Mike Polk's Handsome Blog

A Text Conversation Between Chad and Me

CHAD- Anything going on tonight?

MIKE- Probably just watch The Closer with the wife. It’s The Closer night at the ol’ Casa de Polk.

MIKE- I don’t even care for the show that much but that Kiera Sedgwick is easy on the eyes. Don’t tell my wife though! Ha!

MIKE- Get me in trouble.

CHAD- Man, you know I wouldn’t say nothing!

CHAD- We gotta get some beers soon. My daughter has the flu so we’re keeping an eye on her. Probably stay in this weekend.

MIKE- I hear ya. Desiree has pink eye. I guess it’s going around the school. 

CHAD- Something is going around.

MIKE- We’re all just trying to get healthy for Xmas!

CHAD- LOL.

CHAD- I hear ya man. I just want to get through this holiday crap and be done with it.

MIKE- Say, that reminds me, Dianne and I are having a few people over on the 22nd from 7pm-9pm. Nothing big. I’m making my famous spiked eggnog.

MIKE- It’s from 7pm to 9pm.

MIKE- We’ll probably all just talk, have some eggnog. Maybe watch a dvr’d episode of The Closer.

MIKE- Any ways, if you’re not busy and you can find a sitter, we’d love to see you two.

MIKE- Or heck, bring the kids. Desiree and Aiden will be here. They all get along.

MIKE- It’s from 7-9pm.

MIKE- Don’t feel like you have to bring anything.

MIKE- But if you do bring something, I wouldn’t mind if it was your wife’s famous cheese potatoes with the cornflake topping. LOL!

CHAD- It’s from 7-9?

MIKE- P.M.

MIKE- You’re gonna have to check out my basement. I just got some mirrored beer signs off of ebay and hung them up in my basement. It’s my man cave down there! lol.

MIKE- It’s great. It’s just like you’re in a bar except there’s a washer and dryer down there.

CHAD- Jeanie has a recital that night and Camille’s parents are out of town. What are you doing after the holidays? I wouldn’t mind getting sitters and all of us going out to dinner. We both have Friday January 20th off. 

MIKE- That would be great! It would be great for me and my wife to go somewhere and eat dinner with you and your wife on January 20th! That sounds like a really fun thing to do.

MIKE- I’ll run it past The Boss and get back to ya. lol.

CHAD- There’s this great Bennigans down the road from us we’ve been meaning to try. We should meet there at about 6pm on Jan. 20th.

CHAD- Trust me, this Bennigans is supposed to be good. We ate at one in Virginia Beach last summer and it was excellent.

MIKE- Hey man, I’m sold. We love trying new places.

MIKE- But just so we’re clear, you guys are a no go for the 22nd, right?

MIKE- Dianne just wants a rough head count guesstimate so that she knows how much pasta salad to make.

MIKE- Last year we ended up throwing a lot of stuff out and we don’t want that to happen again this year.

CHAD- We can not make it on Dec. 22nd. I wish we could. LOL. But I can’t. Sorry man.

CHAD- The recital will probably end at 8 and we probably wouldn’t get there until 8:40. That’s really cutting it close if it’s over at 9.

MIKE- Yeah, it’s probably best not to chance it. It ends right at 9. Dianne has a spin class at 6am the next morning and she needs to get to bed by 915.

MIKE- Dianne just checked the entertainment book but there’s no Bennigans coupon in there. It was worth a shot.

CHAD- We should watch an Ohio State game in that basement of yours next season. I can’t do it this season with work, but next season.

MIKE- Totally! It’s like a bar down there. Just because we can’t go to bars any more doesn’t mean we can’t pretend we’re at one, right? LOL.

MIKE- Hey, we should wear Ohio State jerseys when we watch that game in my basement next year even though we are the only two people who will see each other.  

CHAD- I just bought one and that would be a perfect place to wear it. I usually just wear it to work on Fridays.

MIKE- Hey man, little bit of a glitch. Dianne just got on the Bennigans website and she’s checking out the menu. There aren’t a lot of options for her on there.

MIKE- She’s putting us both on some fancy California diet as a New Year’s resolution and we really need to watch out calories.

