me, worried, and replied, “But I don’t have a quarter.”

(Ah, the Aldi quarter—the “annoying” way they force us to return our carts. I get that it saves them from paying someone to chase rogue carts in the parking lot, but I don’t have to like it.)

“Not a problem,” I told her. “Just give me a second to clear this out.”

I backed the cart toward her, handle-first. As she grabbed hold, she sighed, “It is terrible to get old.”

Knowing the truth in that, I just smiled and said, “I’m hoping my kids are there for me when I get there.”

The Payback

Zoom ahead to today.

I walked up to the store, quarter gripped in my hand and ready to claim my cart, only to find one already “checked out.” The previous shopper had left their quarter in the lock.

Now, I could have overanalyzed it, but I chose to take it as a sign. It felt like the carts had orchestrated a small tip for my “General Expenses” fund. I took that shiny coin as a little wink from above—as if God was saying, “I saw what you did the other day. You have your moments!”

If only I could get a few more of those moments… I have a feeling I’m going to need a lot more quarters to get through this hockey season.

The Two‑Tub Manifesto: Ice Cream Logistics & Ethics

In our house, ice cream isn’t dessert — it’s infrastructure, and I’m the one managing it. The kids and the hockey boys treat it like a competitive sport, my wife and I have slowed to a gentleman’s pace, and somehow I’ve ended up as the guy responsible for keeping everyone’s emotional stability frozen at 0°F.

We are a Blue Bell household. People can make their Braum’s arguments, and that’s fine — for road milkshakes. But if it’s living in my freezer, it’s the Little Creamery in Brenham or nothing. Standards matter.

The System

To keep the peace, we run a strict Two‑Active‑Tubs policy. Two flavors in play, two waiting in the wings, and no one gets to freelance. Active tubs must be mainstream — Cookie Dough, Cookies & Cream, the classics that won’t start a family meeting.

Introduce fruit, nuts, or a limited edition with a personality? The whole system collapses. Suddenly, we’re a four‑tub household. The boys are “just sampling.” I’m standing in front of the freezer like an overwhelmed air‑traffic controller.

We also aren’t above strategic bribery. Warm brownies are the standard lure for the “I’m not having dessert” crowd. But even we have lines: you don’t pair a brownie with Banana Pudding ice cream. That’s chaos disguised as whimsy.

The Hardware & The Heat

We’ve retired the traditional rounded scoop. Whether it’s Blue Bell’s density or our freezer’s commitment to cryogenics, the scoop just bends in protest. We are an Ice Cream Spade family now. I didn’t choose this identity; physics assigned it to me.

But even the spade has limits. A brand‑new, deep‑frozen half-gallon is basically a dairy glacier. Is it ethical to give the tub a three‑second microwave warm‑up just to break the surface tension? I’m not taking a position. I’m just saying philosophers have written entire books about less.

The Moral Dilemma

The real test of character happens at the sink. When you’re the only one getting a bowl, you face two paths:

  • The Saboteur – he assumes no one else wants any and drops the spade straight into the bottom of a dirty sink like a barbarian.
  • The Citizen – he rinses the spade with hot water and sets it in the dish rack for the next person, because we all have to live here.

Will I revoke ice cream privileges from the Saboteurs? No. But will I sigh loudly enough for them to hear from the living room? Absolutely. Better them than my wife.

The Death of My Digital Unicorn

This is a further explanation of one of the titles included on my “semi-retired” business card. (Crypto Yield Farmer)

I have another blog dedicated to the seedier parts of my existence, but this particular facet of my personality requires a formal explanation.

Before you read any further, please remember: I attend church regularly. I am a responsible citizen. We pay our taxes, we give to charity, and we even host hockey boys during their junior season. My daughter still lets me babysit my granddaughter, which is the highest character reference I can offer.

I say all of that to soften the blow of my darkest secret: I bought—and still hold—cryptocurrency.

The Oklahoma Learning Curve

If you’re still reading, it’s likely out of pity. This “investment” has caused me more stress than almost anything else in my life. I thought moving to Oklahoma was a challenge, especially learning the local terminology. In the Midwest, you have a “basement” to hide in when the sky turns green. In Oklahoma, we don’t have that luxury; we have “storm shelters,” which are essentially just holes in the ground where you go to think about your life choices while the wind howls.

