March 28, 2011

God's own peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Originally published October 5, 2003

Here's another Acidman recipe. You can ask Quinton and Jack about this one, too. It's damn good.

* Take two slices of Captain John Derst's "Good Old Fashioned" bread out of a loaf and put the slices on a paper plate. Don't forget to put the twist-tie back on the bread package or it'll go all moldy on you.

* Go to the oven and turn it on full-blast "BROIL" setting.

* Slather one slice of bread with a generous amount of Peter Pan Crunchy peanut butter. And I ain't talking about a little dab of peanut butter here. Lay it on at LEAST 1/8" thick all over the bread.

* Break out the Smucker's Grape jelly and slather the other piece of bread with that. You don't need to lay the jelly on as thick as you do the peanut butter, but you should be generous.

* Put the two pieces of bread together, making sure that you make them match. Nothing fucks up this sandwich worse than an upside down or bass-ackward piece of bread on one side. We need SYMMETRY here.

* Throw the sandwich (along with a couple of others, too, if you are feeding more than one person) into the oven and leave the oven door cracked so that the burner never turns off.

* When the bread toasts a nice, golden brown on top, take a spatula and flip the sandwich.

* Toast the other side to match the front, then remove the sandwich from the oven and serve on a paper plate with a big glass of cold milk. Kids love that. I do, too.

If you really want to experiment with this sandwich, put a slice of cheese between the peanut butter and jelly. You won't believe how good that tastes.

I'll post more recipes from my cookbook later.

March 21, 2011

the things I do

Originally published October 8, 2003

I throw a lot of my private life up on this blog. I get a lot of criticism for doing that, but I don't really care. There is no doubt in my mind that if I didn't have this blog to vent my emotions, I would have been dead a long time ago. I write what I feel like writing and I put up with the trolls, the hate-mail and the hurt feelings I cause. Wanna know MY attitude about it?

Fuck 'em all.

I don't call this site "Gut Rumbles" for nothing and I don't blog as "Acidman" by accident. I stay pissed off a lot. When I am pissed, I write about what has me pissed off. I don't worry about repercussions, because I should not be alive today. I had a fucking doctor tell me that. Everything that happens to me from here on out is either gravy on my grits or another load of bullshit dumped in my lap. Either way, I can handle it. I am free.

Peering first-hand into the abyss and being hauled back from the edge will make you difficult to embarass in the future. I am far beyond worrying about what people think of me. I go to work, do my job and still like to see a blue sky over my head. That way, I can check the exhaust stacks for dust, and schedule a baghouse changeout if I see a contrail from one of the stacks.

Goddam. That's what a blue sky means to me today. It's a good day to read the stacks.

If my daughter is pissed at me, that's okay. She spent most of her life being pissed at me anyway. If my MAMA is pissed at me, that's okay, too. Hell, it won't be the first time I've caused that.

Understand one simple fact if you read my site. I am incorrigable and guilt-free. Get used to it.

March 14, 2011

One vasectomy and a buryin'

Originally published October 26, 2002

You can read the story of a BIG OLE WUSS being plied with alcohol, then hogtied and hauled to get a vasectomy, then you can contrast HIS behavior with my stalwart display of dignity and courage when facing the same operation. I went voluntarily to have a vasectomy.

After my son was born, the then-darling wife and I thought about having another child but decided against it. We figured that we had hit the jackpot with Quinton and we should quit while we were ahead. She had been taking some kind of shot for a couple of months (depoprevara, or something like that. I called them "Parvo Shots") to prevent ovulation and she liked the fact that she stopped having periods, too. But she became convinced that she shots were causing her to gain weight. She wanted off them but was reluctant to start taking the pill again. So, being the Southern Gentleman that I am, I said, "Why don't I just go get clipped?"

I stopped by at work the next day and saw Deniese, the company's Nurse Practicioner, and told her that I wanted to get a vasectomy. She picked up the phone and made me an appointment with Dr. Shook, her choice of urologists and I man I was later to become far too well-acquainted with, but that's another blog altogether. I went by Shook's office after work that day and filled out all the necessary paperwork for my operation three weeks later.