CHAD- Camille has been on my ass about some Achkins diet?

MIKE- Hey, don’t worry about it. We just talked and decided that we just won’t eat on the 19th so that we can enjoy that dinner on the 20th. Just cut loose, ya know?

MIKE- I see here on the website that they have chocolate Oreo Pie. Ummm…yes please! lol.

CHAD- Hey, I just called Bennigans and they said they have “healthy choice” items on the menu. Or we can go somewhere else, I don’t care. I was just suggesting that because we had such a nice experience at the one in Virginia Beach last year. We can o somewhere else.

MIKE- No, it’s fine. Alright man. Really looking forward to the 20th of January. I’ve gotta go. It’s almost Closer time.

CHAD- Oh, ok. I’ll give you a call next week and we’ll talk about all of this.

CHAD- Camille is excited.

CHAD- We’ll try to make it out on the 20th but I’m not promising anything.

CHAD- Tell her don’t even worry about making more pasta salad. 

CHAD- See ya bro. O.-H.-…!!

MIKE- Chad, it’s Dianne! I just confiscated Mike’s phone. No texts during The Closer! House Rule! LOL!  But seriously. Please stop. Tell Camille Hi. See you January 20th!

CHAD- LOL Dianne. I was talking to mike. I’ll tell Camille you said hi and WE will see you guys on the 20th at 6pm. ttyl.

THE END

I’m Seriously Not Trying To Bang Your Kids Everybody.

So I was just walking home from the store when I saw this probably junior high school kid walking back from school with some big heavy musical instrument in a case. Hard to tell what the instrument was, but it appeared to be the kind that would most likely make certain that he would not get to kiss a girl for at least the next eight years.

Any ways, the kid was small and he was really struggling with it. Putting it down every 10 feet or so and then picking it back up again.  My initial thought was to help the kid. To offer to carry it to his house for him or whatever because I’m a full grown, strong man.

But then I thought to myself, “Nope. Can’t do that. Can’t offer to help that kid with his burden because then everyone will assume I’m trying to fuck him.”

Isn’t that a drag? And you can say that I was overreacting and maybe I was a bit, but you have to admit that if most people saw some dude in his 30’s offer to help a boy carry something they would probably, at least for a moment, think to themselves, “Uh oh, that guy’s gonna fuck that kid. We should probably call somebody.”

Times have changed. Things didn’t used to be like this. When I was a kid, I wouldn’t have thought twice about some dude helping me carry something, and my parents wouldn’t have cared either. In fact, some neighbor/stranger probably could have called out of his window as I walked by “Hey little boy!  I need help taking a bath up here! Come up! The door’s open!” and if my mom were walking with me she’d have said, “You heard that man Michael. That grown up needs help in the bathroom. Get up there.”

But somewhere between then and now we all became ridiculously suspicious. Everyone is presumed guilty now. Has society gotten worse? Are there really more pervs nowadays or are there the same amount but we’re simply more aware of them because of the constant bad news we’re bombarded with via every possible form of media?

And overall, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Are your kids safer or are they just more paranoid? Is that constant paranoia worth the slightly lessened chance of having some dude diddle your kids? Is this any way to exist? All of us afraid to help or be helped?

If I had helped that awkward 12 year old, nothing probably would have happened. Maybe the parents even would have been appreciative. Maybe they even would have invited me in for a beer to thank me. But what if that beer was poisoned and it knocked me out? What if that kid was just bait to lure in a man that the whole sick family could drug and then collectively diddle?

And there we go again.

I do know this: I don’t feel comfortable offering children help if I am alone. Or talking to them. Or looking at them.  And the fear is not relegated to kids alone. I’ve offered to help some women my age-ish carry something if they appear to be struggling, only to be met with suspicion and apprehension. I’ve even had middle-aged ladies respond with a brisk “No thank you!” when I’ve offered to help them with something. As if I’m trying to bang them too. Get over yourself, Someone’s Mom, I’m not that hard up yet.

Men get a bad rap sometimes. A lot of women say that chivalry is dead, but I don’t think it’s as much dead as it is often times suppressed for fear of it being misconstrued as a gateway to rape.

