Rambling Josh

Why is that when you get a burger of some sort at any fast food restaurant it always looks like someone fell on it in the kitchen? I’ve never had the pleasure of working in a fast food restaurant but how hard can it be to place the burger and all its fixings between two pieces of bread in a quasi presentable manner?

I remember my first time in a fast food restaurant; I believe the year was 1982. I was ten years old and spending a few days with my cousin Jamie and aunt Rosalin in Minot. It took some coaxing to get my Mom to continue on into Minot past the Boys Ranch, but I promised I would change my ways and be nice to my brother and stop wearing her dresses. What did I care pant suits were becoming more in vogue anyway.

Anyway back to big city fast food in 1982. Rosalin took Jamie and myself to Hardees for lunch, I think her kitchen was haunted or something so we couldn’t eat there, no wait, that was a different house. We placed our order, stepped back, and in about 30 seconds some foil wrapped stuff came sliding down a stainless steel divider sent my some phantom hand from the back.

I couldn’t believe it! It was so, so, well, fast. I think it tasted good, I don’t know, the free race car that came with it was cool. I returned to Lignite with tales of free toys and phantom hands slinging foil wrapped food at an alarming speed. My friends were on the edge of their banana seats hanging on every word.

To this day that is how I like my fast food to arrive, yes the phantom hand from the kitchen. I don’t like to see who is preparing my food, I look up at the menu and quickly down at the cashier, blurring out the action unfolding behind them. If they’ve dropped it, kicked it, fell on it, mopped their brow with it, wore it as a yamika, I don’t care, I just would rather not know.

Let them chuckle gleefully from the kitchen, as I unwittingly eat their creation, I don’t care. My other rule of thumb at a fast food restaurant is to never lift the bun and look before eating. The same rule from above covers this; I just don’t want to know. Bite into something foreign, just swallow quickly, think happy thoughts, don’t make eye contact and continue eating.

I’ve started a grass roots effort to get legislation passed to put the “Phantom Hand Law” into affect. Every fast food restaurant would be mandated to have a nice velvet curtain obstructing the customers view from the food preparation area. If for some unknown reason you the customer would desire to see your food being prepared you would be required to sign a waiver declaring that you will not divulge any of the food prep area happenings to those of us that would rather not know.

Thank you and enjoy your dining experience.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. I also hope you took time on Monday to attend a Memorial Day service to honor our veterans and those currently serving in the military. Past and present military personnel and their families deserve our praise and support for the sacrifices they have made in their lives.

I’m pretty sure that when Memorial Day was put in the books they didn’t intend it to be a day of sales opportunities for furniture stores and car dealerships. Is there ever a day that there isn’t some HUGE sale going on at one of these places? I’ve never driven by a furniture store and seen the sign read, “No Sales Today, Everything Full Price” or “Payment Due In Full At Time Of Purchase.”

It seems to me that car dealerships have performed some sort of study that suggests that all consumers in the market for a new car suddenly develop a hearing problem. Their commercials, whether it be radio or television, surely rank just below 101 yipping Chihuahuas on the dangerous and annoying decibel scale. Disclaimer: No Chihuahuas were harmed during the research and development of this scale.

A terrier in Saskatchewan perks up his ears and says to his springer spaniel friend, “Is that those Chihuahuas again or is New Mexico Earl having another all cars must go blowout sale?” Or, “Well Edna I was going to buy a new Chevy but the Ford dealer is much louder so they must have a better sale going on.” More than likely an “Extreme Sale” of some sort.

Everything is ‘extreme’ nowadays. I believe it all started with the X-Games, which did a wonderful job of making those types of sports commonplace. It’s hard to impress or shock anyone anymore no matter how many flips you can do on a skateboard. I’ve found that I can do a lot more tricks on a skateboard if I remove the wheels.

