Take me out to the old bounce house

It was the perfect night for baseball. Sunny, with temperatures in the mid-70s and my family was there.

Oh, yeah. My family. We were at a baseball game and I’m the only person in my family who likes baseball.

I take that back. I’m the only person in my family who likes sports. The Boy enjoys watching football with me for the cheese dip and chili at halftime, but once the food’s gone, so is he. When attending a sporting event comes up, my wife tells horror stories of childhood baseball games.

So why aren’t I going alone?

Oh, yeah, the bounce house.

The May 28 St. Joseph Mustangs game versus the Rossville Rattlers* was “Life’s a Beach Night.” Dollar nachos, $2.50 margaritas, and a bounce house to keep the kids from asking for food between every pitch. Perfect.

With nachos and enough napkins for everyone – seriously, everyone in the ballpark. Offutts are messy – we found our seats just in time for the first pitch.

First Inning: “Hey,” the Boy said. “She got more nachos than me.”

The Girl, whose eating methods can best be described as the Pick and Giggle, is always the last person eating. Her plastic bowl was half full. The Boy’s was empty.

“She didn’t get more than you,” my wife said. “She just eats slower. Now calm down.”

He stared at his mother for a minute, looking for any loophole that would lead to more nachos. Situations like this make me wonder if he’ll go into law.

Second Inning: The Girl tugged at my wife. “I want to go to the bouncy house.”

Bottom of the Second: “What are they doing?” my wife asked.

One of the beautiful things about having a nine and seven year old is they’re big enough we can parent without standing, or walking.

“I don’t know,” I said. He’d stood with his sister by the bounce house for half an inning. I got up to check. It’s not like I wanted to watch the game or anything.

Third Inning: “The bounce house costs a dollar,” I told my wife when I got back to our seats.

“That’s (colorful expletive),” she said, and got up to complain.

Bottom of the Third: My wife sat down. “She can bounce all night for free.”

I don’t know what she said or to whom, and I don’t want to know.

Fourth Inning: “Can we get peanuts?” the Boy asked.

“Not now,” I said. “I’m trying to watch the game.”

Fifth Inning: “Can we get popcorn?” the Boy asked.

“Not now. I’m trying to watch the game.”

Sixth Inning: “Do you want to split a chili dog?” my wife asked.

Really? Am I the only one who realizes there’s a game?

Bottom of the Sixth: The Girl showed up, her hair matted with sweat. “They told me I had to take a break from bouncing.”

She complains about family walks yet can bounce for three innings.

Seventh Inning: We bought ice cream and went home.

Yep, we lasted until the seventh inning, which is a record for us. My family was asleep before we hit the interstate. My goal is to see an entire game one of these days. Maybe.

*Rossville, I discovered, is a city somewhere in central Kansas. Town motto, “Wheat.”

Jason Offutt’s latest book, “Across a Corn-Swept Land: An epic beer run through the Upper Midwest,” is available at amazon.com.

I'd Like a McTerrifying, and a Diet Coke to go, please

McDonald’s has a new mascot for its Happy Meals. You know the Happy Meal, a hamburger/French fry/soda/toy combo that used to come with a cookie (cheapskates), that’s now a hamburger/cheeseburger/McNugget/French fry/apple slices/soda/milk/toy combo (although no child would order apple slices and milk on purpose).

That mascot is Happy. We’ll talk about Happy soon enough.

The McDonald’s corporation has always mystified and somewhat frightened me.

Mystified in the sense that I know what I’m eating is bad for me, and I know what I’m eating is probably taking years off my life, so why I’m I still eating it? And why am I making “nom nom nom” noises?

Frightened in the sense that McDonald’s is so good at selling these addictive, fatty hamburgers it has 35,000 locations worldwide, nearly half of those in the United States. Urp.

Oh, and there’s the clown. Clowns scare the hell out of me.