Essentially, the only scenario in which I feel totally comfortable helping a fellow member of society any more is when I offer to help a grown man of roughly my same size jump his car when his battery is dead. That’s really the only time that both parties can feel completely assured that this is a truly altruistic gesture with no malice intended.

And it’s right then, when his guard is down, that I fuck him.

My Reasoning For Drafting An Entirely White Fantasy Football Team

My reasoning for drafting an entirely white Fantasy Football team this year was really two fold: 1- I thought it would be an interesting sociological experiment and perhaps help people, in some small way, to gain a better understanding of the racial differences that divide us to this day. 2- I’m an asshole. 

The NFL is undeniably an African American dominated league. But with very little preparation, (mostly just Google Image searching players with white-sounding names to see if they were, indeed, white) it actually wasn’t that hard drafting for my team: “Los Diablos Blancos”.

Knowing that you can only choose white players actually takes a lot of the thinking out of the whole drafting process. It takes away any lingering questions you might have about who to draft at what point, because I really had very few choices.

I drew the 6th draft position in a league of 12. This was irrelevant. My first pick had to be Peyton Hillis regardless. He’s the only number one white running back in the league and though he wasn’t projected to go until about the 20-somethingth pick, I couldn’t risk him being taken in the first or early second round. Compounding my necessity to grab him right away was the fact that my friends in this league knew my White Team Plan. Many of them are enormous assholes and would probably sacrifice their original drafting plan in order to steal Hillis out from under me and force me to start Danny Woodhead and Toby Gerhart the entire season, with the exception of bi-weeks, when I would be forced to start the electricly-caucasian Green Bay reserve John Kuhn: A player so obscure that he has never even heard of himself.

So Hillis was a no brainer. This made my next pick easy, because the only other player that I really needed to make sure I got was Wes Welker, the only truly consistent white wide receiver in the league. He wasn’t going anywhere for a spell as he was pretty far down the depth chart, so I planned to take the highest-rated quarterback who was not Michael Vick. (a black) Aaron Rodgers was still there, so I grabbed him.

I took Welker next, then Dallas Clark. Round four is pretty high to draft a tight end, but there is a certain comfort in knowing that no one probably wants any of the other players that you plan to take because they’re white and not extremely good. So I figured I might as well make sure and get a good tight end, since he will have to spend his season making up for Danny Woodhead’s lack of excellence.

In the fifth round I took Austin Collie, who is respectable, followed by Jordy Nelson, who is unremarkable according to most NFL experts, and probably his coaches, friends and wife.

In the 6th round I took Greg Olsen because I wanted another solid tight end to play on off weeks and in my flex position if need be.  In the 7th I took Danny Amendola, an unspectacular but undeniably white receiver for an unspectacular team.

It was impossible for me to draft an all-white defense because this is not the 1940’s, and I had no intention of going team by team and figuring out who had the whitest D. My devotion to being an asshole knows bounds.  Luckily, much like every league, we have a resident know-it-all-team-owner who claimed to be certain that the Packers have the whitest D, followed by The Patriots. I don’t know if he was right, nor do I care. I took the Patriots in the 8th round because The Packers were already gone.

In the 9th round I took Eli Manning to back up Rogers because he was still there and because, again, I knew that no one could possibly want any of the other players I might draft.

I took kicker Nate Kaeding next because he was rated highly. I didn’t know for sure that he was white, but he was a kicker. So, yes, I’m sure he is.

The time came to pull the trigger on Danny Woodhead. The New England tailback who looks like some guy that everyone hung out with in college. Not a guy that you hung out with directly, but he was a friend of a guy that you hung out with a lot. That’s Danny Woodhead. 

And my White-Dynamo-Backfield-Tandem was complete!

I then grabbed Todd Heap for more insurance and then little-used running back Toby Gerhart.

For those of you keeping track, I now had two Dannys, a Toby and a Jordy on my team. If you have two Dannys, a Toby and a Jordy on your team, that pretty much rules out a deep post-season run. However their names would be perfect if I were taping a Children’s morning show in which the child stars sang about letting Jesus into your heart.

