No Vegetables on Taco Night

Back in the early aughts (2001-2009 for you young whippersnappers), I did something that will live in family infamy, hopefully, many years after I have gone.

I cut up carrots . . . and put them on a plate in the middle of the table . . . then served tacos.

My step son said something like "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?"

He's a millennial and therefore, everything he says in in ALL-CAPS. And he probably didn't use the word "HELL", it was probably something more like "Ever loving fiddlesticks", but for continuity's sake, lets just say he was pissed and didn't have the words to articulate his emotional state.

"It's carrots." I replied. I may or may not have cocked my head.

The blood drained from his face. I could see all the joy in his soul and gently waft into the air, as his shoulders slumped and his eyes grew dark.

"What?" I asked, cocking my head again and not speaking in all-caps.

The life returned to him for a brief moment. It was as if he was William Wallace about to declare that the British may take our lands but they will never take our freedom. I can't remember if he stood up suddenly and pushed his chair away from the table, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was what actually happened.

Anyway . . . he stood up and declared once and for all:

"THERE ARE NO VEGETABLES ON TACO NIGHT!"

It was the carrot stick that broke the camel's back.

See, at the time, my wife was pregnant, and I was doing terrible, terrible things with food in order to get all the yummy little vitamins and nutrients into her. I would do things like make salad for dinner. I would stuff chicken with other delicious animals.(Protein is important). I even went so far once as to hide shredded spinach in a massive meatloaf. (Folic acid is also important, for anyone questioning my sanity)

I was incorrigible. And poor, poor, poor Taylor, suddenly went from pasta eight nights a week, to a smorgasbord of exotic, and frankly unprofessional, attempts at mixing up the family dinner.

He loved Taco Night.

And I had betrayed him by introducing a plate of carrots.

To be honest, I hadn't even realized we never had had carrots on taco night. I just saw the carrots and thought "Those look yummy . . . maybe a little influx of beta-carotene will help the little fetus to eventually understand why he has to wear a mask during a global pandemic."

Now, for those of your new to The 40ft Post, hang in there, I will bend this narrative to my will, and make it all about Fantasy Football.

For the rest of you . . . god bless.

Fast forward a decade, maybe more, and the whole family unit is back again, and like the good little housewife I am, I take requests.

What does Taylor want for dinner this week?

Taco Salad.

So we've some full circle have we? Not only does he want Taco Night, but a Vegetable based Taco Night.

"Hell, yes." I think quietly. "But there's no way the other child, the one who got all that folic acid as a fetus, will want a Taco Salad. Even the hint of an onion will stop him from eating solid foods for a fortnight."

Get this, if I accidentally cut an onion and then use the same knife to cut his sandwich, and he's in another room, completely unaware of my mistake, he will bring back the sandwich and tell me something is wrong with it, and that he can't eat it, and in fact he's not hungry, and won't be hungry until the next presidential administration.

I don't believe in hitting children. But I do understand it. God do I understand it.

(Trust me, this is still going to get to football, have patience.)

So instead of making him a Taco Salad, I plan on making him a hamburger.

Which, when he finds out he's being excluded from the joy that is the taco salad, he insists that that is exactly what he wants.

"FINE!" I think, in all-caps.

I make him an abbreviated Taco Salad. No onions, no salsa, no avocado, just meat, lettuce, cheese.

He seems happy.

All is fine.

Flash forward.

Two weeks ago, I make taco salads for the wife and I. She's no longer pregnant, but I still like to get all the good veggies and vitamins I can into our aging systems. The step-son is off on a new adventure in Los Angeles, and I just assume the other one would prefer a hamburger.

"Can I have a taco salad with you guys?"

He's not a millennial. He's Generation Z and therefore can speak and think in somewhat normal punctuation.

"I was planning on making you a hamburger." I say, also not in all caps, because I'm not a millennial either.

"Oh . . . okay." he said, so dejected that it broke what was ever left of my heart. Which was not much, but still.

I made him a taco salad the next night . . . just for him . . . and was told . . . I shit you not . . . 

"I don't like it with carrots."

That's how he said it.

But what I heard was "I DON'T LIKE IT WITH CARROTS."

Which is weird, but okay, whatever.

Flash forward.

Tonight . . . September 22nd, 2020.

I think I'm gonna make taco salads for dinner.

That sounds refreshing. I make sure not to put in any carrots, or avocado, or celery, or onions, or any of the things that make food fun.