But even a spring tornado season is less volatile than my portfolio. To put it bluntly: The crypto hurt my feelings.

The Rebound Relationship

This wasn’t even my first digital heartbreak. My foray into crypto was actually a “rebound” relationship. I had been “dating” an algorithmic trading bot—a passive investment strategy that was supposed to make money while I slept. Instead, it just gave me insomnia.

When the bot turned toxic, I thought I’d get smart. I told myself, “I’ll do this crypto thing the right way.” I even tried to hedge my bets, telling myself that as long as one stayed up while the other was down, I’d have something to cheer about.

Then, they both took a synchronized dive into the abyss. That was the moment I realized that semi-passive, “out-there” investment strategies are not my spiritual gift.

The Cost of the Unicorn

With us both being so close to “official” retirement age, I’ve realized the crypto game is better reserved for people who still have something to prove. I’m just a guy who turned a hobby into a sophisticated way to lose money.

My wife, bless her, has been through 35+ years of my “bright ideas.” She knows I bought a couple of unicorns. She also knows the unicorn is life-support, and the veterinary bill isn’t going to be cheap. Yet, she still chooses to focus on my good decisions. Her inability to remember a movie plot for more than a week serves us well here; she looks at the red charts and seems to think, “I remember you mentioning something about that… as long as the financial advisor isn’t screaming, don’t worry about it.”

Choosing the Right Legacy

In the end, this isn’t really a story about blockchain; it’s a story about destiny. I wasn’t meant to be a digital tycoon. I was meant to be the grandpa who majors in family, not finances.

The potential gain of a “moon shot” isn’t worth the stress it subtracts from my Sunday afternoons. I will choose my grandkids over my Coinbase account every single time.

That said, if I ever get my hands on a time machine, I’m going back three years to find my younger self. And right before he pulls money out of our sensible, boring financial advisor’s account to buy a digital coin, I’m going to smack him. Really, really hard.

Mostly Harmless: A Defense of the Kind-Hearted Annoyance

This is a further explanation of one of the titles included on my “semi-retired” business card. (Reminder Wrangler)

My wife has a habit of looking at me and saying, “Can you remind me to call so-and-so tomorrow?” or “I have a doctor’s appointment; don’t let me forget.”

She seems to believe I have a dedicated “Spouse Schedule” processor running in the background of my brain at all times. In her mind, she’s delegating a task. In my mind, she has just hit “Install” on a piece of high-persistence malware.

Being a human reminder is a high-stakes game. It comes with two distinct curses: the crushing dread of forgetting, and the social suicide of over-reminding.

The “Nag” Sacrifice

Admittedly, smartphones have chipped away at my market share. But even in a world of haptic feedback, I still find ways to offer my “invaluable” services. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become so committed to the role that I have officially slipped into the “nag” category.

I am a human pop-up ad. I am the “Update Required” notification that you can’t swipe away. I have willingly tanked my reputation, descending into that murky social basement occupied by influencers and other bottom-dwellers of the untrustworthy food chain.

Why do I make this sacrifice? Because when she says “Remind me,” it is a binding contract. That initial charge supersedes any later, frustrated comments like, “Okay, you can stop reminding me now!” I bought in until the objective was completed, honey. I’m a shareholder in this phone call now. Why can’t you stay as committed as I am?

The Glory of the Checkbox

I understand she has a full-time job and “life distractions” that are several priority levels above our current joint focus. But for me, the task stays on my mental dashboard until the very last second.

I can’t take it off the list until I look at her and start to open my mouth. Usually, before a single syllable escapes, she snaps: “It’s done. Okay?”

Victory. With that comment, I get to check two boxes. First, the “self-tickler” part of my brain finally stops itching. Second, and more importantly, I go to Google Tasks and watch my “Completed” count climb from 627 to 628. For a semi-retired grandpa, that is a statistical triumph worth celebrating.

Bring Back the Nag

My life isn’t overly complicated, and I like it that way. It’s these small, irritating transactions that give me value.

While your phone may give you a reminder from the cold obscurity of a pocket, you should consider bringing a kind-hearted nag back into your life. We are mostly harmless, we take your chores more seriously than you do, and we only want the best for you—mostly so we can finally stop thinking about your dentist appointment and move on with our lives.

