Cooking the Oven

You know how people say "when it rains, it pours" in reference to a streak of bad luck?  I think that is perfectly appropriate for us during the last couple weeks. Except "when it smokes, there's fire" would be even more accurate.

My wife calls it an "exciting" day. I think "horrendous" would be more apt.

A couple days ago, my wife was baking cookies for an event at her place of work. Suddenly (calmly) she says, "Oh, great...the oven's on fire." While she's taking it in stride, just another day in the kitchen, I've already hit the "panic button," ready to call 911, the fire department, the armed guard, whoever. 

My wife takes the handy-dandy kitchen fire extinguisher to it, but that didn't put it out as it was an electrical fire (the so-called "electrical element" or some such gizmo was the culprit). So my wife runs down to the basement and shuts off the power to the range.

(All of which goes to show everyone that in the case of a zombie apocalypse, my wife should be the one to take charge. But I digress...)

I said, "ahhh...aren't you supposed to cook what's inside the oven and not the oven itself?"

"Oh, shut up."

For a while, we were both stumped on how to handle such a situation. 

"Um...who do we call to fix it? Is it fixable?" I asked.

"I don't know," replied my wife, "I've never had this happen before."

In the meantime, my wife starts pulling out various pots and pans. "Here," she said, "you're going to have to improvise while you cook."

I looked at the strange proffered cooking gadgets, wondering what the hell she was on about.

"You can grill food in the small grill and nuke the rest of it." 

Needless to say, dinner was a very interesting  (and not very successful) mess that night.

The next day, my wife comes home from work and says, "I bought an oven. It'll be here tomorrow." (I guess my meal was THAT bad.)

No moss on her, I thought great, problem solved, now I can get back to cooking the way God intended us to cook.

Except it opened the door on a ton of new problems. When the delivery men finally dropped it off (on the coldest day of the year, natch), I stared at the cockamamie device, wondering what sort of strange, robotic machine has my wife unleashed?

Where's the buttons? The knobs? How do you turn the damn thing on? Timer? WHAT timer??? Calgon, take me away!!! ARGHHH!

Apparently, my wife hadn't realized she had bought a "smart" oven. And clearly it had outsmarted me in every way. It didn't help that in this day and age of "keeping it green," there was no damn manual.

As I write this warning of robotics gone amok, we've only had the oven for a couple of days and I'm still trying to figure out the basics (and creating imaginative strings of curse words in the process). 

Give me a "dumb" oven any day. 

While I've got "dumb" on my brain, I'd be remiss if I didn't pimp my Zach and Zora comical murder mystery series. Hands down, one of the protagonists is the dumbest character you'll ever read in a book, satisfaction guaranteed! (Thank God, Zach's detective sister, Zora, is along for the crazy ride to offset Zach's dumbosity.) Start at the beginning with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock and continue from there. All the books will be on the test.

Drunk Raccoon!

You've all heard of the film Cocaine Bear, right? (If you haven't, you're missing out on a very funny and creative flick). Well, move over, Cocaine Bear! There's a new impaired mammal in town...It's Drunk Raccoon (aka Trashed Panda)!

Two weeks ago, during the Thanksgiving weekend, a raccoon found itself up in the rafters of a liquor store. It fell through the ceiling tile and into the store, whereupon it decided to trash everything in sight and in the process, trashing itself. My kinda guy!

But I wonder what led up to this liquor store siege...

Did the Drunk Raccoon wake up one morning and  declare, "Eureka! By jove, I've got it! Today I shall trash the local liquor store!"

Is it a warning to humanity to take care of the earth and the other inhabitants upon it? Lest we be overrun by millions of drunk raccoons, worse than any Planet of the Apes movie you could ever imagine, enacting revenge for our careless destruction of our planet?

Or did Drunk Raccoon do it on a dare?

"I'm bored, Hank."

"Me too. Nothing to do but scavenge around in old trash cans, Chuck."

"Hmmm... I just got an idea! You see that store down there? The one where the hairless apes always go into?"

"Yeah?"

"Hank, I'll give you a day's worth of nuts and berries if you go down there and bust up the joint! C'mon! What do you got to lose? It's early morning, no people in sight, and you're already wearing a mask to keep your identity a secret!"

Silence. Interminable silence while Chuck's cognitive wheels turned. "You got yourself a deal, Hank!"

