Thanksgiving with the Vissers

Me: "How big is the turkey?"
Dad: "22 pounds?"
Me: "22 pounds?!"
Dad: "I got the smallest one they had!"
Me: "Where'd you go? The mutant turkey store?"
Staci: "It's a teenage mutant ninja turkey!"

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Mom: "Will you let the dog out?"
Me: "No, she doesn't want to go outside."
Mom: "She looks like she does."
Me: "It's 5 degrees outside. She only thinks she wants to go out."

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During thanksgiving dinner:
Kelly: "You spit all the time."
Bryan: "I only spit if I'm outside."
Kelly: "You make that same snotty noise, though."
Bryan: "I don't spit, I just swallow."
(collective moan)
Dad: "Okay, we're not talking about this!"

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Weston (1.5 years old) was covered in blue frosting from Mom's birthday cake:
"It's like he ate a Smurf!"

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Me: "What sound does a doggy make?"
Weston: "Meow"

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Me: "Do you think Kelly and Bryan will name their other children after towns in Southeast Idaho?"
Staci: "You mean like Preston?"
Me: "How about Malad?"
Staci: "Or Virginia if it's a girl."
Me: "Portage!"

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Staci: "I've never heard this song before."
Me: "It's got Kanye in it."
(pause)
Staci: "I was just trying to imagine a conversation between Jared Leto and Kanye."
Me: "I'll bet they didn't say much."
Staci imitating Kayne: "George Bush hates me."

Over the river and through the woods...

Two weeks ago, I made my annual pilgrimage to Idaho for Thanksgiving. Along with my Utah residency, it has become part of my holiday routine to get into the car Thursday morning for the lonely three hour schlep, salivating all the way.

It's an interesting drive, mostly because the interstate is a completely different experience. Instead of semis barreling cross-country, it's flotillas of mini-vans and SUVs loaded with children descending on grandma's house in Blackfoot or Rexburg. Occasionally, you'll see one of these Mormon assault vehicles pulled off to the side of road, adults scurrying about frantically. It's quite easy to guess that some sort of bodily fluid emergency has occurred. And then there are the typical car shenanigans, like the little girl who had crawled up on the rear dash and was making fish faces against the glass.

The pinnacle of the Thanksgiving tomfoolery, however, was my father's recent purchase: A TURKEY FRYER, because nothing says Thanksgiving like a medieval apparatus that boils oil to sufficient temperature to cook a bird the size of carry on luggage in under an hour. Of course, any device imbued with such great power must also come with great responsible, and the turkey fryer is no exception. And like a toddler with super powers, the turkey fryer has been known to to do the following in the hands of your average trailer park chef:

This is why the turkey fryer is accompanied with all sort of warnings:

1. Don't operate the fryer indoors. (For those of you who thought it would be cool to boil 5 gallons of oil on the kitchen stove.)
2. Make sure the turkey is completely thawed and dry. (Remember how water an oil don't mix? Now picture water and boiling oil.)
3. Turn off the flame before lowering the turkey into the oil. (See figure above.)
4. Do not operate the fryer barefoot. (Really?)

Fortunately, we followed the directions, and our frying went without incident. Looking back, though, I must think about what an odd sight it must have been, the three males of the household, my father in a lawn chair, solemnly gathered around the aluminum pot that contained our Thanksgiving. Rest assured, also, that frying does nothing to diminish the turkey's tryptophan content. I was still quite able to sleep through the football game.

My father, a Jedi?

Jedi's are known to eschew technology.

Okay, this post really is the conclusion to the "Chronicles of San Diego", since it gestated while while I was there, but it's a fresh news cycle now, and I'm not above intimating that my father has supernatural powers in an attempt to garner readership. The truth is that if my father has the Force, he's probably not a Jedi, but a Sith like Darth Vader. Not the kind of Sith that chokes people or shoots lighting from his fingertips, since that's just not his nature, but the comic henchman type Sith, one who uses the Force to make the toast pop before its done or loosen that particular bolt in your 2000 Honda Accord every few weeks so that there's an intermittent and unlocatable rattle at freeway speeds.