A few months ago I saw a advertisement for an ‘X-Treme Rodeo’ that was coming to town. I enjoy ‘regular’ rodeos so I thought I’d go and see what ‘X-Treme’ rodeo had to offer. I have been to a lot of rodeos and this rodeo seemed to be no different, nothing extreme here. No extremely big bulls with extremely big horns, just you normal run of the mill snot faced feisty bulls. No ill-tempered rocket propelled horses. No landmines in the arena, the barrels didn’t blow up during the barrel racing.

What made this rodeo X-Treme? Apparently a few fireworks during the opening ceremony and a hot tub full of drunks. I read up on the rules of labeling an event extreme and there it was in section 3 paragraph 5: An X-Treme event must have one or more of the following: Really loud announcer (off duty car salesman), fireworks, and a hot tub full of drunks.

I have nothing against a hot tub full of drunks enjoying a ringside seat to a rodeo, they were pretty entertaining. The only question I had was how were they able to sit in there enjoying their beverages for 2 hours and never have to get up and go to the bathroom. Now that’s X-Treme.

A few weeks ago it was teacher appreciation week, and I truly do appreciate all the teachers that made an attempt to educate me. This column of appreciation is a few weeks late, not unlike most of my school work was. For some reason nowadays whenever I run into one of my former teachers from Burke Central I feel an intense need to apologize. Not for any one particular act of moronity, more of a compilation of misbehavior. I’m sure my behavior isn’t any worse than thousands of other students.

It is a simple fact that there will always be a few knucklehead students. The problem arises when the parents turn a blind eye towards their child’s knuckleheadedness and don’t accept the fact that we can’t ‘make’ their perfect little angel into a rocket scientist. If a kid doesn’t want to learn the parents are not doing them any favors by placing blame solely on the teacher. Enough with that little rant.

My grades were never that big of a concern to me, my concern was entertainment. How could I make someone laugh, and more important than that, how could I make someone laugh so that they would get in trouble and not me. I believe ‘instigator’ was the term thrown around at parent teacher conferences. One of my teachers went so far as to tell my dear mother that, “I know he’s always up to something, but I can’t catch him.”

So from that point forward I set off on my academic career with a title and an objective. I wasn’t just another class clown; I was an instigator, a branded man, with the challenge of not getting caught, and well, it so happens I was pretty good at it. I hate to blame birth order, but I believe that by nature the eldest child is much better suited for a life of instigation.

Provoking your younger siblings to attempt things that you have learned, in your longer existence, should not be attempted. Ninety percent of my childhood was spent goading my younger siblings into situations that I would no doubt find entertaining. The other ten percent was spent searching for toys in cereal boxes, watching cartoons, and wetting the bed. Sometimes all at the same time.

In short always be suspicious of the eldest. If I were me I surely wouldn’t trust my suggestion to float on a leaf like the elf in the book. Definitely would turn a deaf ear when it’s suggested that you can snort Orange Crush through a straw without any ill effects. I would be suspicious of a chummy pat on the back when in close proximity to an electric fence. I would question why my shoes smelled of gasoline before getting to close to the burning pile of leaves. These are all just examples, just examples, nothing more.

There is a point to all this instigation, besides shear entertainment it’s very educational. As your parents question their decision to reproduce while chastising little brother for violently sputtering Orange Crush all over the cars interior, you are recording the outcome in your big brother “I Was Wondering What Would Happen If” book. I would let you read mine, but we are required to dispose of them when we have our first child so as to ensure another generation of instigation. A viscous but necessary cycle.

Anyway, back to teacher appreciation. Thank you all and I apologize for my classmates’ behavior, I tried to stop them, really I did.

What are you getting your Mom for Mothers Day? Don’t panic you still have plenty of time to construct a macaroni necklace. If you don’t cook the noodles she’ll get years of enjoyment out of it. While you’re pondering what gifts to bestow upon you Mommy, think back to all the grief, frustration, pain, and shear mental agony you may have caused this women in her lifetime.

Can’t think of any? Just ask your Mom, I’m sure she has a list somewhere. I mean the childbirth process itself should be enough for us to be forever in our Mother’s debt. I’ve been there, I’ve seen what goes on in that delivery room, it’s not pretty. Sweating, screaming, crying, and that was just me while my wife was squeezing my hand and glaring at me accusingly.

