Dodo Eggs

I don’t want to get too personal but…

“Can you tell 10k gold from 24k gold?”

“Are you able to rescue fruit bits from cottage cheese?”

“Does your eye find decent programming during daytime television?”

If you said, “Yes!” to any or all of the above questions then you are eligible to read the following two short stories.  One contains embellishments that at least orbit the truth and the other came from deep space.

Puking  Pendulum

Those who say size doesn’t matter haven’t delivered a ten-pound, eleven-ounce baby.  That’s where I tipped the scale when I arrived.  My mother wasn’t even conscious when I made my grand entrance.  It’s hard to blame her…you try to…never mind.

To all eyes and measurements, I appeared healthy.  (My diaper size was immediately upgraded from newborn to sumo.)  Yet I was underdeveloped in one key area. The valve that closed my stomach was not fully formed. That meant at least half of the liquid formula I took in traveled to my stomach on a round trip ticket.  Mom Teply found this circumstance constantly annoying. It was hard enough for a new, exhausted mother to look nice but to try and accessorize with burp rags as scarves was too much.

And yet, the constant burping up wasn’t all thorns and hexes.  For their amusement and mine, my family would strap my round body into an old wind-up swing. It was a four-legged contraption made mostly of metal with a vinyl sling for a seat. A few quick turns of the handle and the mechanism sent me click-click-clacking back and forth.  With each forward swing my momentum brought up a small portion of whatever was in my stomach.

It turned into a parlor trick.  “And here’s my son Matt.  Watch closely and you’ll notice he burps up a little bit each time his swing brings him forward.  Isn’t he cute?  If you decide to pick him up, please be careful.  The floor may be a little slick.”

Hey Nate, You Were Adopted. Here is Your Real Family

The Phony Photo

When my brother Nate finally found someone who would adopt him into the fraternity of the blissfully wed, he asked his brothers (Jake and I) to participate in assembling the wedding.  This was more of a gesture than anything else.  After all, Jake and I really don’t have any skills.  (Well, Jake knows how to turn his underwear inside out, but that’s about it.)

Jake and I did wind up with a few important jobs that our sister-in-law-to-be quickly began to erode.  She had quit trying to make a good impression with us.  For instance…

Exhibit A-

“No, no don’t worry about picking up the tuxes. I will have one of my operatives, uh, I mean bride’s maids do that.  Oh yea, they’ll be helping you decorate Nate’s car, too.” (Here, she cracks her knuckles.)

Several bridesmaids did follow us into the parking lot after the ceremony.  I didn’t doubt for a second that they had nightsticks tucked under their garter belts.

Exhibit B-

“Make sure you keep the ring in the right front pocket of you tux’s jacket. The pant’s pocket has a slight hole in the upper part of the pocket for pulling your shirt and we don’t want you to lose the ring.  Do you know where to wear a cummerbund?  It goes around your waist.”

Elbowing Jake I quipped, “What!  I thought it was a fancy headband!”

Jake’s eyes narrowed.  “Matt!  You told me it was a loincloth!”

************

The one thing Jake and I were allowed to assemble was the reception slide show.  We set photos of the happy couple and their families to music. It was an easy enough task and one we had no problem doing.

“Say, you know what we ought to do?”

“No, what?”

“Let’s pull a photo of some overly happy family off the Internet and slip it into the presentation. We’ll slip it in between one of the transition parts and give it an extra three seconds of exposure. Do you think anyone would notice?”

“I don’t know but I’m not going along with this unless we find a photo of folks waving with grins you would need antidepressants to achieve.  Oh yea, make sure they’ve got a dog.”

Jake found a photo with a “cheese” factor that clearly broke the lactose barrier.  We made sure to laugh it out early in order to maintain our composure during the presentation.

To my eternal dismay, no one batted an eye as everyone present admired a photo of what was to everyone in the room a collection of perfect, well-wishing strangers. The only sound audible over the instrumental music was a strangled snicker from my brother on the other side of the table.