To understand why he's like Darth Vader, just sleep in the same room with him. I had this chance as he tagged along at the tail end of my week in San Diego. His sisters live in SoCal, so it made perfect sense. I was happy to have the company, but there was one thing I forgot about him, and that is that when he sleeps, he looks and sounds like our favorite Sith lord, thanks to one of these:

Disclaimer: I'm about to make fun of a relatively serious medical condition. Get over it.

My dad has sleep apnea, which is why he wears a mask similar to the one above. Sleep apnea is where you basically forget to breath while you sleep. While this combination of no breathing and sleep is normally characteristic of a medical condition called "death", a victim of sleep apnea only stops breathing for a short period of time -- basically just long enough for the brain to realize that "death" might actually occur if the lungs fail to resume their normal function. The brain then wakes the person up enough to start breathing again, resulting in, needless to say, really horrible sleep. (In some of the worst cases, a sleep apnea sufferer may stop breathing for up to a minute and wake up 30 or more times an hour.)

The mask and apparatus is known as a CPAP, or continuous-positive-airway-pressure machine. The mask is attached to an air pump, which forces air down your throat so you keep breathing. In layman's terms, it's like running a shop-vac in reverse and sticking the hose in your mouth. Fortunately, it's not quite that loud, more like a dust buster drowning in deep shag.

Looking at the sleep apnea mask, it's pretty easy to see why Darth Vader had his encased in a black enamel shroud. It's much more intimidating that way. Your average CPAP user *might* be able to pass for some sort of fighter pilot, if not for the flannel pajamas and characteristically non-fighter pilot type build. (Sleep apnea is MUCH more common in people of a particular size.)

When my dad first brought the CPAP home, and my fits of laughter died down, I actually gave it a try. It's kind of like wearing an octupus, in a not too unpleasant way, and the air being forced down your throat does actually ease breathing. This is all great, until you open your mouth, at which point all the air being pumped up your nose flies out this new exit and turns your nasal passages into a sort of booger wind-tunnel.

Sharing a room with dad using the CPAP is interesting to say the least. The machine, for the most part, produces pretty much white noise, but the person tethered to the machine will inevitably do sleep type things like roll over, swallow, mumble, etc, which now produce all sorts of interesting gurgles and whistles, much like the geothermally active areas of Yellowstone park. That said, the CPAP is definitely worth it. My father sleeps so much better, and has tons more energy as a consequence. And, now that we know my dad has sleep apnea, it explains all those nights when I would come upstairs and find his 6 foot tall body scrunched into the 4 foot wide loveseat, snoring away.

I wonder if he found a home remedy for his undiagnosed condition. Still, I think he prefers the CPAP to the flower print loveseat. I think he's relatively proud of the cachet this little medical device gives him, even if the TSA always assumes that the hose/pump apparatus is nearly as likely to blow up an airplane as my laptop. The first time I took him to San Diego, in fact, he tried on the CPAP in the middle of the day to show my aunts how it worked. They laughed nearly as hard as I did. Go Darth Dad. And leave my Accord alone.

Mr. Face

We call my dad Mr. Face. It's because he has so much face. There's really no other way to describe it. The excess face is really an echo of his personable demeanor -- when he smiles, there's no doubt that he's smiling -- and when he laughs, it's like tectonic activity underneath his cheeks. There's no place that Mr. Face is more noticeable than when my dad is sitting up on the stand during sacrament meeting.

Mr. Face was released from the Bishopric today. He had served nearly 6 years. For those 6 years, he had endured his children making faces at him during talks, numerous playful accusations of falling asleep on the stand, countless interminable meetings, and staying late at church every Sunday to do the ward finances. He did it all without complaining because he loves the gospel and people of the ward.