Here’s a little pearl of wisdom for any expecting fathers that intend on witnessing the birth of their child: Never show any sign, what so ever, that what you are witnessing in the delivery is somehow humorous or amusing to you. In short, don’t laugh. I would rather not discuss how I know this. The concussion was mild and I’m not pressing charges.

Mom’s do little things to get back at us that we aren’t aware of. Pictures of us in embarrassing or compromising situations are one sly method. As you mug for the camera in your sisters cheerleading outfit, thinking your being entertaining, your mom is behind the camera chuckling with revenge on her mind. Or possibly honoring the request of you and your brother’s miss guided thoughts that silk cowboy shirts with long tassels would be cool.

Matching clothes for siblings in general is the biggest secret revenge a mother will use. Sometimes they may ratchet the revenge up a notch and insist that the entire family match for a public event. These are things we don’t question or resist until we reach our teens. You know, the years when we are searching for self expression by dressing and acting exactly like our friends. Mom’s are behind this phenomenon also.

So I guess if you really want to make your mother happy on mother’s day, slip into that cheerleading uniform again, hand her a camera, and find a busy restaurant. Don’t worry, you won’t embarrass her, mothers lack the embarrassment gene. How else do you think they’ve been able to put up with us?

If you haven’t noticed, most of what I write in this column is based on factual experiences with a dash or two or three of fiction for entertainment purposes. Sometimes this line between fact and fiction is a little hazy. My point is that I want to point out the ‘fact’ that my wife, my mom, and my grandmas are wonderful women, deserving of all the laughter, love, and happiness life has to offer. Thank you all for who you are and all that you do.

Gotta go, macaroni’s on sale. Happy Mother’s Day.

Beings that I’m a hard working tax paying American; well a tax paying American anyway, I received my social security statement in the mail today. I know this because in big bold letters it says, “Your Social Security Statement: Prepared especially for Joshua C. Ellis” and right above that it says, “Prevent identity theft protect your Social Security number.”

I made a few quick checks to make sure that I was who this document implied I could possibly be. Scar on left cheek from flying bingo card…check. That was the last time I partied with Grandma Helen, crazy German. Several patch’s of hair missing from top of head…check. Never, I repeat, never, use banana scented shampoo before going to see the monkeys at the zoo.

I figured if anybody could tell me I was me it would be my lovely wife. To make it a little more difficult for her I put a ski mask on and a muumuu. Then as she slept I snuck into the bedroom, flipped on the light and screamed, “Who am I!” I had no idea she could kick so hard, and with such accuracy. During the ensuing scuffle the ski mask was violently removed from my head, along with some hair that my monkey friends apparently overlooked. With mild curiosity my wife gave me that strange look that I’m accustomed to, shook her head and exclaimed, “Josh, what are doing?”

There, I had my proof, I endangered my favorite muumuu to get it but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. So I limped back downstairs to continue reading this document made especially for me, Joshua C. Ellis.

As I was reading the friendly letter from the Social Security commissioner, something troubling appeared. Here’s the fun fact that Jo Anne B. Barnhart, the commissioner, had to share with me, “Without changes, by 2042 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted.” With my minimal knowledge of arithmetic I crunched some numbers and found that I would be approximately 70 years old in the year 2042. Isn’t that just a shiny ray of happy news.

Coincidence? I think not. This reeks of conspiracy. Do you know who is behind this conspiracy? Your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart. The Mecca of Materialism needs a renewable source of duffers to push carts at people and hand out smiley face stickers. I am taking a huge risk in exposing this matter, but someone has to stand up to those blue vested bullies. United we stand divided we hand out smiley face stickers.

If anything this is wonderful motivation for our children to get a good education and high paying jobs or flee the country. Because if they can’t afford to ship us to a trailer park in Florida, we’ll be living with them, and they’ll have to drive us to our smiley face sticker jobs.