I finished off my campaign with the aforementioned John Kuhn, (K-Dog!) and Julian Edelman, who I later replaced with Miami receiver Brian Hartline, much to the disappointment of Julian Edelman who called and told me he had never been on anyone’s fantasy team before and begged me to reconsider. Brian Hartline celebrated his last minute pickup by dropping two passes and being significantly slower than his black counterparts.

So what is my point in all of this? And why are you still reading it? That’s on you, dog.  But here’s my parting thought. Clearly, I am not going to win my fantasy football league this year. Primarily because of the “having the whole-white-team” thing. But I wouldn’t have won any ways. Because I don’t know anything about all the players in this league. I don’t even recognize about 20 of the names of the top 50 players on the ESPN Draft Rank sheet that I lazily printed out and drafted exclusively from the day of the selections. I don’t have the time or interest to be that involved in football. I follow the Browns and let them rape my soul and take my money every year, and that’s as involved in football as I plan to get.

So yeah, I threw away my twenty dollar entry fee. But I have no regrets. Because, mark my words, though I will surely lose a lot, there will be at least one game this year where all of the stars align. Where Adrian Peterson has an off day for someone and Jordy Nelson somehow has a career game and blows the fuck up.  And despite my racial handicap I will beat at least one of these teams in my league. And oh the razzing they will receive from me.

Oh the razzing!

Because as bad as it is to be the losingest team in your Fantasy league, the only thing that is worse is getting beaten by a losingest team in your fantasy league. A team made up entirely of white guys. (with the exception of some New England defenders). 

Vivo Los Diablos Blancos! (T-shirts are in the works)

A Verbatim Text Message Conversation Between Me and Mike Farrell That Occurred Today

FARRELL:

I swear the next time I’m watching porn and the scenario is a student banging his teacher and she says “you’re gonna get extra credit for this” I’m gonna lose it.

POLK:

Yeah, it’s like the writers don’t even respect us or something.

FARRELL:

And While we’re at it, take off your white tennis socks male porn star. I don’t need to see that.

POLK:

You’d rather see a dude’s bare feet? You’re walking a fine line my friend.

FARRELL: 

I’d rather not see a dude all together. It should be robots.

POLK:

See, there has to be a dick on the scene for me to get into the right mindset. Otherwise, who am I in this scenario? Just some perv watching two chicks go at it.

POLK:

No face though. Because then I can’t pretend that guy is me. And that takes me out of the moment.

FARRELL:

Yeah. As soon as I see his face I start judging him. Like who the fuck is this guy? What kind of scumbag crap was he doing today? Why does he deserve this? 

FARRELL:

Every guy in porn looks like some wigger kid that cooks at Applebees.

POLK:

You know what else takes me out of the scene? When it’s a chick with pigtails pretending to be 16 and then she strips and she’s all tatted up. It’s like, come on man.

(END TRANSMISSION)

The Chick Friend Cycle (An Old Musing)

Lost another chick friend recently.

Not dead. Worse. Got a boyfriend.

It’s a drag. But it’s a cycle that I’m used to at this point. Depressingly used to.

New girl enters the picture. Not a dating kind of girl, just a friend girl who likes to hang out, likes to do stuff, is still excited about life, wants to try new things.

These girls usually range in age from 24 to 29. They are not yet so engrossed in their careers or husband-hunting that they allow themselves no time for other pursuits.

These are happy times for all involved.

Unfortunately, this blissful period can not last. Never does.

Women are cursed with a genetic predisposition towards achieving their ultimate goal of finding a suitable mate and nesting.

It’s unavoidable. And I don’t blame them. They can’t help it. It’s like getting mad at a lion for trying to eat you or a bee for stinging you or a giraffe for, long-necking you.

See, we like to think that we are not animals. We like to think that because we wear khakis and have ipods full of Radiohead we are somehow beyond animals. But we’re not. We have a genetic code. We have base desires and needs. We unwillingly innately strive to eat, mate, and feel protected. It’s in our DNA.

It’s not your fault.

Even the strongest women I know can not completely ignore these instincts. And if they could, they would be sociopaths.

