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.

The Ellie Effect

Being a grandpa to a granddaughter who’s still measured in months is not a role for anyone who enjoys a slow pace. Ellie is almost nine months old, and she’s developing so fast that last month’s toys are basically wall décor. Her mind is making these huge leaps, and the adults in the house are scrambling to keep everything one step safer than it was yesterday. We never know when the next mental or physical jump is coming, only that it’s coming sooner than we think.

Right in the middle of our living/playroom sits a table that has become Ellie’s personal stage. It’s the perfect height for a pre‑walker with ambition. She’ll grab a hand, a toy, or just her own determination to hoist herself upright. Once she’s standing, her eyes sweep the surface like she’s conducting a security inspection. What can I reach? What belongs to me now? Does that orange thing look like it might taste good?

I used to think she was studying the objects. Now I know she’s studying us. She’s calculating whether she needs to stretch a little farther — and whether we’ll stop her before she claims something she shouldn’t.

For the past few weeks, my wife and I played a ridiculous game of “table shuffle.” Candles, screwdrivers, pens, coasters — anything remotely interesting or dangerous — got nudged from one side of the table to the other depending on where Ellie approached. We convinced ourselves this was a strategy. Really, it was two adults procrastinating while a baby outsmarted us.

Eventually, we surrendered. The table was cleared. A clean slate. A blank canvas for Ellie’s daily experiments. Every morning when she arrives — and I’m with her 25 to 30 hours a week, so I’ve seen this show plenty — we scatter her growing collection of pre‑toddler toys across the surface. Her eyes light up as her fingers make contact with whatever object she has decided she must possess. It’s her stage, and we’re the stage crew.

But the table era won’t last forever. I got a preview of the next chapter the other day. I was helping her walk — hands in mine, feet doing that determined little stomp — when she stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She planted her feet, put her hands on the first step, and looked all the way to the top like she was sizing up a mountain she fully intended to climb.

That’s when I realized it: the Ellie Effect isn’t slowing down. As she gets stronger and braver, the house will get safer for her and a little less convenient for the rest of us. And honestly, that’s fine. She’s not going to savor this moment for long, and neither should I. She’s training for her next adventure. I’m just lucky enough to have a front‑row seat.

Big Bones and the BMI That Never Stood a Chance

My mother always had an explanation ready for why I never fit the BMI chart. She didn’t need science or statistics — she had something better: maternal confidence. She’d look at me, shrug like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and say, “You just have big bones.”

That was her entire medical opinion. No copay required.

And honestly, she wasn’t wrong about the spirit of it. I’ve never fit the chart. Not as a kid in a small Christian school where the gene pool was basically a puddle. Not in the country high school where the puddle got wider but not deeper. Not even after Basic Training, when I briefly achieved the closest thing to “normal” the BMI would ever allow.

My job growing up was simple: be big, look athletic enough, and protect my brain from whatever forces were trying to keep it from reaching its potential. After Basic Training, the weight came back like it had been waiting in the car the whole time. It’s been remarkably consistent ever since. My clothes from years ago still fit. My doctors have stopped giving me the “you should lose some weight” speech. At this point, my body is about as predictable as my electric bill or my bedtime.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that not fitting the chart doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. Sometimes the chart just wasn’t designed with you in mind. Sometimes the chart is wrong. Sometimes the chart needs to mind its own business.

Everyone has something that knocks them out of the norm. Mine just happens to be visible on a scale. Yours might be hiding in your personality, your habits, or that one hobby you don’t tell people about until you know them well enough.

These days, my attempts to lose weight fall into the “sure, why not” category. Occasionally I even “sympathy diet” with my wife when she decides she likes food more than me — which isn’t true, but chocolate is a close second. Mostly, though, I’ve learned to lean into the areas where I can be judged on merit instead of metrics created to make everyone feel like they’re supposed to fit into the same box.

I’m not my BMI. I’m not my weight. I’m not even my mother’s “big bones,” though I’ll admit the line has aged surprisingly well.

So no, I don’t fit the chart. I probably never will. But the chart never really knew what to do with me anyway.

Hockey Boy Broth

When we moved to Oklahoma to be near our soon‑to‑arrive granddaughter, we bought a house with space for a backyard hot tub. A few months later: hot tub, pergola, grill, generator — the full “we can survive anything but a direct tornado hit” package. Part of the deal was that my wife would handle the chemicals. This was a great plan until it wasn’t.

Somewhere between the third and fifteenth water test at the pool store, I became the reluctant caretaker of the tub. Over time, I learned enough to keep the water clear and the employees from greeting me by name. I even became a semi‑competent “hot‑tub whisperer,” spraying filters, checking levels, and pretending I knew what alkalinity actually meant. My wife and I enjoyed the tub a few nights a week, letting the jets work on our aging joints. The jets are its whole personality.