In the mean time you may see me training for the year 2042 at DJ’s Food Center.

Another trip to Lignite and back, and still no Bigfoot sighting to report. Bigfoot goes by many names; Yeti, Abomible Snowman, Sasquatch, Steroid Enhanced Baseball Player, but lets not get into the genealogy of our hairy friend, its just too confusing.

Personally I would prefer Yeti, it just has a gentler lilt to it, try it a few times…Yeti, Yeti…kind of roles of the tongue doesn’t it. The other names just sound so, hairy and scary, not to mention the fact that I’m sure they are well aware that their feet are a bit on the large size. It’s really not necessary for us to point it out continuously, I mean my hair may not be as thick and luxurious as it once was, but I wouldn’t care to be referred to as Thinhair, Shinyscalp, or any such descriptive names.

Abomible Snowman seems a little harsh to me, and I’m sure Frosty and pals don’t appreciate being linked to the missing link family. Snowmen have never been shy about being photographed; we all have a picture of ourselves posing with a snowman. Now if we could just get that shy Yeti to mug for the camera on occasion.

Sasquatch, sounds like something you might do after ingesting large amounts fruitcake and eggnog. Not that there’s anything wrong with fruitcake, I have one on my desk and it makes a wonderful paper weight. In fact I once foiled a bank robbery with a loaf of fruitcake, poor guy never saw it coming.

So Yeti it is. When we travel between Rapid City and Lignite we always go through the Killdeer mountain area, which as you know is a preferred hang out for the Yeti family. So I keep the camera ready and have provided each of the kids with one also, just in case I’m being distracted by driving or something like that. I think my wife is frightened by the prospect of seeing the Yeti because she always has her eyes closed and pretends to be asleep when we drive through Yeti Land.

As for myself I’m not real sure what I would do if I were to come face to face with the hairy one. It would probably involve several high pitched screams immediately followed by a spontaneous bowel movement, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I did see a white horse along the road one night by Mandaree, and I’m convinced it was the Yeti in a horse costume. They are a sly bunch, but I distinctly saw the glimmer of what appeared to be a zipper running down the front of the ‘horse’. Also in approximately the same location on a different trip two ‘dogs’ were standing on the shoulder of the road. These I believe to be either Yeti children or Yeti midgets.

Yes, I know, all of this information is quite interesting, and I will surely keep you posted on my Yeti sightings. I have contacted the FBI and CIA and they have enthusiastically suggested I never contact them again. They’re such kidders.

I don’t know if I’m overly optimistic or just delusional, perhaps delusionally optimistic. That would be a good name for a troupe of river dancing mimes performing at the intermission of a monster truck rally. Have I ever told you that I dislike mimes, I just don’t buy into the whole invisible rope bit, that, and being stuck in an invisible box were all they learned before flunking out of Clown College.

Delusionally optimistic was me bringing my bicycle with to Lignite the first week of March. I had a week off for spring break so my son and I decided to head up to God’s country. My plans fell through for Cancun and Lignite was next on the list, so I called my travel agent and booked a week in sunny, windy, cold, snowing, muddy, rainy, cloudy, and scenic upstate ND. Security at the North Dakota / South Dakota border was tight and it took some time to convince them that despite my behavior I did not have mad cow disease.

As I got closer to Lignite I noticed more and more snow, and as I stepped out of the car in Lignite I noticed that not only was it snowy, but a bit on the breezy, chilly side also. Very conducive weather for bike riding, weather that shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but somehow was. I guess the 65 degree weather I left in Rapid City contributed to my delusional optimism. That, and when I spoke to my brother, Gabe, the day before I left, he said, and I quote, “There’s hardly any snow left, it’s almost all gone.” I guess Gabe’s idea of ‘hardly any snow’ and mine are bit different. His ‘hardly any snow’ is that there isn’t enough to snowmobile; my ‘hardly any snow’ is having to scrounge to make one last dirt covered snowball. Then hitting my brother with it.