The “Get-To” vs. The “Have-To”

I’m currently coming off a 60-day streak from my other blog, and I’m protective of that momentum. With “Grandpa’s Daycare” eating up about 30 hours of my week, I never truly know which day will be the one where the wheels fall off. My goal for this past weekend was simple: bank a three-day buffer of posts so I could breathe.

I missed that goal by 100%.

It started Saturday at 4:30 AM with an airport run for my wife. Here’s what 4:30 AM looks like: three cars on the road, darkness that makes 7:30 AM look like high noon, and a version of me with zero sarcasm loaded. I’m a sarcastic person by nature — it’s basically my factory setting — but apparently it doesn’t boot up until after sunrise. My wit didn’t come back online until I was halfway home, alone, with no one to appreciate it.

That low-grade exhaustion shadowed me the rest of the day. My son and his fiancée came over for quality baby time, and my job quietly shifted. My future DIL is anxious to start her own family, so when she’s in the room, my grandpa instincts take a back seat. My real role became reading the baby’s cues and redirecting — making sure the DIL banked every possible minute of the Ellie experience she craved. I’m not just watching my grandkid grow. I’m watching my future family grow.

I wasn’t exactly winning “Host of the Year,” but the baby stayed alive, so I’ll call it a win.

Then came Sunday. And the Eggplant Experiment.

My son wanted to make Eggplant Parmesan, which — fine. Noble ambition. The problem was his vision was… limited. One small eggplant will not feed a crowd. Bread it, fry it, done. No sauce. No provolone. No oven time. Now, most of his cooking lives in the Instant Pot or air fryer, clean and contained. Hand him a pan and grease, and you’ve introduced variables: splatter, smoke, and a look on his face that says he’s improvising in real time. Sensing a nutritional void and a quiet anti-eggplant contingency in the house, I scrambled. I resurrected some chicken parm from Thursday night, prayed I could add enough juiciness to make the “recycle” respectable. By then, the endless volley of “Where is the…?” and “How do I…?” questions had made any hope of retreating to my den to bank those blog posts evaporate.

Dinner blurred for me. After the dishes were cleared, my reward for the day was another airport run to pick up my wife. I felt a little guilty about leaving the house mid-activity, told the kids so, and then spent the drive enjoying fifteen minutes without anyone asking me where anything was. Getting her home before 8:30 PM is a world better than an 11:00 PM pickup. Some wins are quiet.

Later, sitting with zero banked posts and approximately zero relaxation, I chewed on that question from my future DIL — something rooted in our faith, about whether certain things we’re called to do feel more like obligation than privilege. “Do you get it?” The contrast she was drawing: some things in the Christian life aren’t always fun, but with the right mindset, you get to participate in something most people don’t even realize is available to them.

As I thought about this question, I reviewed my weekend. Do I get it?

Yes. I get a life so full of stories I don’t have time to write them all. I get to be a dad and a granddad multiple times a day. I get to cook for people I love — and not every time I do, do I feel grateful, I’ll be honest. But if I have to cook anyway, I might as well frame it as a “get to” rather than a “have to.” The food tastes the same either way. The choice is just which version of yourself shows up at the table.

When you’re exhausted, it can all feel like a “have-to.” But it’s a “get-to” that most people would pay a premium for.

The Morning Scrimmage: Why Every Marriage Needs a “Billeted” Punching Bag

My wife and I have been married for nearly 35 years, and I’ve learned one absolute truth: Marriage isn’t just about love; it’s about managing the “chirps.”

I am a natural-born chirper. If I have a witty observation or a mild grievance, it bounces around my skull like a puck rattling around a dryer drum until it finds an exit. My wife, however, is a “slow-thaw” morning person. She is not a fan of dialogue—and certainly not banter—until she’s well into her second cup of coffee.

For the sake of our domestic harmony, I have to get those chirps out of my system without bumping into her morning rhythm. Fortunately, we have “The Boys.”

The Peanut Butter Defense

Currently, our kitchen is populated by billeted hockey players. They are the perfect targets. They provide the friction I need to reach my “optimum flow” without waking the dragon — my wife, who is lovely precisely because she hasn’t spoken yet.

Take, for instance, the “Bagel Bandit.” This kid has a specific talent for “nutty perfection.” He’ll smear peanut butter on a bagel and then, as a final flourish, leave a thick glob on the knife before dropping it in the sink. Within minutes, that peanut butter undergoes a chemical bonding process that makes it “dishwasher-proof.”