The first McDonald’s mascot was Speedee, an overweight little man in a chef’s uniform, who had a hamburger for a face. This wasn’t an advertising gimmick; it’s just what McDonald’s employees looked like in the 1950s.

In 1962, McDonald’s replaced Speedee, who was at least friendly and didn’t want to swallow your soul, with Ronald McDonald, who did. What the McDonald’s corporation didn’t take into consideration with Ronald is that 15 percent of the population suffers from coulrophobia, a fear of clowns. The percentage of the population that is left-handed is only 13 percent. This means absolutely nothing, except for the fact that there are roughly 6.28 million more Americans terrified by the McDonald’s mascot than are left handed.

That’s a lot. I’m just saying.

However, the terror didn’t stop there. In the 1970s, McDonald’s unveiled McDonaldland, an entire world of terrifying mascots; hamburger-headed politicians and police officers, a purple shake-gulping blob, French Fry Goblins, and dancing McNuggets. There’s a rule on the farm, “Don’t give livestock names. Nobody wants to eat a hamburger named Suzie.” Or, in this case, Mayor McCheese.

Now there’s Happy. An animated Happy Meal box with blue eyes (although only eight percent of the world’s population has blue eyes. Hmm), cartoon appendages and a mouth STRAIGHT OUT OF A NIGHTMARE.

This thing’s gaping black maw has a tongue the size of a human foot and more teeth than a dinosaur.

Little Johnny: “Why’s it smiling like that, Dad?”

Dad: “Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he’s got lifeless eyes …”

Little Johnny: “This is McDonald’s, Dad. Not Jaws.”

Dad: “Don’t be so sure, son.”

You’d think a $97 billion corporation could afford to hire someone to, oh, I don’t know, keep their main Happy Meal demographic from wetting themselves in terror.

A good mascot makes people say, “Awe. How cute. I want one, too.” Like Gidget, the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

A good mascot does not make people cover their eyes screaming, “Oh, for all that is holy. Kill it. Kill it with fire.”

Thanks, McDonald’s. I may not sleep tonight.

Jason Offutt’s latest book, “Across a Corn-Swept Land: An epic beer run through the Upper Midwest,” is available at amazon.com.

The recipe calls for Neufchâtel. What’s a Neufchâtel?

My mom was a great cook. I inherited her full freezer when she died, so I got to enjoy her meals a little bit longer (don’t tell my sisters). I also inherited from her the love of cooking, except my interest was mainly driven by a love of eating.

It went something like this: raw food + gnawing hunger = casserole. Simple.

Although I could prepare meals in high school, my first real foray into the culinary arts didn’t occur until college. Sitting in my kitchen/living room area of my trailer with $10 in my wallet, I thought hungry thoughts. It’s not good to budget on an empty stomach.

With that $10 I could buy:

a)    Gas.

b)   A couple of frozen pizzas and ramen noodles.

c)    Beer.

I chose C, of course. Duh. I didn’t need gas; I knew how to walk. But that didn’t alleviate the problem. I was still hungry.

Rifling through my pantry I found random food items my mother had sent me during the semester I hadn’t eaten because, well, look at them: dry lentils, a can of peas, and a jar of bay leaves. I also found a pound of hamburger in the freezer, a lone carrot in the refrigerator, salt and pepper. In an act of desperation, I threw them together in an old Crock-Pot and created something delicious (well, at least edible).

The result; I’m no slouch in the kitchen (Ty Webb to Judge Smails in Caddyshack: “Don't sell yourself short Judge, you're a tremendous slouch”). So I hate it when I find a recipe that treats me like I didn’t learn how to cook by doing eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Case in point, I’m looking at a recipe that calls for Neufchâtel. Nothing screws up a perfectly good recipe like something French.

What the heck is Neufchâtel? I’m trying to make a simple salsa dip, and I get a town Napoleon took from the King of Prussia. What’s that have to do with salsa dip?

OK, OK. Deep slow breaths, Offutt. Deep slow breaths.

