Sunday Morning

One of my signature barbecue dishes is the Sriacha chicken skewer. Basically, I cut a skinless, boneless chicken breast into long thin strips and threaded onto a bamboo kebob stick. I then pour a marinade over it concocted with a Thai hot sauce (Sriacha), garlic, green onion, black pepper and garlic. Originally intended as an appetizer, this item has a tendency to become the main course despite its palate-searing heat and I have seen people gorge upon this who typically turn their backs on anything spicier than black table pepper. Though easily among the tastiest things I make, my favorite thing about this dish is not the flavor as extraordinary as that is. It is the fact that the only thing adequately capable of putting the oral fire out after taking a bite of one of these bad boys is a mojito cocktail.

Having devoured several Sriacha skewers last Saturday, I was consequently required to down mojitos at a ratio of two drinks per serving of chicken consumed. As my drinking regimen has suffered greatly since I started fathering children, I felt no pain upon getting home Saturday night. I had apparently opted to save it all for Sunday. As far as hangovers go, the one I had Sunday was barely worthy of being rated. It was however, more than enough to keep me from being capable of participating in a meaningful conversation with my seven-year-old daughter about Webkinz and Hannah Montana first thing in the morning while trying to do enough dishes to get the rest of my kids through breakfast. I had no choice but to tune her out and try to listen to the local news on the television while throwing out the requisite phrases like “Really?”, “Are you serious?” and “Cool!” like I do to my wife when she’s trying to talk to me during football season.

I have no idea what she was talking about the time but at some point in the conversation she completely stopped talking, drew in a deep breath and let out scream so loud and long that I dropped a handful of dishes into the sink, nearly breaking them as I looked up to see what in the world was going on. Her screams projected such terror that I almost expected to see one of her zombified brothers walking down the steps gnawing on a limb severed off of the baby or our front door being breached by swarm of tarantulas with an insatiable hunger for man-flesh in their eyes. I grabbed a knife out of the sink and looked nervously around for something to defend ourselves against. The only thing I saw however was the dog running for cover. He had seen me in the throes of my fight instincts before and likely did not want to just stand there and watch me hurt myself again.

After Ranger was gone, there was no other entity in the room besides myself and my daughter. She had gone catatonic however and was oblivious to her knife-wielding father, her mouth agape and her eyes immovably transfixed to the TV which was broadcasting a rather benign story about a concert that had taken place the night before at a local venue. Panicked and perplexed, I had to call out her name twice before she would acknowledge that I was even there. Once I had her attention I asked what was going on. She pointed at the television and said, “The Jonas Brothers, Daddy! The Jonas Brothers are on!”

Stunned, I tore my eyes away from her and looked at the TV myself. The screen was filled with the image of three fresh-faced young teen boys discussing their tour. At first glance I could not find anything particularly threatening or ominous about them. They definitely did not appear to be the type that would be capable of biting the head off of a bat during the interview or anything. “What did they do? Did they get caught sacrificing virgins onstage?”

“No Dad!”

“Then why did you scream like that?”

“Because they’re so CUTE!!!! I just LOVE them!!!”

At that point my heart sank. My daughter is only seven years old. I thought I had a few years before her psyche went incorrigibly bat-shit for a few years. All things considered, I’d have rather dealt with the zombie or the spiders.