I Think My Kid's Got a Tapeworm

Or maybe this is just what happens when you raise a teenage boy and you're the poor bastard paying for the groceries.

I bought a gallon of milk Tuesday.

Thursday morning, I went to make myself a bowl of cereal, and the goddamn milk was gone.

Not almost gone. Gone.

Now, I know I bought it. I remember standing in Walmart looking at the price of it and wondering when milk became something you needed a credit application for. I remember bringing it home. I remember putting it in the refrigerator.

So unless we've got a burglar who's breaking into houses to drink milk, I had a pretty good idea where it went.

Tucker.

That little son of a bitch drank a gallon of milk in less than two days.

And the part that gets me is he didn't think there was anything unusual about it. Far as he was concerned, the milk was there, he was thirsty, and now we needed more milk.

Simple as that.

I stood there holding an empty cereal bowl, wondering if I could get a tax deduction for feeding an endangered species.

Because I don't know what the hell is going on inside that boy, but it ain't normal.

I'm beginning to think he's got a tapeworm.

A big one.

Probably got its own bedroom in there.

I Don't Know Where He Puts It

I've worked construction most of my life. I've been around grown men who could put away a pretty impressive amount of food.

But I've never seen anything quite like a teenage boy.

Tucker can eat a full supper, go back for seconds, finish whatever I didn't eat, and twenty minutes later he's standing in front of the refrigerator looking for something else.

And I ain't talking about little suppers, either.

I'll fry up a big skillet of potatoes and smoked sausage with onions. Get everything browned up nice. Maybe melt some cheese over it. The kind of meal that ought to put a man on the couch for the rest of the evening.

I'll eat a plate and be done.

Tucker eats two plates, cleans out the skillet, and goes looking for dessert.

Then an hour later, he's hungry again.

HOW?

Where the hell did all that food go?

He's not fat. He's not even close to fat. He's one of those skinny little bastards who can eat half the refrigerator and still look like he needs a sandwich.

Meanwhile, I can walk past a doughnut and gain three pounds.

I don't understand it.

If I ate what he eats, they'd have to cut the side of the house off to get me out.

And it ain't just supper.

It's everything.

Milk disappears. Bread disappears. Lunch meat disappears. Cheese disappears.

I'll buy a box of cereal thinking it'll last a week, and three days later there's an empty box sitting in the cabinet.

That's another thing.

Why in the hell do kids put empty boxes back?

What are we keeping it for?

You ate the cereal. It's gone. The box has served its purpose. Throw the son of a bitch away.

I shouldn't have to conduct an investigation every time I want breakfast.

Walmart Ought to Give Me a Preferred Customer Parking Space

I used to be able to go grocery shopping without feeling like somebody had just robbed me.

I'd grab some hamburger meat, chicken, potatoes, eggs, bread, milk, and whatever else looked good. Come home with enough food to get us through the week.

Wasn't anything fancy, but we ate pretty damn good.

Now I walk into Walmart and start doing math in my head before I even get a cart.

And I hate math.

Especially when it involves figuring out how much hamburger meat I can afford without having to sell a kidney.

Have you looked at the price of groceries lately?

Jesus Christ.

A package of bacon costs damn near what I used to pay for a decent pair of work gloves. A bag of chips is five bucks, and half the damn bag is air.

I bought some lunch meat the other day and stood there looking at it, wondering if I ought to put it in a safe when I got home.

Then there's Tucker.

He doesn't see prices.

He sees food.

To him, the refrigerator is some magical box that automatically refills itself every few days.

He opens it, takes what he wants, and goes on about his business.

He doesn't see me standing at the checkout watching the total climb like the national debt.

He doesn't know the emotional damage a hundred-and-fifty-dollar grocery bill can do to a grown man who came in for milk, bread, and something to make for supper.

And I reckon that's the way it ought to be.

He's a kid.

He shouldn't have to worry about every dollar.

But I'll tell you what. The day that boy gets his first apartment and has to buy his own groceries, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the show.

I might even stop by and drink all his milk.

I'm Not Taking Supper Orders Anymore

I made a mistake a few years ago.

I started asking Tucker what he wanted for supper.

Seemed like a reasonable thing to do. I'm the one cooking, but I figured I'd let him have some say in what we ate.

Well, that was stupid.

Because apparently there's not a single food on this planet that sounds good when I suggest it.

Chicken? Nah.

Hamburgers? We just had those.

Spaghetti? Not really.

Pork chops? Doesn't sound good.

And after I've gone through every goddamn thing I know how to cook, he'll tell me he doesn't care what we have.

Well, that's just wonderful.

I've spent ten minutes taking a survey, and the results are completely useless.

So I quit asking.

Now I decide what we're having, I cook it, and that's supper.

And you know what?

He eats it.

Every damn time.

Usually twice.

Sometimes three times.

Which tells me I should've stopped asking a long time ago.

I love that boy, but I ain't running a restaurant.

There ain't a menu on the table, and I'm not taking reservations.

If you don't like what's cooking, there's peanut butter in the cabinet.

Assuming you haven't eaten that too.

I Ain't a Chef, But I Can Feed Us

Now, I actually like cooking.