Then the hockey boys arrived.

They live with us during the season — not our kids, but “our kids” for those months — and they discovered the hot tub like explorers stumbling upon a natural spring. They didn’t use it constantly, but when they did, they treated it like a giant, silent crockpot. No jets. No circulation. Just two teenage athletes sitting motionless in 104‑degree water, marinating like slow‑cooking briskets.

I tried to explain — gently at first, then with the passion of a man who has seen too many water‑testing printouts — that the jets are not optional. The jets keep the nasties moving. The jets are the sanitation system. The jets are the difference between “spa” and “soup.”

They nodded politely and continued soaking in contemplative silence, scrolling through hockey reels, texting, singing, or simply existing in the tub like two large dumplings. If I’m lucky, I might get thirty seconds of jet activity before they settle back into their preferred mode: simmer.

And that’s when it hit me. Chicken broth. Beef broth. Vegetable broth—all available at Walmart. Human broth? Not on the shelves for a reason. Yet here I am, steward of the simmering teenage stock, responsible for skimming the surface and restoring balance to the backyard cauldron.

Still, as much as I complain — and as much as my wife wishes I’d complain less — I’m glad they’re here. Their presence breaks up the quiet, gives the house a pulse, and reminds us that life is more than routines and chemical levels. I’d rather manage the broth from the hockey boys who live with us for the season than from strangers we don’t love.

So I sigh. Then I smile. Then I go check the chlorine.

The Hot Tub Hero (Or: Why I Should Never Be Left Alone With a Bucket)

Yesterday’s grand group project quickly devolved into a solo mission of poor life choices.

The original plan was simple: freshen the hot tub water by draining 50% of it. In my head, I had a literal squad of “strong young men” to handle the heavy lifting. Specifically, my son and two local hockey players. But as it turns out, young athletes are surprisingly fragile, and my son has this pesky habit of “working for a living.”

Between one hockey player claiming the “achy flu,” the other nursing a wrist strain from the weekend’s festivities, and my son refusing to fake the “Super Bowl Flu” just to haul water for his old man, I was left as a department of one.

The Methodology of a Madman

There were two ways to handle this.

  1. The Siphon Method: This involves a hose, gravity, and the vast amount of patience required to watch water move at the speed of a tectonic plate.
  2. The “Active” Method: This involves a “big strong guy” (hypothetically) dipping 5-gallon buckets into the tub and marching them to the driveway like some sort of suburban sherpa.

Being famously impatient and unwilling to have the tub out of commission for more than a couple hours, I chose the bucket brigade. I figured I’d just use my knees, stay balanced, and knock it out.

Math vs. Reality

Why was I doing this? Because of the cyanuric acid, or as I like to call it, “The Chemistry of Too Much Fun.”

I filled the buckets in groups of four. I told myself, “This isn’t so bad,” for exactly three minutes. Then, reality set in. My math was optimistic: in a 400-gallon tub, four 5-gallon buckets should be 5% of the volume. Simple, right?

Wrong.

  • My Chest: Started screaming by the third round.
  • My Shoulders: Notified me they were no longer “willfully participating” and were now working under extreme duress.
  • The Water Level: Decreased at a rate significantly slower than my remaining will to live.

I started taking “strategic breaks” to play chess on my phone, watching my near-retired body slowly go on strike. It turns out that 5% math only works if you fill the buckets to the brim, which I stopped doing about ten minutes in because water is heavy and I am a mortal man.

The Merciful End

Eventually, my wife appeared and pronounced the project “done.”

Was this because we hit the 50% mark? Or was it because she reached her limit for my “exhaustion whining”? The world may never know. By that point, the water was too low to even get a full scoop. I didn’t “quit”—I simply decided that my time was no longer being spent effectively.

Lessons (Hopefully) Learned

Next time, there will be a pump. The process will look like this:

  1. Attach hose.
  2. Turn on pump.
  3. Read a book for two hours.

The only muscle I plan on straining next time is my eye muscles as I scan the pages of a novel while a piece of $50 machinery does the job I was clearly never meant to do.

What Two Hours of Productivity Looks Like When You’re the Only One Who Can Hear

I have been up for two hours. What do I have to show for it? I have had breakfast and consolidated two half-empty peanut butter jars into one.

And there is the reason I got up early in the first place.

In my sleepy stupor with new earplugs firmly secured, I heard a beep-beep. Was it something making odd noises after the generator kicked on? No, the clock wasn’t blinking. Must have been in my dream…beep-beep. This definitely was not in my dream.

Jeff, my son, had called the night before as his new house around the corner had just had its alarms tested. “Were they going to go all night?” he wondered. Give it 10 minutes, I told him. Should just be the standard test. Ironically, our alarm—which had been off the ceiling all during our cold weather a couple weeks back—decided this morning was the perfect time to remind me why I pulled it off in the first place.

