A slice of (Klein) life

Hey, would you look at that? It's Monday again. That keeps happening, and it's freaking me out. To answer your question: yes, I know I'm a strange one. I also know that my family is pretty weird too, which can't be a coincidence. And I also know I should quit revealing our oddities before you all decide we've gone too far and you can no longer associate with us. But I can't let these two harmless oddities pass without mention.



Klein Oddity 1:


Like your average American family of four, we would go out to dinner from time to time. Because of the proximity, enjoyable food, and (most likely) coupons, we'd find ourselves at Marie Callender's every once in a while. I particularly liked the lasagna and caesar salad combo thing they had going on, but that isn't what I remember most from those meals. No, gentle readers, the Kleins had to weird the place up a little.



Well, I'll let you decide if it's odd or not. Maybe everyone does this and I erroneously thought we were special. Here's the deal: we would take the pie menu on the placemats and read the descriptions after taking all of the adjectives (or similar modifiers) out first. Sounds like loads of fun, right? I happened to find the pie menu online, so I'll give you some samples and illustrate that it actually was quite amusing.



1. (Actual) French Apple: Our traditional apple pie with a crumbly cinnamon streusel topping.
(Ours) French Apple: Pie with a topping.



2. (Actual) Lemon Cream Cheese: Our melt-in-your-mouth cream cheese pie with a tangy lemon topping.
(Ours) Lemon Cream Cheese: Pie with a topping.



3. (Actual) Rhubarb: Tart and refreshing rhubarb.
(Ours) Rhubarb: Rhubarb.



4. (Actual) Cherry: With juicy, tart, red cherries.
(Ours) Cherry: With cherries.



5. (Actual) Lemon Meringue: Our most popular pie! Slightly tart, slightly sweet, topped with a light golden meringue.
(Ours) Lemon Meringue: Pie! With meringue.

We had a ball doing this, and it never seemed to get old. There used to be a blueberry one that I don't see on there anymore. Our version started with "Blueberries and blueberries," and that always made me laugh. So you be the judge - odd or not? Like they always say, "I before E except 'weird' and 'Klein.'" (Yes, they is me.)

Klein Oddity 2:



I don't remember how it began, but there was once a broken swizzle stick that became quite famous in our household. I really wish I could remember the details of how it all started, but hopefully my mom, dad, or brother can pull some details from their memory banks. My mom and I started hiding this broken swizzle stick for each other. It wasn't a "see if you can find where I put it" type of hiding. Rather, it was the "I can't wait until you stumble across it" kind.

I remember hiding it in my mom's car's center console, taping it to a handle in the shower, and sticking it in an empty pair of shoes. Similarly, I recall finding it in my cd player, shoved in my tube of toothpaste, and even mailed to me in college. Neither of us has any idea where it is now or even who hid it last, so it's probably lost and gone forever. ("Lost and Gone Forever" incidentally, is a fantastic album by Guster.)

Then we kicked it up a notch, a la Emeril but without the loud bamming. My parents had this lamp thing, you see, and I...I..., well, I fucking hated it. There's really no other way to put it. It was this weird rabbit with a semi-translucent body. The problem was that when turned on, the body would glow and the eyes would become this scary red color like it was possessed. I hated it and couldn't understand why they ever bought it. Not to brag, but God obviously agreed with me. That's why the ground shook and caused the rabbit lamp thing to fall and break. Oh sure, you think it had something to do with tectonic plates or some bullshit like that, but I know the truth.

Anyway, the important thing is that the rabbit's head was mysteriously waiting for me under my pillow the next time I stayed at my parents' place. It was considerably larger than the broken swizzle stick, but that just made the game more challenging. It's probably been a few years now, and it sometimes goes months before one of us finds where it was last hidden by the other. Since my mom lets our dog out every Wednesday, she has free reign of our house on those days. I have to wait for them to be out of town or something and make a special trip over there.

To date, this scary rabbit head has been in an ice bucket, hidden inside a board game, waiting patiently in the refrigerator door for months, and even wrapped up and given to me as a present during a Klein Christmas Gathering, amongst several other locations. We often lie about if we've found it yet, because we don't want the other person to know when they should start looking around the house for it. Well Mom, I lied to you on the 4th of July. We found the rabbit head near the bottom of Hallie's 40 pound dog food bag a little bit ago. We also knew that you were out all Saturday on Judy and Dave's boat. I'll let you make what you want out of those two facts.

The intriguing, deceptive, cat-and-mouse-and-rabbit game is thankfully and gloriously back. Or, as we might have read that line in Marie Callender's, "The game is back." Have a great day everyone, and beware things with glowing red eyes. Just a good rule to live by in general.