I know. Surprised the hell out of me too.

I'm not one of these guys who watches cooking shows and gets excited about some fancy sauce made from ingredients nobody can pronounce.

I don't own seventeen different knives.

I don't have little glass bowls lined up across the counter with everything measured out like I'm about to perform surgery.

And I damn sure don't need somebody on the internet telling me that a simple chicken dinner requires two hours of preparation and a trip to three specialty grocery stores.

I'm trying to make supper, not compete on television.

I've been working all day.

I want something good to eat, preferably before I fall asleep in the recliner.

Give me a skillet, some hamburger meat, potatoes, onions, and a little common sense, and I can make something pretty damn good.

Most of the stuff I cook isn't complicated.

Fried potatoes. Chicken. Hamburger gravy. Spaghetti. Breakfast for supper. A big skillet of whatever meat and vegetables I happen to have laying around.

Nothing that needs a French name.

And I don't see anything wrong with that.

Somewhere along the way, people got the idea that cooking had to be some big production.

Hell, it doesn't.

Some of the best meals I've ever eaten came out of one pan and took less than thirty minutes to make.

I've also cooked a few things that tasted like something you'd scrape off the bottom of a lawn mower.

That happens.

You learn what works and what doesn't.

For instance, I've learned that there's a pretty big difference between browning something and setting it on fire.

I've learned that you can save a lot of money by making enough supper to have leftovers the next day.

And I've learned that leftovers are a wonderful idea in theory, but they don't work worth a damn when you've got Tucker living in the house.

You can't have leftovers if somebody eats the leftovers before you've finished washing the dishes.

That's just basic mathematics.

There's One Thing About All This I Don't Say Much

I give Tucker a lot of shit.

Most of it's deserved.

But the truth is, I don't really mind feeding him.

I bitch about the grocery bill. I bitch about the empty cereal boxes. I bitch about the fact that I can buy enough food to feed a small army and somehow be out of everything by Thursday.

But I like having him around.

I like coming home, getting something cooking, and knowing we're going to sit down and eat together.

Sometimes we talk about his day. Sometimes we argue about something stupid. Sometimes we just sit there eating and watching television.

Ain't anything particularly exciting about it.

But I like it.

And every now and then, when I'm standing there cooking, it hits me that this ain't going to last forever.

One of these days, Tucker's going to grow up and move out.

I'll go to Walmart and buy one gallon of milk, and it'll probably last me a whole damn week.

I'll make supper and there won't be anybody coming back for seconds.

I'll put leftovers in the refrigerator, and they'll actually still be there the next day.

And I'll probably stand there wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do with all that food.

Funny how that works.

You spend years bitching about the same stuff you're probably going to miss someday.

Now, don't get carried away. I ain't sitting here getting misty-eyed over an empty milk jug.

I'm just saying there's worse things in life than having a kid who eats everything you cook.

At least I know he likes it.

Or he's got that tapeworm.

Still haven't ruled that out.

So I Wrote a Damn Cookbook

I got to thinking about all the meals I've made over the years.

The cheap stuff. The easy stuff. The meals I make when I've been working all day and don't feel like standing in the kitchen for another two hours.

The things I've figured out on my own because nobody was standing there handing me a cookbook when I found myself raising a kid and running a household.

And I thought, hell, maybe somebody else could use some of this.

So I started writing recipes down.

Twenty-eight of them, as a matter of fact.

Breakfasts, one-pan suppers, good filling dinners, and things you can make without spending half your paycheck at the grocery store.

I wrote them the way I actually cook. Regular ingredients. Simple instructions. Nothing fancy.

And naturally, I ended up running my mouth about a few other things along the way.

Next thing I knew, I had a seventy-five-page cookbook.

I called it The Bachelor Life Cookbook: Feeding Myself and One Hungry Little Bastard.

I thought that pretty well summed it up.

It's not going to teach you how to become a professional chef. Hell, I wouldn't know where to start.

But if you're a guy living by yourself, a divorced dad trying to feed his kids, or somebody who's just tired of eating takeout because cooking seems like too much trouble, you might get some use out of it.

And if nothing else, you'll probably get a few laughs out of the stories.

The book is $12.99 as a PDF download if you just want to buy it and be done with it.

But here's something else worth mentioning.

If you're a paid subscriber to Rough Edges, you can read this cookbook and every other book I've written right there on the magazine website. No extra charge.

That's part of what you get with your subscription. All my books, the premium articles, and whatever other nonsense I decide to write about next.

So if you're already paying for Rough Edges, don't go buying the damn cookbook separately unless you just want your own PDF copy. You've already got access to it.

And if you're not a subscriber, you can take a look at the free preview before deciding whether you want to buy the book or join the magazine.

Buy The Bachelor Life Cookbook — $12.99 PDF

Read the Cookbook on Rough Edges

Anyway, that's the story behind the cookbook.

Wasn't some big business plan. I just figured I knew how to cook a few things worth sharing, and maybe somebody else would enjoy them.

Now I've got to get off here and go to Walmart.

We're out of milk again.

I'm seriously considering buying a cow.

Although knowing Tucker, that poor son of a bitch would probably run dry by Thursday.