I wandered to the garage to get the ladder in my underwear, realizing I would not be crawling back into bed. Carefully placed the ladder in front of our bedroom door. Removed the alarm, disconnected the batteries. Sat on the couch for a few moments to ensure no other annoying utterances were issued by any electronic device in our home.

At least I woke up for another day.

With coffee brewing and pajamas stowed until this evening, I cursed the fact that I am the adult in the house with the best hearing even with earplugs in. I cursed the hour of sleep I would miss. Then I did my daily chess puzzles to try to wake my brain up. I immediately thought about the afternoon’s potential to grab a nap.

Yes, I can make it through this day.

Grills, Grandkids, and the Smoke Detector Saga

The Great Grill Misstep

Last night started innocently enough: we grilled up a feast of brats, hamburgers, and some andouille sausage. As usual, after taking the meat off the grill, I cranked up the heat to incinerate any lurking germs. It’s my personal version of a germ exorcism. Normally, I remember to turn the grill off afterward. Normally.

Fast-forward 18 hours. I’m feeding my granddaughter a bottle, gazing out the back window like a serene caretaker, when my brain suddenly asks, “What are those heat ripples coming off the grill?”

Cue the realization.

I stepped onto the porch, and it hit me like a ton of bricks: I never turned the grill off. The gas knobs were still wide open, and when I lifted the lid, I was greeted by a mountain of white ash. My grand plan to “clean it later” was quickly followed by a mental debate: Do I tell my wife about this? Spoiler alert: keeping secrets isn’t my strong suit.

Smoke Alarms: The Plot Thickens

Barely an hour later, with my granddaughter swaddled and happily snoozing in her crib (a rare victory in our new “Grandpa’s 30-hour-a-week daycare” schedule), I finally sat down at my computer. That’s when it happened. The smoke detectors went off.

At first, I thought, Oh no, not this again. A few months ago, we had a smoke detector malfunction, and the screeching symphony was unforgettable. Hoping for a quick resolution, I checked the baby—still sound asleep—and sat back down.

Then the alarms screamed again.

The baby stirred, letting out a pre-nap protest, while my heart sank. Time to play Smoke Detector Roulette. Armed with a ladder, I started disconnecting units. Which one of the seven is the ringleader? Who’s the boss of this noise parade?

Two attempts later, I finally silenced the screaming. Relief washed over me. Then paranoia set in: What if this wasn’t a malfunction? I rushed to check on my granddaughter. No signs of carbon monoxide poisoning. She woke up soon after, demanding bottle number two, blissfully unaware of Grandpa’s mini heart attack.

The Reconnection Gamble

Once the baby was settled, it was time to reconnect the smoke detectors. Hooking them back up wasn’t the hard part—my fear was that one rogue detector would throw a tantrum in the middle of the night. And let’s be honest, my “middle-of-the-night hugs” are more like aggressive shoves.

Theories and Lessons

So, what triggered all this chaos? My best guess is that the unvented grill might’ve released something the detectors didn’t like. Or maybe it was dust. Or humidity. Or, let’s face it, the universe just wanted to spice up my day.

Whatever the cause, I’d like to file a formal request with the smoke detector gods: next time, can you schedule your shenanigans around the baby’s nap?

In the end, I learned two things: always double-check the grill, and never underestimate a smoke detector’s ability to keep life exciting—even if it’s at the worst possible moment.

Please Pass the Andy: A Branson Brew-tale

We were still figuring out the breakfast routine at our Branson hotel—you know, the kind of operation where half the guests are still wearing pajama pants at 9:30 a.m. and the other half are fighting over the last pre-wrapped blueberry muffin.

While my wife held the line like a buffet champion, I took on the critical task of table scouting and coffee procurement. Mission: caffeine.

At the coffee station, I patiently waited for the staff member who was restocking styrofoam cups—a noble cause. Once the cups were unlocked from their plastic prison, I did what any caffeine-conscious adult does: filled two cups halfway. One half with regular. The other half with decaf. Because I like my heart to beat with enthusiasm, not sprint toward cardiac arrest.

Trying to be helpful, the staffer tucked herself out of the way… directly in front of the decaf. Classic move. When she noticed, she smiled and said,
“You know how iced tea and lemonade is called an Arnold Palmer? We need a name for half-caf, half-decaf coffee.”

Without missing a beat, I agreed—because that’s a brilliant idea and my caffeine-deprived brain wasn’t ready to debate anything.

As I moved on to cream-and-sugar land, she came back and asked,
“Sir, what’s your name?”
I told her, “Andy.”

She grinned. “That’s the name! From now on, half-caf/half-decaf is officially an Andy.”

So there you have it. The next time you need just the right balance between hyper and nap time, order yourself an Andy. Born in Branson. Destined for coffee shop chalkboards everywhere.

You heard it here first. #JustAndyThings ☕