Slot machines don’t take beef and other Labor Day no-brainers

I’ll preface this post with this: It’s a long drive to Mulletville and we truly appreciate the effort people make to visit us. Sometimes, with traffic, it can take a few hours. We love you for making the trek, especially when you bring us pizza from New Haven and other civilized goods, like soap and toothpaste. We really do.

But (you knew there was a but, didn’t you?).

If we tell you on the phone that Junior has a fever and isn’t his usual cheery self and you pop in under the guise of being en route to the casino and you have a roasted chicken and baby back ribs with you, we can probably deduce that you weren’t really going to the casino. You wanted to see Junior and didn’t want to take no for an answer.

I’m speaking of Chuck’s parents. They pulled a stealth visit on Saturday, despite the fact that we told them Junior was under the weather. It worked out fine in the end—Junior had a fever thanks to three new teeth—but come on, no one brings cooked meats when they go gambling.

At least no one I know of.

On Sunday, Des and Sassy came by for dinner. Des makes a ridiculously tasty filo pastry banana dough log that’s the size of a well endowed hotdog. Enjoying the weiner-esque pastries would have been so much more pleasurable if Chuck’s friend, Harry, hadn’t also stopped by. With his dog. That had just been sprayed by a skunk.

Nothing ruins a good pastry binge like eau de skunk. I tried to get Harry back by kicking his ass in Wii bowling but as soon as I got a sizeable lead—three strikes in a row, thank you—he quit because he didn’t want to “get spanked by a girl.”

What??

I know we don’t have a “rules of the house” stapled to the front door but isn’t it a no-brainer that if you let your smelly dog run through your friend’s house you take a Wii beating like a man, regardless of the remote holder’s gender?

I’d venture to say that the pastries had more testicular fortitude. (And ehem, girth.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, the clothespin I have over my nose is leaving unsightly dents in my flesh.