I’ve seen strong women who are mad at these feelings. Want to ignore them, rise above them. But they can not. They cry in corners and bury their feelings, twist and turn them in their guts and transform them into less-embarrassing ulcers and emotional disorders.

They all lose in the end.

Men, of course, have our own genetic crosses to bear. I don’t for a second pretend that we don’t. I’m just not addressing these right now.

I’m simply lamenting the loss of another friend.

And of course, she’s not lost. She’s there. She’s still my friend. She’ll still get a Christmas card. I’ll see her at a New Year’s party. But it won’t be the same. She’ll be peripheral now. An extra in a movie in the dinner scene that is my life. I don’t begrudge her. I’ll just miss her.

There is always the vehement denial from the girl that she has changed. And she’s not really professing this to you, mind you, but to herself. Because no one wants to believe that they are so easily manipulated by another. So easily uprooted from their own character and changed into someone else completely at the prospect of being in a relationship.

But at their cores they know it is true.

For the sake of time and comfort, others are cast aside in favor of the new focus. The new man. And not only male friends are dismissed, though they are the most quickly disposed of due to discomfort on the part of the new Alpha.

Female friends are essentially eliminated as well. They are usually relegated to one night every two weeks. A “girls night out” that usually, not coincidentally, coincides with an evening where the Alpha had something going on himself that the girl was not welcome to be a part of. So she, as proof to herself and her old friends of her continuing independence, organizes the man-free night.

It is generally a vodka-fueled evening that is primarily spent talking about her man in between texts to her man. It concludes relatively early just in case her man gets home sooner than he suggested he would.

Sound familiar girls? Don’t be sad.

It’s not your fault.

Of course, there is always the entertaining scenario that occurs when the relationship ends abruptly and all of a sudden the chick wants to reclaim her friends. She is a mess and trying to remember how to be one person instead of two all over again. She usually tries to sneak back into the friend’s lives and acts as if nothing ever happened.

START TEXT CONVERSATION:

“Hey! What’s going on this weekend?”

“Who is this?”

“Jerk! It’s Beth!”

“Sorry! Didn’t have your number. I’ve had two new phones since it’s come up.”

“Lol. Asshole!”

“Why do you want to know what’s up this weekend?”

“Just asking! Do you want to go grab a drink at our favorite spot, Smedley’s Pub?”

“That bar has been closed for over a year.”

“Really?”

“What happened to Dave?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, your social agenda has been completely dependent upon him for the last year and a half. The fact that you are independently trying to make a weekend plan suggests that something is awry. I’ll repeat: “What happened to Dave?”

“We’re taking some time off.”

“Right.”

END TEXT CONVERSATION

That’s always a beautiful and humbling day.

Now I realize that I’ll be accused of bitterness for this post. And I certainly can understand why. But there is none here.

At this point, it’s just a quiet acceptance. I used to get bitter over this, but having been through the scenario so many times, I have none left to give.

It’s now just a sociological phenomena that I accept with a sense of wonderment and awe.

And Up Again And Down Again And Up Again And….

What am I waiting for? I feel like I’m waiting for something. I always do and I always have. If I can just make it through this…pretty soon things will change….once I turn this corner…..won’t be long now.  

I’m not miserable during this waiting period. I’m just…anxious. Anticipatory.  But what is the goal? Am I waiting to have money? To be in love? To be comfortable? To be content in my career? Will I know when I’m there? Am I there now and I just don’t know it? Is this very moment the moment I was working towards?  In always anticipating, am I failing to appreciate where I am now? Am I taking this time for granted? 

As I walk around alone at night, I look at people’s houses and a warm blue light streams out of so many downstairs picture windows. People watching little boxes. Dead eyed and comfortable. Safe. Distracted. I do it too. 

Is that wrong? I’m tempted to say they are wasting their lives. Are they? Who’s to say? Why is that a waste? What is not a waste? We have but a limited time here. What determines whether we’ve made the most of it? 

Is it reliant upon how successful we are in our chosen vocations? Is it dependent upon how many good deeds we do?  Upon whether they name a wing of a hospital after us? 