I had to take one form home with me for the wife to sign. In the state of Georgia, spousal consent is required before a married man can have a vasectomy. I didn't think twice about it at the time, but I find the idea incredibly ironic now. I could not go out and get clipped without my wife's permission. But SHE could go out eighteen months later and de-nut me with a divorce lawyer and I didn't have a FUCKING VOICE AT ALL in that matter. Something is terribly wrong with that picture. Okay, that's another blog, too.

On the appointed day, the wife and I showed up at Dr. Shook's office. She was there to drive me home afterward. The doctor had offered anesthesia and I accepted eagerly. As a person who has HIS OWN GAS MASK at the dentist's office, I am a certified anesthesia-hound anytime ANY doctor wants to do something I find unpleasant, and since I find GOING TO THE DOCTOR unpleasant, I just say "yes!" if drugs are offered.

I was called and told to remove my clothes and don a hospital gown. I did. I was led to an examination room and told to lie on a table. I did. The nurse lifted my gown, examined my equipment and said, "You didn't shave."

I had to admit that, no, I didn't shave. Nowhere in all that literature I read about the operation did I see any instructions about doing that, so I didn't. "Well, we'll take care of that right now," she said in a businesslike tone while snapping on a pair of latex gloves.

"I want my shot!" I whined.

I didn't get my shot. I got wet and lathered and shaved by a professional who used a Bic disposable razor. In other circumstances, I might have found the experience to be erotic. Had the wife and I known ahead of time that this procedure was required, we could have played some fun games with it. But having that nurse do it shrunk me like a spider on a hot stove. I was embarrassed, not because of being shaved, but because of what happened to me. My manhood resembled a stack of dimes 30-cents tall. My proud portabella became a button mushroom. I expected to look like a man with two navels any minute now. I was humiliated, and worried that my wanger might NEVER recover.

When the nurse finished, the doctor arrived. I got my shot then, but it wasn't much of a shot. I would rather have had my gas mask from the dentist's office and a nice bottle of nitrous. I watched as the nurse laid out a series of torture devices on the Mayo table next to me, and couldn't help thinking of the movie Braveheart, where the torturers displayed all their knives, hooks and tongs right before they eviscerated Mel Gibson. The doctor picked up a hypodermic needle that resembled a bicycle pump and gave me two shots in a place where no man EVER wants to see a hypodermic needle pointed.

But it wasn't that bad. A slight sting.... then MY NUTSACK WENT NUMB!

That is one hell of an unusual sensation. I believe that most men LIKE feeling their balls, except for those occasions where the cods absorb a sharp blow and you crawl around on all fours (actually, you crawl on ALL THREES, if you're not curled in a fetal position, because one hand will be tenderly cupping your nuts) making pig noises for a while until the pain subsides. Having them just GO AWAY like that is very disconcerting.

The doctor picked up a scalpel and said, "Do you know any good jokes?" (I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP!)

I informed the good doctor that I knew a gazillion good jokes, but he wasn't going to hear one now, because the LAST THING I wanted him doing was laughing like a maniac while he sliced into my testicles. I really didn't think that was a good idea. I wanted him to concentrate carefully on the task at hand.

He did something with the scalpel, did something with with another tool (I felt a slight tug there), then he picked up what appeared to be a soldering iron. I saw a tendril of smoke rise from between my legs, and the aroma hit my nostrils: PIG ROAST! Bejus! I knew it for a fact then. All men ARE PIGS, because I smelled just like a Boston Butt on a spit when the doctor cauterized whatever he had cut down there.

The entire operation lasted about fifteen minutes. I was told to get dressed and apply an icepack to my balls as soon as I got home. They gave me one pain pill and one sleeping pill and told me not to lift anything heavy for the next few days. I went home, took the pain pill, applied an icepack to my wound, sprawled on the couch and watched Willie Nelson in Barbarossa on HBO. I lifted nothing heavier than a 12-ounce beer can the entire time. I took the sleeping pill that night, slept like a baby and awoke the next morning with no swelling, no pain and not even a bruise. Just two sets of two stitches on my scrotum to show for it all. There's nothing to this, I thought.

