Caught In the Act

Guess what I caught Hick doing Saturday evening.

No, I did not catch him out behind the dumpster with another guy...SMOKING!

Nor did I catch him:

~treating his body like an amusement park

~switching out the cassette in my answering machine

~withdrawing his blood from the blood bank and storing it in Tupperware in Frig II's freezer

~hijacking a city bus to drive a severed pinky toe on ice in a Cracker Jack box to the hospital, making all the stops

~putting my toothbrush in the rack after fishing it out of the toilet

~urinating in the corner of a parking garage

~eating a Chinese takeout Supreme Flounder in a janitor's closet

~sending out Christmas cards showing his exposed nipple

Nope. None of those. Thanks for guessing, but I suppose I kind of need to narrow it down for you. It has to do with Hick's feeding peccadilloes. He goes to the auction on Saturday evening. So we have a quick meal that he can wolf down and still get there in time to pick his seat. Heh, heh. See what I did there?

I made a cheeseburger for The Pony and for Hick. The Pony barely wants any meat on his burger, which he takes with a plastic-wrapped American single and numerous squirts of ketchup. Which reminds me, I forgot to give him a dill pickle on the side. Oh, well. There are plenty of dill pickles in that boy's future.

Hick likes a burger with Pepper Jack. Of which we were fresh out, him never bothering to tell me what he wants when I go to the store. He's lucky I had buns that were not spotted. In place of his missing Pepper Jack, I sliced off two thin slabs (yeah, it can be done, by a master cheese-cutter such as Val) of extra-sharp cheddar.

I also prepared to set beside the king a dainty dish of onion slices, dill pickle slices, and tomato slices. I offered a variety of accompaniments. Hick could have munched on celery/broccoli/cauliflower/baby carrots/ridged Ruffles all with Hidden Valley Ranch. Not from a bottle, either, or that French Onion kind of dip. Uh uh. The kind made with a tub of sour cream and a packet of powder! I know, it kind of violates my oven-heating/microwave-warming rules to provide a burger from the stove top, AND whisked dip...but I WAS getting rid of him all evening, so I pulled out all the stops.

OR, Hick could have opted for Scoops, restaurant style tortilla chips, tasty Save A Lot Senora Verde mild salsa, chunk pineapple in 100% juice, or the old standby: slaw. I swear, it's like that man tries to provoke me. No, he didn't want any of that.

I went into the bathroom to grab some laundry. Hick must have thought I would be descending to my dark basement lair, because he plopped himself into his La-Z-Boy and cranked up the volume to a level both coasts could hear, and put on one of his greasy mechanic shows. As I walked behind him with that laundry, I saw that Hick had indeed added a side dish to his main course.

AN INDIVIDUAL BAG OF FRITOS!

The significance of that being that individual bags of chips are for school lunches. Not for home consumption. Never mind that in our big bag of little bags, we have Lays Potato Chips, Cheetos, Sun Chips Original, Fritos, Nacho Doritos, and Cool Ranch Doritos. Let the record show that Val prefers the Lays and the Fritos. The Pony claims the Sun Chips and the Cheetos. Which always leaves us with excess Doritos, to be consumed when nothing else is available and a trip to the store is not imminent.

I called him out. "Why are you eating my Fritos for school? You could have had any other kind of chip. But those are for my lunches."

"I really wanted Cheetos, but I couldn't find any."

"That's because The Pony takes them in his lunch every day. We used those, and he has a six-pack of just Cheetos in the pantry, not on the table where you found those." Oops! I think I said too much. "Besides, I guess YOU are the one who took all the chips out of the other big bag, and left that big bag on the cooler on the stool under your cuckoo clock that you wind twice a day."

"Not me! I didn't take any chips."

Yeah. Like I'm going to believe that. I didn't take them and leave the empty bag behind, because I have to throw it away anyhow. No need to make it a two-step process. And The Pony only takes chips in his lunch, which I pack for him, and has to take out the trash, so he knows to fill it as he goes along.

Caught in the act. And not even the least bit remorseful. I swear. You guys seem to think that any food in the house is available for your consumption.

As soon as I get my proposed handbasket factory up and running, I am going to design a special handbasket for the ladies, with a hidden compartment to hold snacks for the trip. Maybe even an insulated area for ice cubes. I hear that ice water is all the rage at that destination.