On a morning when my wife is still on her first cup, I’ll drop a line on the Bandit:

  • “The dishwasher is a machine, son, not a miracle worker. Clean the blade.”
  • “If you lick that knife clean, the dishwasher will thank you for your service.”

The “Agile” boys—the ones with a high hockey IQ—will fire back. The “Slow-Mo” rookies just nod and say, “Okay, next time,” while they internally calculate how many minutes until practice.

The Buffer Zone

There is a method to my madness. My wife knows I like to banter, and as long as I don’t go too hard on the kids, she lets me run my plays. In fact, she’s grateful. By the time she’s ready for conversation, I’ve already burned off my sass on a 19-year-old defenseman.

The boys are the grease that keeps the marriage rolling through the years. When my wife is an “obstacle” to my flow—meaning she just wants to eat her toast in peace—the hockey boys step in to cover the difference.

The Sentiment in the Sarcasm

I’ll admit, the sentimental side of this gets hidden under the layers of trash talk. But it’s there. My wife gets the lion’s share of my heart, and whatever is left over goes to these boys who have become part of our daily chaos.

We had a visitor the other day who mentioned he does the dishes for his billet mom because she’s been ill. I looked at my most “agile” resident and asked if he’d ever consider such a noble act.

He didn’t miss a beat: “Well, if you were gravely ill, I might consider it. But since you’re healthy, I guess I’ll just keep letting you sharpen your wit on my dish-loading skills.”

After he made his comment, we exchanged a glance. We both knew the chirping wasn’t entirely one-sided.

The Long Game

How long will we keep these “billeted victims (their term, not mine)”  around? Only until the grandchildren are old enough to hold their own in a verbal sparring match. I need a house full of relatives with finely honed wits to keep me humble.

Until then, I’ll keep chirping at the boys. It keeps my mind sharp, the sink (mostly) clear, and my 35-year marriage exactly where it needs to be: in a state of graceful, quiet, peanut-butter-free peace.

The Accidental Friday Tradition

The Hockey Boy Breakfast started innocently.

When we were billets (We billet the hockey boys, and we call them “our billets.” They might call us billet parents. Everyone is flexible with the words.) for the Lone Star Brahmas in North Richland Hills, we had four boys staying with us for the season. Feeding four teenage hockey players breakfast on a Friday morning seemed reasonable. Noble, even.

Somewhere between “Sure, you guys can come over” and “Why are there 11 giants in my kitchen?” the ranks swelled.

By mid-season, 8–12 boys would drift in every Friday after their morning skate before a home game. They didn’t knock so much as appear, all six-foot-three in team-issued hoodies with some smaller guys with equal appetites.

And just like that, it became a tradition.

The Menu (We Don’t Cut Corners)

The core lineup has never changed: bacon, pancakes, eggs, and orange juice.

This is not a minimalist operation.

When egg prices briefly required a small business loan, we did not flinch. We accepted a few donations from parents, yes — but corners were not cut. If anything, we leaned in harder.

Time crunch? French toast casserole goes in the oven.

Waffles? Tried it. The logistical gymnastics required to produce enough waffles for a hockey roster was not worth the microscopic increase in joy. Teenage boys are equal-opportunity syrup consumers. Soft pancake, crispy waffle — their gratitude level remains statistically identical.

Whipped cream in a can? Available. Hot sauce for eggs? Upon request.

We are not amateurs.

Stovetop Combat

In the early days, bacon was war.

Two pans on the stove. Sometimes, three if sausage joined the party. Six pounds of bacon. Occasionally more. Cook time: 1.5+ hours with constant monitoring.

The boys would consume nearly all of it with the detached appreciation of men who have never purchased groceries.

What they did not see was the slow accumulation of bacon grease. When you don’t drain it after every batch — because you’re in a hurry and slightly overconfident — it builds. It speeds cooking. It also splatters like it holds a personal grudge against your forearms.

There were casualties. Mostly mine.

The Upgrade

Now that we’re billeting in OKC, I’ve made two major adjustments.

First: thickness. We have graduated from budget grocery bacon to Sam’s Club extra-thick, this-is-a-commitment bacon. We have standards.

Second: the oven.

Two cookie sheets. Parchment paper. 400 degrees. Allegedly 20 minutes. (This is optimistic with thick bacon. I am just quoting my search results.)