So my bike sat in the corner of the bedroom pouting the entire week, yes the bedroom, he’s my special boy, no garage for him. Besides all I could picture was me walking into the garage to find my brothers, um, my parent’s dog, Coors, using my bike as a giant chew toy. Makes me weepy just thinking about it. So in order to pay Coors back for what he ‘might’ have done, I made him run about 5 miles with me every other day while I was home. That oughta teach him. Should’ve pulled Mr. Hardly Any Snow off the couch and made him run too.

I had a great time visiting with friends and family. My son, Jackson, said it best when he told my mom, “The days go faster when I’m in Lignite.” Despite the speedy days we found time to go on a five hour tour around Burke County with Captain Ardell at the helm, Navigator Rose riding shotgun, and myself, my mom, and Jackson doing the rosary in the back seat. I enjoy learning about my family history, and I want to thank Grandpa and Grandma for taking me to ‘our’ historic sites.

Have a good Easter, and be leery of oddly shaped chocolate eggs. Especially if your brother hands it to you.

In about 3 months another school year will be wrapping up. This means little league, swimming pools, and visiting friends and relatives is merrily rolling closer. For those of you that are seniors it means you have a few more months to endure and hopefully find an answer to the question that is more than likely being posed to you everyday…”So what are you planning on doing after graduation?” The level of difficulty of this question is going to vary greatly from student to student. Some have had it figured out for awhile now, well at least they think they have. What they don’t know is this world has monkey wrenches lurking around every corner, and you never know when one is going to be chucked in your direction. You can’t duck em’ all, nor do you need or want to. A forced change of direction might just lead you in the right direction.

“So…..what are you doing after graduation?” What do you want to be when you grow up, or I mean, grow older. Remember growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional. If you’ve ever spent any time with my family you know that we have just about all decided to ignore the option of growing up. There is a plethora of options out there, I like that word ‘plethora’, it’s hard to squeeze it into a conversation so you have to throw it out there every chance you get.

Of the options available to you about the only one that I feel qualified to preach at you about is the college option. Someone jokingly asked me when I was in my 6th year of college if I planned on making a career of it, well, yes I did, and I have. I don’t know what I would do if my life wasn’t divided into semesters, with a sprinkling of random vacations, and slathering of summers off. My face hurts from smiling.

As an instructor I have a few pointers for you potential college students, pointers on what will make the faculty happy or at least more tolerant. First off, show up for class, everyday, on time. If you miss class for some reason, real or imagined, go talk to the instructor as soon as possible. No elaborate, lame excuses just apologize for missing class and ask if there were any assignments. Secondly, when your in class, don’t fall asleep. Us instructors are well aware that some of what we’re teaching you isn’t all that entertaining, but at least fain interest. Thirdly, take ownership in your education by being an active part of the learning process. Just like most everything in life, you’ll get out of college what you put into it.

The majority of instructors are there to guide you and show you the various paths available to you, of course there are always those that really don’t care if you succeed or not. Either way you gotta be there and be awake to see those paths or you might get lost. Trust me I got myself lost more than a few times in my academic career, as a result, my GPA took a few donkey kicks, but I figured it out….eventually. I’m sure you will too.

Gentlemen as your reading this the beautiful bouquet of flowers you bought your lovely wife for Valentines Day are turning into potpourri. The big heart shaped box of chocolates has been reduced to a few of the horrible pink marshmallow centered things, the kids won’t even eat those. You know this because of the little finger hole you’ll find poked in the bottom made while they were franticly looking for the last caramel or mint. Most boxes of chocolates come with the little map now so you don’t have to poke holes in the bottoms to find the filling you desire. Lastly, the $80.00 negligee that the curvaceous manikin in Victoria’s Secret convinced you to buy is stuffed in the drawer with the ones from various Valentines of yesteryear, as your wife lounges in the free t-shirt you got for guessing the age of the angus at “Dan’s Bait & Butcher Shop.”