He bore his testimony right to us, the rowdy kids in the third pew back on the right side. He reminded us of his grandparents. They joined the church in Holland before World War II. After the war, they immigrated to Salt Lake City to be where the church was strong. They arrived in this country with very little, and when they left this world, they had little more. What they did take with them, though, was their testimony of Jesus Christ, and a rich heritage of children, grand children, and great grandchildren, all raised in the Gospel. And as my dad put it, "They took with them all that really mattered."

We love you Mr. Face!

Dad

You might have noticed that my dad is a frequent subject of my postings. This is for two reasons: #1, I really love the guy & his idiosyncrasies makes me happy, and #2, he does some of the most embarrassing things you can ever imagine. It's kind of like living with Mr. Bean, but my dad is speaks better English.

Let me tell you what happened the other night. It was about 10:30, and I had just gotten to my parent's house. I had been coaxed home to do some slave labor in the yard for Mother's day. We were watching TV in the living room when dad got up and went into the kitchen. After a minute or so, I heard the sound of a knife being sharpened. This is an unmistakable sound, kind of like sound of gears grinding when you screw up the transition from 2nd to 3rd when you're trying to get on the freeway.

The thing that was odd about the knife sharpening was the time. It's fairly common on Sunday afternoons when we're about to devour a rump roast together, but Saturday night is a little atypical. Soon, my dad ambled back into the living room with our very best kitchen knife in his hand. This is a Cutco paring knife, which was undoubtedly purchased as the least expensive thing we could find in the catalog to assuage our guilt when the neighbor's son was selling Cutco years ago.

Dad sat down on the couch and proceeded to use the knife to pry at the hard dry skin on the bottom of his feet. As I watched with disgust, he said, "I have this wart here."

Mom came up the stairs and asked, "What ARE you doing?", as flakes of dead skin piled up on the living room rug.

His response? "Don't worry, I won't put it back in the drawer."

Gift Cards?

Am I the only one that is confused by gift cards? Whoever invented this gimmick was a marketing genius. Somehow we all became convinced that people would want something worth a fixed dollar amount but can only be used at a one particular place. If you think about it, its because for that very reason that a gift card is actually less valuable than it's equivalent cash amount. And yet, we're mortified by the thought of just giving someone money -- as if it's indecent.

But, how is giving a gift card any less tacky than giving someone cash? It might even be more tacky, because you're essentially telling the recipient, "I don't really trust you to buy something you want, so instead, I'm going to give you this 20 dollar card that you have to use at Chili's." Now, in their defense, the card giver might justify his or her choice by explaining that the gift card forces the receiver to treat themselves to something they wouldn't otherwise. How is that a gift? Shouldn't you get them something they might want and or use -- since when do gifts come with lifestyle advice? Would you ever get someone a bathroom scale as a gift?

Take my dad as an example. As his children, we all complain about his love of "the Sizzler" (and, to be honest, most places he wants to eat), so we might say to ourselves, "let's get him a gift certificate to a really nice place." Well, the problem with that is assuming that money is the only reason he doesn't go to a more upscale restaurant. In reality, he likes the Sizzler because he doesn't need to make reservations, doesn't need to dress up, and it's easy to find something that suits his palate (which I find disturbing, but whatever.) If we did get him a card to a really swanky place, my dad would have to overdress, talk to a maitre' de, translate the menu, and run the risk of ordering some sort of deep fried tentacle. And the whole time this is going on, he'd be thinking to himself, "or this much money, I could have gone to the Sizzler 3 or 4 times!"

The same logic applies to most of things you think a person would do or want if they weren't so frugal, old, boring, or, in general, less like you. What's my point? Lay off the gift certificates -- you're not fooling anyone -- if "it's the thought that counts", what exactly are you saying? Gifts should not have agendas.

That said, there are certain classes of people for which a gift card is the way to go. These fall under three categories:

1. The gift card actually costs less than it's dollar amount, as they all should.
   
2. The person actually needs, enjoys, and will use the gift card at the actual place -- in which case, I will grudgingly admit that the gift card IS less tacky than giving someone a wad of cash. (Though, upon reading this, my mom demanded that we NEVER give my dad a Sizzler gift certificate, as she's sick of it, too.)
   