Is the timing perfect? No. Is it more predictable than grease artillery fire? Yes. Do the boys care how I cook the bacon? No. Do the boys care how thick the bacon is? They would eat bacon steaks if I could cook them!

All they care about is the smell and the fatty flavor of the thick bacon.

When they walk in after morning skate and the entire house smells like bacon, their mood shifts instantly. You can see it. Hockey intensity melts into something softer. They sit around the table, start loading up, and become calorie-intake machines.

That smell is the real welcome sign.

Why We Keep Doing It

Does it cost time? Yes. Does it cost money? Also yes.

If efficiency were the goal, this tradition would have died in week three.

We do it because these are our billet boys.

Sure, I like to imagine one of them occasionally thinking, “Wow, we’ve got great billet parents.” That might happen.

But let’s be honest. The more likely recruiting pitch is: “Hey guys, my billet parents make this killer thick bacon on Fridays. You should come over.”

And that’s fine with me.

When you feed 10–12 teenage hockey players carbs and protein in your kitchen, something happens. You learn names, personalities, and which one of them will absolutely forget to load their fork in the dishwasher.

And that night at the rink, it changes how you watch.

“Hey, dear — that guy was at our breakfast this morning.”

Suddenly, it’s not just a roster. It’s our boys.

The Warmups (And the Leftovers)

Sometimes there’s an afternoon encore.

When our granddaughter gets dropped off on Friday, pancakes mysteriously appear on her high chair tray. My son-in-law leaves with a plate of protein and carbs because he knows better than to refuse free bacon.

And if there’s an especially heroic amount left over? It gets chopped up for pizza night. Chicken BBQ and meat lovers, no bacon left behind.

What Sticks

Long after the season ends, I have a feeling the boys won’t remember the exact score of some random Friday night home game.

But they might remember the smell of thick-cut bacon when they walked in the door.

And that’s worth every splatter.

The Price of a Name (and a Perk)

I proposed to her on my birthday thirty-five years ago. It was the best gift I ever got, but it also kicked off a season of high-stakes negotiations. Back then—before kids, mortgages, minivans, and the general sense that I should stretch before standing up—we hit the big question: What are we calling ourselves once we’re married?

She was a freshly minted attorney, which meant this wasn’t the old-fashioned “she’ll take your name” layup I thought it might be. I tried logic. I tried the “think of the children” argument. I probably even tried sounding worldly and modern, which I absolutely was not. But attorneys don’t accept logic as payment. They want terms.

So, I started mentally inventorying what I could offer in a trade. She didn’t smoke, so I couldn’t nobly quit smoking. She wasn’t a vegetarian, so I didn’t have to pretend tofu was a personality. But there was one thing she loved with the kind of devotion usually reserved for religion or college football.

Coffee.

She treated coffee like a constitutional right—after dinner, with dessert, on weekends, on weekdays. Meanwhile, I had never intentionally purchased a cup in my life. The only coffee I’d ever choked down was during an in-home sales job when a customer brought me a piece of apple pie and a black coffee. I wanted the sale, so I drank that lukewarm battery acid like it was a dare, praying my stomach wouldn’t stage a coup on the drive home.

During those months of seating charts and cake tastings, I figured coffee might be the ultimate bargaining chip to seal the deal on the name. It turns out there was no real wrinkle at all; she would’ve taken my name without requiring caffeine-based reparations. She just wanted to see me sweat a little.

But here’s the twist: I ended up liking the stuff.

Thirty-five years later, I like it for breakfast with my peanut‑butter bagel. I sometimes like the quiet of an afternoon cup with something sweet. And most of all, I like bringing her morning refills. It feels like one of those tiny, everyday vows you keep long after the wedding is over.

In the end, she got the name, I got a lifelong habit, and we both got the better end of the deal.

The Fridge Commissioner (Revised Season)

My wife is definitely trying to lose weight, and I’m always “open to the idea” myself. That’s the problem with warm-ups — leftovers, for the uninitiated. They’re the enemy of dieting. They sit there in the fridge, looking innocent, but they know exactly what they’re doing. They whisper. They tempt. They multiply.

And because I hate throwing food away, I’m the one who ends up eating them. I haven’t had a protein shake for lunch in over two weeks. Not because I’m committed to a new lifestyle, but because I’m cleaning up “a little of this and a little of that” like a man who’s been drafted into a war he didn’t sign up for.