I did however . . . and honestly, may god forgive me . . . I put a few decorative slivers of purple cabbage on top of the lettuce, just to give it, you know, a little colorful flair.

Clearly unprofessional.

He sits down to eat, all by himself, because we all have different schedules, because we're modern and not some stuffy nuclear unit, and then my wife finds my son standing silently in the cupboard sifting though things.

"What are you looking for?" she asks. He guiltily closes the door and shows her a packet of Top-Ramen, which is always . . . always, the meal of last resort.

"I can't eat purple cabbage." he says quietly, again, not in all-caps, but I still feel my bones clench.

Weird, you say, but okay, whatever.

You see, there are very few things I don't know about what my son likes to eat and what he doesn't.

I make him three meals a day, and have done so, for practically the entire fifteen years of his life.

(And if you're asking yourself, why, in gods name, can't a fifteen year old boy eat a few slivers of purple cabbage, then I tip my hat to you. Don't have children.)

But never once had it come up that a garnish of purple cabbage would render a meal inedible.

So I've now learned something.

I'm not mad at him, mind you. He is incredibly sensitive to tastes, smells, textures. That's not in anyway his fault. And when it comes to challenging fear, you'll never find a soul more courageous, a human being more kind, and he even got my sense of humor, so he's at least gonna be able to irritate the right people.

But how does this relate to Fantasy Football?

Chill.

I'll get us there.

See, I approach every meal I've ever made, the same way I approach my team.

I study. I learn. I contemplate. I cock my head and I'm careful not to speak in all-caps. I try to think ahead and I try not to let the failures of the previous week/meal shudder my enthusiasm for the endless possibilities that lay ahead.

I draft/cook with confidence, but also with the 100% guarantee that so much of the love that I put into each plate/line-up is going to be treated with a certain level of distain and failure.

I plan for failure.

Which is why I fail.

Nearly almost all the time.

But I'm not going to change the way I play, because it's the way I play.

A plate of carrots, Phillip Lindsay as my flex. A garnish of purple cabbage, Drew Brees as my only drafted quarter back.

There is simply no way for me to realize that Dak Prescott is going to do what he did Week Two to both of my teams.

There's no way for me to know that purple cabbage is an unacceptable garnish.

Cause life is weird. And it's okay. Whatever.

I'm not going to win every week, or even most weeks, but I love to get up Tuesday Morning/Every Meal time, and dream about what is possible.

Cause maybe, and it does happen sometimes, Deshaun Watson continues to be a superstar without DeAndre Hopkins, and Allen Robinson catches all nine of his targets, and sometimes a fifteen year old boy eats his taco salad and is glad for the little purple cabbage garnish.

Some weeks, however, you gotta be glad that there's Top-Ramen in the cupboard, and that A.J. Green got 13 passes even though he only caught three of them.

How boring would life be if we were too scared to add a little garnish to our taco salads?

How boring would this game be if we didn't play it?

THE BIG NEWS

I'm torn here, because when I started this blog Tuesday night, the biggest news was how the NFL solicited over a million dollars in fines to coaches who didn't wear their masks.

Even John Gruden, WHO HAD THE FUCKING DISEASE.

And you're saying . . . dude . . . what's with the all caps?

. . . and the swearing . . . seriously?

Okay, I've poured myself another glass of wine, and I'll tell you.

There is an armed security guard at my Trader Joes.

Let that sentence just sit with you a minute.

The reason there is an armed security guard at my local Trader Joes is because there is a small, very vocal, incredibly entitled, possibly sociopathic swath of the American populous, that think basic human decency is a liberal hoax, and they're kinda okay bulldozing their way into situations that could turn violent.

I watched a 6'5" dude get strong armed out of an Ace Hardware this afternoon because he was pretty sure the eighteen year old cashier wasn't going to put up a fuss. She didn't of course. She just radioed into the back office that a man had entered the store, and refused to put a mask on.

I don't remember how big the two dudes were that walked him out were, but he was Jennifer Grey to their Patrick Swayzees, and he was NOT having the time of his life.

I make this point because football is a violent sport, writhing with toxic masculinity. The very least the NFL could do would be to show just enough common sense to make a killing off of branded merchandise.

But now there are a bunch of Chevy drivers who think they can barnstorm a Whole Foods because Sean Payton doesn't think science is real.

SO THAT'S THE DARK BIT.

LET'S GO DARKER!

THIS BIGGER AND MUCH FUNNIER NEWS:

What's that? You might ask.