Either way, I'm still left wondering why Drunk Raccoon would decide to throw all of the bottles around and breaking everything in sight. Perhaps he "pre-gamed" with some booze before the mammalian act of destruction. Or he just panicked and went on a rampage. Whatever the case may be, Drunk Raccoon lived up to his moniker and got absolutely hammered by mixing all kinds of booze (deadly for us weak humans!).

When the store opened that morning, the first employee at the scene of the crime found Drunk Raccoon sprawled out on his belly, passed out in the bathroom (I don't think he made it to the porcelain shrine.).

Happy endings abound! Animal Control scooped him up and took him to a shelter where he sobered up and was then released into the wild. And Drunk Raccoon had quite a story to tell his grandkids.

But Drunk Raccoon's notoriety didn't end there. The liquor store created three new drinks in his honor: the Rye Rascal Sour, Midnight Masked Gin Fizz, and of course, Trash Panda Old Fashioned. Something for the entire family!

Even better, over $156,000 was raised for the Hanover County Animal Protection & Shelter by selling Drunk Panda merchandise! So put a smile on your grandchild's face this year and get him that Trashed Panda hoodie he can proudly wear in his classroom!

Well, by cracky, while we're thinking about destructive, furry creatures of the night, you may as well go over to Amazon and check out my book, Corporate Wolf. It's the satirical, darkly humorous, werewolf horror thriller that you know, you want but have been too embarrassed to admit it! Find it here!

The Great Thanksgiving Dog Search Party of 2025

Ah yes...The Great Thanksgiving Dog Search Party of 2025! I remember it like it was last week. (Well, since it was last week, I'd be in trouble if I couldn't remember it...)

There was a Fall nip in the air, a taste of the biting bitter coldness of Winter to come; leaves of gold, yellow, and brown still stood knee-high in our yard (much to the chagrin of our neighbors); and our house was filled with a multitude of delectable odors as my wife kept kicking me out of our tiny kitchen. It could only mean it was Thanksgiving.

These days, most of us have extended families, which means family members work around schedules, trying to accommodate everyone. So the first of several of our Thanksgivings was to take place on Tuesday, the 25th. My wife came up with a great idea to relieve family of the typical Thanksgiving spread: she sent out a survey asking everyone what their two fave foods were. This resulted in lasagna sitting next to fried chicken, deviled eggs coinciding peacefully with angel food cake, barbeque meat vying for room against the mashed taters, etc. (Diet, what diet? We're STILL working on leftovers.)

On Monday, my brother and sister-in-laws traveled up from Oklahoma City with their two Labrador mixes riding comfortably in the back of their van. Monday night we all gathered at our house, talking about a multitude of things including how we all agreed that in movies, people in jeopardy was no big thing; but put a dog in peril and we're all emotionally invested.  DUM-Dum-Duhhhhhhh....(oooh, real-life foreshadowing!).

Tuesday morning, our family members were to leave their dog-friendly air B&B (just blocks away from us) and join us for brunch. Then we got the text from my brother-in-law: We'll be over as soon as I find Chuck and Tilly because they escaped out of the yard.

Chuck, the naughty agent provocateur who led his sister astray.

Knowing the neighborhood better than my out-of-town bro-in-law, I joined the search, my mother-in-law riding shotgun. Up and down the mean streets of suburban Kansas we crawled (pissing off cars behind us), looking for two missing Labs. Being a nice day, there were tons of people out walking, predominantly dog-walkers. Everyone was very polite, but the dog-walkers really jumped to attention. Several times, it was suggested that we look on the local neighbors Facebook page. I attempted to get on, but was stymied by questions and a waiting period while the powers-that-be determined if I was worthy of joining.

By this time, my wife put cooking on hold and joined the search party, so there were four of us out looking, while my sister-in-law acted as the hub headquarters, calling local shelters and vets. Several times we realized we were duplicating efforts as people would say, "oh yeah, we just talked to someone else about your dogs." And every time they said they'd keep an eye out.

But then it dawned on us: how would they get in contact with us? So, my mother-in-law searched for paper, anything she could find in the car, and began tearing off bits and writing phone numbers, dog names, etc. to hand out to people. Sometimes the recipients looked at the proffered piece of napkin or cardboard box with hesitation, but most accepted it willingly.