This is how I became the Fridge Commissioner — the guy who makes the final call on what gets saved, what gets pitched, and what gets eaten out of sheer guilt. It’s not glamorous work. No one thanks you for it. But if the containers start overflowing, I’m the one who has to step in before the fridge becomes a crime scene.

Meanwhile, the hockey boys are still here. They like home-cooked meals, and we like cooking them. The day of preparation is never the issue. It’s everything after that.

In past seasons, the boys helped with warm-ups. They’d eat anything. They were like friendly garbage disposals with good attitudes. And here’s the thing I didn’t realize at the time: an empty fridge meant something. It meant we’d made something worth eating twice. It meant I was good at this.

This year? Different story.

Unless it’s pizza or a particular favorite, the containers just sit there. The boys seem to have more money for eating out than I ever did at their age. They roll in with bags from places I didn’t even know teenagers frequented (Still plenty of Chipotle, too.) . And they shower constantly — ten times a day, by my estimate. If they get up on the wrong side of the bed, that’s apparently grounds for a shower. If they breathe wrong, shower. If they think about showering, shower.

We’re compensated for feeding them and providing water access, but still — the warm-ups remain untouched. Which means I have no idea if Tuesday’s chicken was actually good or just good enough to eat once.

It wasn’t always like this. When our kids were younger, we had a whole system. If we cleaned out a bunch of warm-ups in one night, there was a reward. Empty containers meant progress. Some of the food combinations that ended up in the same bowl should never have been introduced to each other, but it didn’t matter. Dad was happy, the fridge had breathing room, and the kids got Dairy Queen or homemade blizzards. Warm-up bait worked every time.

These methods do not work on hockey players.

The only strategy that works with them — and with my wife dieting — is simple: only make what will be eaten that night. No leftovers. No warm-ups. No fridge archaeology. It does mean that someone wandering downstairs at 9:30 (usually a hockey boy) won’t have many options, but that’s what chicken nuggets and the air fryer are for. They’ll survive.

I’ve also had to accept that I sometimes care about the meal more than they do. Hockey boys don’t always say “great meal” or “thanks for cooking.” They’re not rude about it, they’re just teenagers. But I used to get the feedback anyway. Empty containers were the review. If the warm-ups disappeared, I’d won.

Now I make one meal and move on. No encores. No second-day votes of confidence.

Still… some of our meals make really good warm-ups. And that’s the tragedy of it all.

The Retirement of a Workhorse: A Eulogy in Carnitas

The spices were piled on the pork butt with the jalapenos on top.

Sunday’s lunch was a milestone. Our youngest grandchild was dedicated at church—and while she is currently our only grandchild, we speak of her in terms that suggest a full basketball team is waiting on the bench for the coach to send them in. My daughter and son-in-law were surrounded by family, and the day felt appropriately momentous.

My wife had volunteered to host the meal, and we eventually settled on our signature carnitas. It’s a “start it the night before” kind of meal, which is much kinder to the nerves than trying to crank out chicken on a grill after church. I even snapped a photo of the full crockpot for the family cookbook I’m assembling, blissfully unaware it would be the machine’s final portrait.

The Last Supper (Lunch really, but “supper” sounds more foreboding)

The meal was a triumph. Eleven of us (counting the guest of honor) kept the conversation lively while a significant portion of the carnitas disappeared.

The Great Escape

As the party wound down and the cleanup began, the grace extended to our seasoned crockpot was forgotten. The front panel sticker—the one that actually tells you what the buttons do—finally gave up the ghost and peeled off.

But the real issue wasn’t aesthetic. My wife discovered a pool of carnitas broth on the floor when we got up in the morning. This pork shoulder had more fat than usual, and as it rendered overnight, the broth level rose. The lid no longer sealed tight against the pot. Once the liquid peaked past the dome, the leak allowed the brothy contents to escape.

To the Picnic in the Sky

This crockpot had served us for at least sixteen years. We brought it from Ohio. It outlasted its predecessor, which met its end when I dropped a frozen pork loin into it and cracked the crock clean in two.

Fate—or perhaps a premonition—had intervened a week earlier when we spotted a deal on a slightly larger model at Sam’s Club. With a successor already waiting in the wings, we sent the old crockpot to that great church picnic in the sky.

No gold watch. Just gratitude for sixteen years of carnitas.