It’s over for another year and ladies in case you haven’t noticed most of us men aren’t very good at buying you presents. It’s not that we don’t try, it’s that we just don’t know, and as we all know you sure won’t tell us. Ask us what we want, go ahead, we won’t give you a trick answer, as a matter of fact here’s what we’ll do, now this may seem crazy but hang with me on this. We will tell you exactly what we want, and whatever it is that we tell you that we want, well, it is exactly what we want. We won’t say new socks would be nice and secretly hope you surprise us with diamonds and a trip to the Bahamas. No, we will thoroughly enjoy the new socks. Do you know why? Because we asked for them!

Okay ladies do you see how this whole thing works now? We ask, you tell, you get, we happy. I know, I know, you just would like to be surprised, well you’ll continue to be surprised by fuzzy slippers and cheese graters if you don’t agree to these terms. This would help eliminate the sorry sight of a man shuffling through the mall muttering and wild eyed as time runs out on another gift search. It’s not pretty, especially when you’re the one rocking back and forth sucking your thumb in the fetal position in front of a rack of women’s clothing. “If I buy a size that’s too big she’ll think that I think she’s overweight, but If I buy a size to small she’ll think that that’s the size I wish she was….” This will continue until security escorts you to the cash register and demands that you buy a gift certificate and remove yourself from the store.

So for the remainder of this year let’s just try the “we ask, you tell, you get, we happy” approach to special occasions. My wife doesn’t have a choice, mall security requires a list of what she wants be mailed to them at least one week prior to my arrival as to assure the availability of the requested items. It’s a very nice arrangement, my wife gets what she wants and I don’t have to hold any manikins hostage to negotiate more time to find that perfect gift.

“The flowers are dead, the candies all gone, she’s got that old t-shirt on.”

Just before Christmas I bought a shiny new road bike. No not for either of my kids, for me, the big kid, and when I say road bike I don’t mean motorcycle I mean bicycle. The sit on a very small seat peddle till you sweat and slobber kind. Why you may ask, unless you’re a member of my family then you’ve tired of asking why years ago, well because it looked like fun.

The idea came to me while I was training for the marathon I ran this past year, maybe I’ll bore you with that story further down the road. While I was out running day in and day out I began to notice that the people I met on bicycles seemed to be much happier than my fellow runners. They would peddle towards me smiling and give a hardy hello, while us runners generally exchange dismal glances followed by a pained grunt. For those of you that don’t run the grunt means something different for everyone, “Hi there, I don’t like running, but I have a class reunion coming up, I just turned 40, and my bald spot and belly are having a friendly competition to see who can cover the most area.” Or maybe, “My scrawny doctor’s professional opinion is that I should run at least three days a week, maybe I’ll run my key along his Mercedes.” Still others, like myself, are training to run a race of some sort simply because, well, just because.

Anyway back to why a 32 year old man, a former paperboy I might add, would want to buy a bicycle. I had never had a remote interest in cycling until this past summer. Up until then I would point and giggle at the people pushin’ peddles in the tight shorts, now as fate would have it I am at the other end of the giggle. The tight shorts must affect your hearing though because I don’t hear a thing, other than disturbing chaffing noises.

I am into history though, and this past summer Lance Armstrong was going for a historic 6th straight Tour De France win, so I decided to tune in and see what all the hubbub was about. I was hooked. There a very few things that will get me out of bed at 6:00 in the morning, but there I was every morning, enthralled as a bunch of guys with names I couldn’t pronounce turned themselves inside out for 23 days for a yellow jersey. For those of you that have never watched much or any cycling races, I’ll tell you that you would be hard pressed to find another professional sport with as much sportsmanship among its participants.

No, I don’t have a delusional idea of becoming a professional cyclist. Just want to stay in shape, give my feet a rest from running, and possibly compete with other people in tight shorts. Besides something about going 45 mph down a hill on a bicycle makes me grin like an idiot.…the same idiot that used to deliver your paper 20 years ago.

As Doc Stevens always said, as he dropped a rutabaga in my newspaper bag, “See ya in the funny papers.”