Eat Me Raw

Let's play Carnac. Anybody remember Carnac the Magnificent? I hated Carnac. Of course, I was just a wee tot at the time Johnny Carson was busy Carnac-ing. I never did like him, but what's a night owl to do when living outside the cable TV limits? Carnac would hold an envelope to his forehead, and give the answer to the question sealed inside.

So here's your Carnac challenge: The answer is..."Eat me raw." Go ahead. Formulate your answer without reading ahead. I will tell you at the end of the post.

We went fishing this afternoon. Which is something we know better than to do. Fish don't bite in the afternoon. They are having a siesta from eating the bait of people with common sense who fish in the morning, and resting until they work up an appetite for the bait of people fishing in the evening. Still, it suited our timetable best to go around 1:00. We went to a pond at a nearby lake. If you knew where I was talking about, that would make sense to you. I caught the first fish. About 2 minutes after HH finished baiting my hook. It was a pretty little orange-bellied bluegill, about 4 inches long from the tip of his spikey tail to the lip of his horrible underbite. Still, it was the first fish. And my only fish. We had a long dry spell. Long enough for HH to drink a whole soda without stopping to remove a catch or bait a hook. I used to bait my own hook, back in the days before I had HH. Shh....he doesn't need to be reminded of that. HH used to know how to cook and clean and shop, too, before he captured me.

#2 son caught the next fish. It was the same kind, but about twice as big as mine. He was excited. #1 son and I walked to the other side of the pond, where we still did not catch fish. We did see some little bass, about 3 inches long, swimming near the shore. We also saw a turtle, the little aquatic kind, not the evil, Devil-powered snapping turtle kind like I caught there one time, in the very same place. The one HH beat with a stick to get my hook out of its mouth. Don't go callin' the animal-loving activists. That old snapper was givin' as good as he got. He never should have opened wide his sharp, beakish mouth and hissed at HH. That tends to set him off. I try not to do it very often. In fact, I turn away during The Quiet Man when the mob of townies follow John Wayne as he chases Maureen O'Hara, proffering him implements to deliver a good old-fashioned beatin', proclaiming, "Here's a stick to beat the lovely lady."

HH caught the third fish on #2's Snoopy fishing pole after the boy grew tired and retired to the truck. Poor #1 son showed the most patience, and was rewared with NO FISH. He is competitive. It was a thorn in his side, a bee in his bonnet. Well, if he had a bonnet, which he doesn't, though there is a rumor that he used to have some nifty high heels and carry a purse. He categorically denies both claims.

So, have you thought of your question to the Carnac answer yet? Here it is: "What did HH hear an ear of corn-on-the-cob whisper to him at the supper table?"

See, HH BBQed after the fishing trip. Enough is more than a feast when the Hillbilly family BBQs. We make enough to last several nights, so Mrs. Hillbilly Mom only has to make different side dishes each evening. Tonight we were having corn-on-the-cob. I asked HH if he wanted to make it tonight. He declared that he could not cook 4 pork steaks, 4 hamburgers, 2 hot dogs, 5 bratwursts, AND 5 ears of corn wrapped in foil. Fine. It could have waited. I could easily have boiled the corn in a pan. Or made something else. But no. HH said he would cook all that and 2 pork steaks. Which is neither here nor there, except that I would have to wrap and freeze them, and I was in a hurry to do something else, which I told him before he started the whole Grinch Chef production. So I went in to wrap those two forlorn outcast pork steaks, and strip the flossy hair from the corn rows, and butter them and salt them and wrap them each in a piece of foil like newborns that needed swaddling, except that I'm pretty sure newborns don't go through the butter and salt treatment, and have a space left open around their little faces for breathing.

After completing these two extra tasks at the cost of 20 minutes of my valuable time, HH stormed into the kitchen and declared that he WAS going to cook them like that, never mind that he'd told me never mind in a fit of grill rage just 20 minutes prior. Yes. HH gave me manitude. He pitched a regular himmy fit. At first he played all passive-aggressive about wanting to get rid of those two pork steaks, then he said forget the corn, then he just freaked out and said he would do it all himself, then stomped off. So when he came in and saw that everything had already been done, he said he was doing it that way. Like he had done it all himself without my 20 minutes of help. And to make this long story finally end...when it was done, the corn really wasn't. It was barely warm in its little foil blanky. But HH ate it anyway and declared it was cooked. So I figured he must have heard that little corny voice whisper,

"Eat me raw."