Is that Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction getting an adrenaline injection before she overdoses on heroin?

OR . . .

Is it Tyrod Taylor realizing his starting gig for the Los Angeles Chargers has come to an abrupt end?

If you haven't heard, and there's no reason you should have, this weekend there was an abrupt change in the Charger line up just before kick off.

Tyrod Taylor had an unforeseen chest injury and in his stead, rookie Justin Herbert took the first snap.

We all went: "Weird . . . but okay . . . whatever."

But then Herbert almost held the whole game in check. Against the Kansas City Chiefs.

One or two fewer rookie mistakes and the Chargers might have beat the reigning Super Bowl Champions with a quarterback who got the gig five minutes ago.

It was like a gender reveal party where no National Forrests were hurt in the making of.

But . . . then a day later . . . the Chargers come out and insist Tyrod Taylor is still their man. He's still the guy. Chest palpitations and all.

And we all went: "Weird . . . but okay . . . whatever."

But then news broke this morning that Tyrod's "Chest Injury" was actually a pain medication that was delivered with such force, that it collapsed his lung.

Straight up.

Doctor Feel Good got a little too high on his own petard and stabbed a starting quarterback in the lung.

Now of course, in this family with so many Nurses and Pharmacists and Doctors, that's probably an inappropriate joke. It's entirely not funny.

Puncture is one of the more tricky aspects of modern medicine. I've seen the TEDtalk. You should too.

So no, it's not funny, but it's absurdly apropos in a time of unparalleled absurdity, that we all just have to take a moment . . . whenever we can . . . and just look up into the heavens . . . and say . . . 

Weird . . . but okay . . . whatever.

WHAT TO WATCH:

So last week, there were two narratives I thought were really important.

The first was to see if my beast of a wife could make mince meat of my father, who is exactly seventeen years younger than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Too soon?

Yeah . . . too soon.

The other was to see if Tom Brady was going to come screaming back to life after a dismal first outing as a Buccaneer.

In real life, Tom did. He won the game. In the fantasy world, not so much, he kinda sucked. Kinda need more QB sneaks.

Same thing for the other thing in the inverse.

In fantasy life, my wife got her clocked cleaned. In real life, my father, who is exactly seventeen years older than Kurt Cobain (had he lived), is gonna spend the rest of his life wondering how she's gonna exact her revenge.

Can you imagine living in that kind of fear?

All I'm saying is that he better wear a mask.

Now, for this week, all I care about is getting my first win for the season.

I'm going up against an auto drafter in one league, and in the other league I'm going against my father, who is exactly seventeen years older than Vanilla Ice, and seventeen years younger than Keith Richards.

Jesus Christ that's weird. But Okay. Whatever.

FANTASYLAND:

The Commish: 0-2, 10th Place

Karen's Handful: 0-2, Last Place

Weird, okay, whatever.

Jesus, I'm not good at this game.

STUPID CRAZY PREDICTIONS (LAST WEEK)

1. Allen Robinson gets traded:

No he did not, and not only that, but he bucked the common sense narrative that when a WR bitches for a few days, the next game is a barnstormer, but no, three catches, thirty three yards. Not showing a lot of dangerous leg there Robinson. (That's a quadruple entendre, a Chicago WR plus three different people in the Canton league that can answer to  Robinson, plus the Lost in Space reference, plus The Graduate reference. I mean, sometimes it's just too easy.)

2. Josh Gordon Reinstated:

A boy can dream.

3. Jordan Reed is Tight End #4 in week 2.

I really messed this one up. He was Tight End #6. But in funnier news, Joann now refers to this position as the Tight Ass. So she'll say something like "Do I have a nice Tight Ass?" and I'll say "Yes, baby, yes you do."

4. Phillip Lindsay returns:

No. No he didn't. Weird, but okay, whatever.

5. Joann beats Dad (who is exactly seventeen years older than than Pamela Anderson, but seventeen years younger than Sharon Tate)

Too soon for the Sharon Tate jokes?

Yeah . . . too soon.

STUPID CRAZY PREDICTIONS THIS WEEK:

1. I win a game.

2. Josh Gordon is reinstated.

3. The Doctor who punctured Tyrod Taylor's lung is now the head of the CDC.

4. The Washington Team is now The D.C. Purple Cabbage.

5. I win a game.

That's it for now. Hope you laughed as much as I did. Love one another as much as I love you all. Which I know is weird. But okay. Whatever.