3. The person can be classified as "unshoppable" -- and one for whom a suitable gift does not exist. Either they have everything they could possible need, or they will never be satisfied by whatever you get them. In this case, yeah, just get them a gift card, because a well thought out gift would be a waste of effort anyway.

RTM!

One of my fondest memories of growing up was trying to fix or assemble something with my dad. At the time, it was always a frustrating experience, but looking back, I'm quite thankful for the experience that I gained. We bickered and exasperated each other over bikes, changing oil, setting up the swamp cooler every spring, roofing, sheds, laying pavers, and the list goes on an on. (In one infamous situation, we had to cut a box spring in half to fit it down the stairs, but that's for another time.)

At the core of our disagreements was what I thought was a stubborn unwillingness on the part of my father to read directions. On more than a few Saturdays, I was summoned from the basement and utter catatonia in front of the Nintendo to help dad with whatever project my mother decided to afflict him with that weekend. More times than I care to remember, it became apparent that things weren't going well, and I would have ask, "Did you even read the directions?" The answer, invariably, was a mumbled and unconvincing, "yes" from my distracted father. At this point, I would sigh in disgust and march off to acquaint myself with the obscure diagrams and parts lists while my dad continued to futz around with parts in various stages of haphazard assembly.

Now in my late 20's I realize that my Dad's "yes" actually translated into: "Yeah, I looked at the directions and got the gist of them, at least the first 5 pages. Being a Man, and qualified to do Manly things such as this, I assumed I could just cut to the chase, throw the thing together, and be done in time to fall asleep on the couch by 4. I'm a 40 year old with a college degree, so I should not need the directions. But, since you bring it up, smart-ass, I am clearly in over my head, and I don't really want to talk about it right now." (Funny, the interior monologue I attribute to my dad is a lot more verbose than an actual discussion with my dad.)

Oblivious to the simplistic intricacy of my father's thoughts, I figured it was my duty as a son to help him out. So, some time later, I'd come back, point emphatically at the diagrams and poke at the various components strewn about, making it clear that they looked like an erector set assembled by a crack addict. Frustrated by the whole situation, my dad would grudgingly submit to the tyrannical rule of the instructions, enforced by a very smug 13-year old.

It's to these experiences that I attribute my relatively handy nature and unusual level of patience with complex problems, so I owe my dad thanks for that. And in the end, I can't blame him for not reading instructions. As the reader of the instructions, I know how terrible they really are. And as more and more products are produced in Asian countries, they get even worse. (See engrish.com for proof). As a naive youth, lacking the experience of my dad, I already knew that I didn't know how to put it together. My dad, on the other hand, assumed that assembly of the widget would certainly proceed according to the tenets of some instinct folded deep within our male chromosome.

Indeed, when a Man thinks about assembling a shed, or a dresser, he invariably says to himself, "I've been in lots of sheds, and I've used dressers since I was four, this can't be too bad...(and I don't ever remember my dad reading directions...)" But, when he opens that box and out falls bags and bags of unlabeled screws, bolts, and random pieces, it is instantly clear that he has absolutely no idea how this pile of junk could form a structure of any kind -- he might as well be a monkey playing with Lincoln Logs. If you've ever bought furniture-in-a-box from IKEA or Target, you know exactly what I'm talking about... (next time I'm just buying the dresser they have on display.)

In the software industry, we frequently encounter this problem with users who refuse to read the instructions or the manual. So many people assume they are so smart that instructions should be unnecessary. It's so common that every nerd understands the abbreviation RTM (READ THE MANUAL) as well as the even more powerful exhortation RTFM!

So, the moral to the story is to RTM, or, if you just don't have all day or an adroit 13 year old to help you, JUST PAY SOMEONE TO PUT IT TOGETHER.