Does it depend on how much we have traveled? Is the number of stamps on our passport indicative of the quality of life we have led? Is it how much we learned while here? Are we to have been scholars? Students of existence? Study the history of us in order to fully appreciate our present?  Or is studying the past a waste of time? Will we regret studying the past? Is that time we could have made more of in the present? How? 

Where should I be right now? What should I devote my every waking moment to?  

Should I be saving the Earth? Protesting and yelling and only eating organic?  Our purpose for living on this planet can’t merely be to save this planet, can it? Why? So future generations can keep saving it? That seems vexingly cyclical.

Am I here to please a God? Should I be lying prostrate in prayer? Flogging myself and asking for forgiveness? Or, in the absence of a God, should I be decadent? Should I be drinking all the time? Should I be trying every drug in an attempt to expand my mind or dull the monotonous pain of existence? Should I be trying to fuck as many women as possible? All day, every day? Does the tally at the end of my life correlate with how well I lived?

Or is my goal to find one good woman? To learn her every secret and know every inch of her body? Is my legacy our love? Is my legacy the children we create? Is everything I’m thinking just a genetic trick to get me to breed? Am I a pawn in nature’s game?

Regardless of what brought me here, or why my presence was deemed necessary, I don’t wish to appear ungrateful. And I expect no clarification. As I am writing this to no one at all.

Let’s Visit The Cleveland Craigslist Trade or Barter Section!

Cleveland Craigslist is inarguably the best website of all time. It’s like a creepy, anonymous, local, online garage sale. My favorite section of Cleveland Craigslist is the Trade & Barter section. That’s where you offer to swap your gross goods and services for some stranger’s gross goods and services. It’s essentially the modern equivalent of the frontier trading post, only instead of trading a wagon wheel for a sack of grain, people are trying to trade an old Nordic Track for a handjob, or some such similar transaction.

Here are my top 5 favorite postings on the Cleveland Craigslist trade and barter section last week:

#5 -I CAN AIRBRUSH ON JUST ABOUT ANYTHING!

I don’t know if you can read this, but the reason I like this post is because of what this dude wants to trade for. He is willing to share his art with you in exchange for a moped or scooter, a tattoo machine, or tattoo training. Could his desires possibly be more predictable? I wish that this guy was willing to airbrush stuff for you in exchange for Faberge eggs or cello lessons.

#4- WILL TRADE SHOES FOR MACBOOK!

I just admire this guy’s hopefulness. He wants to trade a pair of Gucci Sneakers for a MacBook computer. He’s appealing to such a narrow demographic. He’s hoping that a woman in the greater Cleveland area will stumble into the barter and trade section of Craigslist, and she has to have size 8 1/2 feet, and she has to have a MacBook that she is sick of, and she has to have no concept of value whatsoever. Chances are, this trade never came to fruition, but I envy this man’s wishful perspective. 

#3- “BARELY WORN” ENGAGEMENT RING FOR SALE!

I just enjoy this posting because it tells a whole story. Here are some of the things that she is willing to trade her tainted ring for: A Gas Dryer, New Tires, Air Conditioners, Patio Furniture, and a Wooden Swing set. You can tell that she just wants to one day run into the dude that dumped her at the grocery store so she can tell him she swapped 3 months of his salary for a used Kenmore Dryer.

#2- WILL TEACH YOUR SMALL CHILDREN HOW TO RIDE A PONY!

Wow. Talk about a red flag. And as creepy as that headline is, the things that this guy wants to trade for are even more damning. He wants help getting his van running again and building a privacy fence. He’s essentially asking for someone to help him bang children more efficiently.

And finally, my absolute favorite…….

#1- WILL TRADE LIMOUSINE FOR BOAT!

Best desired swap ever! I just want to party with this guy!

“Fuck this Limousine! I’m tired of partying in this thing! I need a boat!”

And I hope that somewhere, out there, possibly in Lorain, he finds his counterpart who is completely sick of going back and forth to and from Put N Bay every weekend and is looking to party Limo-Style for a change. Ideally, the two of them will hit it off and realize that by combining their powers, they can party their dicks off in their limo all the way to their mutually-owned Party Boat. But then they one day realize that the real thing they have traded to each other is friendship. Sort of like a white trash Gift of the Magi deal. Come on Cleveland Craigslist, don’t let these lonely souls down! Wish! Wish! Wish!