My wife went out to feed the goats and chickens that morning. She came back and said, "We've got a goat problem." I figured that one or two of the escape artists had gotten through the fence again and run down the road to seduce that slut-goat Elvira at Bob and Sue's house. "I can't go rope them this time," I said. "I'm wounded."

"I think Billy is dead," she said.

Billy was my Alpha goat. He was a big, nasty, ill-tempered, head-butting, beard-pissing, sodomizing stink-bomb, but I was fond of him. He would eat out of my hand and no one else's. I suppose he recognized a kindred spirit in me. I went outside to check and, sure enough, Billy was gone to that great grasspatch in the sky.

The weather sucked. A misting rain was falling, the glowering clouds were battleship gray and the temperature was about 45 degrees with a chill northeast wind. Billy was still limber, so I knew that he hadn't been dead long. "I need to bury him," I told the wife.

"Don't you do that, Rob. You know what the doctor said. Call Ed or Willy and see if they'll do it. They owe you a favor." I said I would, later.

I went back inside and sprawled on the couch. She took Quinton and went to the grocery store. I went back outside and buried Billy in the rain. That was MY job. The other three goats stood in a line and baaaa-ed like a Greek chorus while I dug the hole, dragged Billy into it and covered him up. I was so careful about not hurting my nuts while I did all that that I damned near threw my back out using poor shovel technique. But I suffered no lasting damage from it.

I was at Keller's Flea Market a few months after my operation, and I almost bought a neat belt buckle I saw. It said "VASECTOMY--- ALL JUICE AND NO SEED."

March 07, 2011

My physical and philosophy

Originally published October 25, 2002

I also had my physical at work today. Yeah, they lassoed the Cracker and dragged him kicking and screaming to Medical for my yearly once-over.

Results:
1) My hearing is extraordinarily acute for a man my age. After almost two-score years of decibel-abuse from amplified music and industrial equipment, my ears score in the upper 1% of my age group. When the nurse told me that fact I responded, "Huh? What did you say?"

2) My eyesight at distance is (right) 20-15 and (left) 20-18, with a combined 20-15 score. Yes, I am eagle-eyed. My up-close eyesight was 20-umpteen-gazillion, even with my Wal-Mart reading glasses. The nurse suggested that I go see an eye doctor. I told her I might go to Wal-Mart and upgrade to more intense magnification lenses off the $6.00 eyeglass tree.

3) My lung-capacity test put me in the top 5% of men in my age group. The nurse was amazed. "You smoke, don't you?" she asked. "All I can, whenever I can," I replied. "You really ought to quit," she said. "You have excellent lungs." I didn't tell her that I was not surprised, because I am WIND.

4) My blood pressure was 120 over 70. Resting heart rate: 72. Must be all that wine I drink.

5) My bloodwork was excellent, and the PSA is still zero. Good. Cholesterol is 180.

6) My EKG was fucked up. The nurse was concerned. "You've had a big change in your EKG from last year to this year. There's a lot of noise in this one, but a couple of places on this chart suggest that parts of your heart may not be getting adequate blood flow. That's a big change for just a year. Do you want me to make a copy of this for your doctor?" I told her, "Calibrate your machine." Fuck! The way MY heart got stomped last year, the sumbitch OUGHTA be sucking wind. It oughta make a noise like a car going down the road on a flat tire. Not LUB-dub, but WHOMPTA-WHOMPTA. When I get out of bed in the morning, I keep expecting my ass to fall off and make a noise like a hubcap hitting pavement: CLINGALINGALINGALING! Piss on that EKG.

So, I will live forever, unless something kills me first. OSHA has their hearing and breathing data that they require, and I am free to work the weekend duty.

And I stick to my original fatalistic philosophy: on the day you were born, you exited your mama's womb with an expiration date stamped on your ass, just like a gallon of milk. You can't see it, but it's there. You can't change it.

And I don't want to.