Turns out the American version of Neufchâtel is basically cream cheese. Why didn’t the recipe just say so?

This happens to me more than I’d like.

Sweet potato, onion, flour tortillas, cheddar cheese, lemon? Great. I know what all those are. And … a Dollop of crème fraîche? I’d have better luck making this dish if the recipe told me to cut off my own fingers.

And it doesn’t end with crème fraîche. Oh, no. There’s Demerara sugar. What is Demerara Sugar? Sounds like a stripper name. Oh, wait, it’s brown sugar.

Same thing with passata. Did my recipe just curse at me in Klingon? No, it’s a kind of tomato sauce. Farfalle pasta is apparently bow-tie pasta. Emmental cheese is often called by its redneck name, Swiss.

Ugh. I think I’ll stick with ingredients I can pronounce.

Jason Offutt’s latest book, “Across a Corn-Swept Land: An epic beer run through the Upper Midwest,” is available at amazon.com.

If the warning label makes sense you’re too far gone

The machine makes an awful noise, but it’s fun to play with. Ah, the paper shredder, an office worker’s version of a chainsaw.

The shredder was one of the last presents my mom gave me, although as a journalist I wasn’t quite sure what kind of papers I had that were important enough to shred. Certainly nothing to do with my finances, which mainly consisted of the change I had left over after I paid my bar tab.

Anything worth destroying I did the old fashioned way, I soaked it in gin and set it on fire.

But since then I got married and found my wife is averse to me setting fires in our yard. I’ve also discovered the paper shredder is a great way to destroy eviden… Uh, old tax documents. Yeah. Old tax documents.

Then, when recently destroying, uh, old tax documents, I saw something I’d never noticed before, a warning label, which is strange because it’s right on the top where you feed in the papers.

Hmm. A warning label on something called a “paper shredder” seems a bit superfluous. I mean, come on, the machine is called a shredder. SHREDDER. That’s the main villain from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” If you use this machine wrong it will roundhouse kick you in face. I thought that was understood.

But there it was.

“No jewelry.

OK.

“No paper clips.”

Sure, yeah. That would damage the machinery.

“No fingers.”

I thought we’d been over this. It’s called a shredder. It shreds things. That’s all it does. Why did the manufacturer feel it necessary to tell the operator not to stick his fingers into the shredder? The warning should read, “No cheese.” I hate using a cheese grater. This would save so much time.

“No neckties.”

First, the image is funny. Some guy leans over, his tie gets stuck in the shredder; it pulls him closer and closer to the Knives of Doom. He shrieks because he doesn’t realize his thumb is right next to the well marked “off” button. Oh, slapstick comedy, you’ve desensitized me so.

“No hair.”

See, “No neckties.”

This is where we sit today. On the shoulders of idiots. In what other country are there product labels warning you that you shouldn’t use a Vidal Sassoon hairdryer while sleeping, music lovers shouldn’t eat their iPod Shuffle (but it said Apple on the box), people who buy a Rowenta iron should never “iron clothes while they are being worn,” or pyromaniacs shouldn’t put Black Cat firecrackers “in mouth.”

Seriously?

The reason these warning labels aren’t funny (they are) is simple. Someone had to do every one of these things.

Fell asleep with a running hair dryer? Happened.

Swallowed an iPod? Happened.

Ironed clothes while wearing them? Heck, I’ve done it. In my defense, it’s not like I was ironing my pants. The article of clothing was a necktie, and I wasn’t inserting it into a paper shredder at the time.

Shoved ignited firecrackers into a mouth? Happened, most probably in Arkansas.

Political hacks, survivalists, and conspiracy theorists claim this country is seeing its last days. We are, but not from an impending apocalypse. It’s because we have people not smart enough to run a paper shredder.

My head hurts.

Jason Offutt’s latest book, “Across a Corn-Swept Land: An epic beer run through the Upper Midwest,” is available at amazon.com.