Baby Pics!

Some girl I knew from college just sent me an email with picture files of her new baby attached because she wanted me to see him. 
I didn’t even open them, I just responded, “He’s beautiful” and moved onto my next email.
Because I already know what that baby looks like. It looks like a baby. So unless it has a thumb growing out of it’s forehead or something, I really don’t need to see it.  
And if it did have a thumb growing out of it’s forehead, I imagine she would have mentioned that in the body of the email.  Something like: “You might notice that he has a thumb growing out of his forehead, the doctors have told us that this is a remnant of a vestigial twin that never completely formed in utero and they assure us that it’s temporary and it will wither and fall off very soon. 
See, if it said that, I’d look at those pictures. Because that would be novel and interesting. But short of that, I have no reason to look at your baby.  It’s just another baby.

My Justification For Eating A Bowl of Cereal While Sitting On The Toilet Today

Let me begin by saying that I am not an animal. I don’t claim to be the classiest cat in  town, but I am not some ignorant miscreant.  I read. I enjoy good cinema. I listen to public radio. So don’t judge me by this one isolated incident.

And please take this into consideration before you pass judgement: I did not have to tell you this. This could have been a secret between myself and my Lord. I am writing this as much as a justification to myself as to you. I need to see it presented in front of me, in a public forum, so that I can move on with my life. I am hoping that this will be in some way some way cathartic. We shall see.

I ate a bowl of cereal while taking a dump. 

Kellogg’s Honey Smacks to be specific. Two bowls.

Firstly, let me assure you that this is not a common occurrence. In fact, I believe this is the first time in my life I have eaten on the toilet. And I’m not some sickee-fetish-perv who gets his rocks off by eating while crapping. This isn’t something I normally do. I haven’t made a specific point not to, I’ve just never had the desire.  Nor did I today, but I was left with little choice. I’ll explain:

I had just poured myself a bowl of morning cereal today at 12:45pm. As I am a hearty fellow, in a normal sitting I usually ingest two to four bowls of cereal, depending on the size of the bowl. Today, I was using a large bowl so that I could save myself the hassle of repeated cereal pourings. I had just added milk when I found myself overcome by the imperatives of my digestive system. I know my body well and this was clearly not something that I could put off until after breakfast. It was go time.

I was now faced with an option: to bring my bowl of cereal into the bathroom with me or not. I instantly did a benefit/detriment-analysis in my head. The only real downside that I could come up with was that it was fundamentally nasty. You shouldn’t eat food while you’re defecating if it can be avoided. It’s unsanitary and unsettling.

And let me be clear, had I been eating a sandwich I would have simply set it down, gone to work, and then returned to the sandwich, relieved and ready to recommence my meal. But this was a bowl of cereal that would surely grow soggy quite quickly if left unattended. And not just any cereal, Honey Smacks, which is notorious for getting rapidly soggy.  If it had been a sturdier cereal that could have maintained it’s integrity through a ten minute down period, such as Cocoa Puffs, Trix or Kix, I would have chanced it and gone in alone. But my Smacks would have most certainly been ruined, rendered nothing but shapeless bowl of mush by the time I returned.

“But Mike, it’s just a bowl of cereal. Couldn’t you have just called it a loss?”. Of course I considered this, and the answer is no. And here is why: There was not a great deal of Smacks remaining in the box: perhaps the makings of one or two bowls. As I have previously said, it takes a bare minimum of 2 large bowls of cereal to sate me. So if I had let that one bowl go to mush, I would not just be wasting that bowl, but the remainder of the box as well, as eating it alone in the future would be an unsatisfying exercise in futility. 

So I considered all of this carefully, weighed all my options, and took the plunge.  Do I regret it? No. It was an unfortunate set of circumstances to be sure, and if I could have avoided it, I definitely would have. But having now run through the scenario countless times in my head, I can honestly say that I would not have done anything differently. I have nothing to apologize for and I don’t have to answer to any of you.