When they were younger, my kids treated me like one of the Fab Four. They used to rush out the door to greet me when I’d come home from work. The instant I pulled into the driveway, it would start. “Daddy, daddy, you’re here!” they’d scream. The older kids came toward me at a dead run, followed by a bouncing toddler. At the rear of the procession was a speed-crawling infant. I have five children. Each one of them took their turn in the lineup of this ongoing parade. Even after the worst of days at work, I felt like one of the Beatles during a strange variation of British Invasion. Dadmania.
These days I feel like Ringo must have felt in aftermath of the Beatles, which is to say it’s usually pretty quiet when I come home. So, I was kind of surprised a couple of weeks ago, when, the minute I walked in the door, my 16-year-old son Emmett, came around the corner to see me. He’d been waiting.
“Hey Dad, how was your day?”
“Good,” my standard answer, though I felt exhausted. It had been dark and raining furiously for weeks, but it was Friday, and, despite the mounting sadness that kind of weather sometimes brings, I was looking forward to relaxing.
“I’ve got something I want you to sample,” he said, walking into the kitchen. Emmett bakes some wicked cookies, but he was hovering over our giant blender.
“Ok, what’ve you got in there?” I asked.
“Minotwar,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“Minotaur?” I repeated.
“MinoTWAR,” he corrected. Now my eyebrow was raised.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Try it first,” he said. Not usually what I like to hear, but the expectancy on his face got the better of me.
“Ok, let’s have a Min-o-twar” I agreed.
“Thanks for saying it right this time,” he said.
I was wondering why the pronunciation of this mysterious drink that sounds so much like a mythological monster was so important to him when I noticed the lid was off the giant red, Formula-One VitaMix as he reached toward it.
“Hey Emmett,” I called as he turned the ignition. The mighty roar of the blender and an effusive explosion of Minotwar drowned out the rest of my urgent warning. In an instant, about a half-gallon of brown, sticky liquid shot over the most of our kitchen. Big Red was only on for a fraction of a second but that was more than enough time for such a machine. The heaviest concentration of Menotwar was closest to the epicenter, so Emmett and the toaster were soaked.
“Oops,” he said, looking over at me sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to do that.” Initially, I was kind of angry. So much for relaxing, I thought. It was an epic mess. The toaster didn’t work all weekend. But, before I could begin to answer him, the humor of the moment washed over my bad-weather funk and work-week fatigue. You can’t write scenes as random and slapstick as life sometimes conjures for free.
“Well,” I began chuckling, “as long as you didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Look, there’s a little left,” he said, pouring the last bit of Minotwar into a shot glass. My lips curled involuntarily as I tasted what was left of his creation.
“All that and you didn’t even like it,” he said.
“It’s way too sweet for me. What’s in it?” I asked. While we wiped and washed most of the surface area of the kitchen, he revealed his secret recipe.
MinoTWAR:
1 cup sugar
3 large spoonfuls peanut butter
3 pinches cinnamon
1 quick flick vanilla
4 shots coffee
2 trays ice cubes
1 handful chocolate
Lots of milk
Later I thought about the Minotward Fiasco, the name I’ve given this episode. Maybe these kind of events aren’t as random as they seem. I think it’s the timing of them that makes me suspect some kind of design involved. Whatever forces are at work, don’t you sometimes desperately need that last straw to break the back of the curmudgeonly camel you’re turning into?