My mother-in-law (probably the friendliest person in America) was given the task of jumping out and approaching people at parks to tell our story (I figured people would be less afraid of her than me). She made many, many friends along the way, explaining our situation (probably more details than necessary) as I grew more stressed; I could feel time ticking away like a countdown to a bomb. Tensions were high as we continued the search.

Finally, one woman walking two dogs, suggested we get on the neighborhood Facebook page again. I told her we couldn't and she said, "hold on" and checked her phone for us. Seconds later, she said, "Are these your dogs?" 

Now, neither mom-in-law nor I were familiar enough with the dogs to make a definitive identification so we discussed dog colorings, ears and appearance in the car while the good Samaritan kept holding her phone toward us.

Finally, my mother-in-law said, "That's them!" Feeling triumphant, we had a high-five moment while the woman attempted to contact the person who had captured the dogs. The person wasn't immediately responding, but it was just a matter of waiting . Fully confident, I contacted family members and told them "we found your dogs!"

Then the good Samaritan flagged us down again. "Sorry," she said, "I didn't read the full post. It's just one of your dogs. The person who caught one, almost caught the other...but she escaped."

Disheartened, I called back the relatives and told them the semi-bad news.

The search continued. Meanwhile the person who had Chuck contacted my bro-in-law and he went to retrieve him. One down, one to go.

Briefly I came home, got on the computer, and tried to get on the Facebook page. I took the survey and waited. Then Mom and I went out again, this time broadening our search area. On occasion, we'd cross paths with someone else in our search party, and go the opposite direction. Mom was asking everyone in sight, handing out our little information napkins, cardboard, whatever.

Taking a quick break for lunch, refueling, we gobbled and went back on the hunt again. Somewhere along the way, I traded out my mom-in-law for brother-in-law, where we were finally able to compare crucial information. Chuck had been nabbed at a local Starbucks, so that gave us a bit further circumference to search.

As I had grown up in the neighborhood, I started having flashbacks as to when my dogs ran away. One came home of his own volition: we just heard him enter the open garage and begin to eat his dinner. Another we found down in a ritzy golf course romping with another dog. Finally, the third didn't have such a happy ending: he had been hit by a car on the extremely busy (pseudo highway) Shawnee Mission Parkway. Which was right next to the Starbucks where Tilly had last been spotted. (Gulp!)

We kept driving around at a snail's pace, my bro-in-law occasionally yelling "Tilly" out the window and stopping every person who didn't look like a serial killer. I took a quick break and went home to check my neighborhood Facebook page status. I was in! I wrote a veritable novel about Tilly and her peoples' situation (TOO much info, I'm sure) and let the magic of Facebook do it's job. We got over 600 responses! Alas, they were all of the "sad face emoji" or prayers or good luck variety. Tilly had not been found.

Meanwhile, an hour away (and while at work), my daughter joined the search by calling every shelter and animal control in surrounding counties. Eventually, my nephew joined as well. I haven't seen this big a city wide "manhunt" since...well...ever.

At 5:30 or so, we decided it was futile to continually drive around, our thoughts being that someone had picked her up and hadn't reported her yet. (OR...someone decided to keep her.) But we were exhausted, out of ideas, and we had the entire Kansas City metro area on red hot alert (some of the people we talked to, were getting kind of sick of our double-alerting).

Meanwhile, bolstered by the power of social media, I put the same sob story on about eight sites (some of them questionable; one was like "Dog, The  Bounty Hunter {although it should probably be "Man, The Dog Hunter}," consisting of a couple of guys who would suit up and go all gung-ho when there was a dog sighting). 

Okay...truthfully I couldn't believe the outpouring of support we were receiving. One woman graciously went out and searched for the dogs on her own before enlisting her daughter in the cause, too. I sincerely hadn't seen or felt a sense of community like this since eleven years ago when an orange idiot decided to irrevocably divide our country and erode our democracy. It restored my faith in humanity...everyone uniting over a missing dog (kinda ironic, yes?).

But still no word on Tilly.

At 2:30 in the morning I couldn't sleep, visions of the worst case scenarios running through my head. I got on the computer, searching police reports and the websites for any news.

The next day was pretty grim, but we did our best to soldier through our early Thanksgiving over food and games. Still, Tilly's shadow loomed over us. Time and time again, I'd anthropomorphize (an annoying habit of mine, just ask my wife) Tilly's thoughts: I'm all alone, cold, have no idea where the hell I am, how dare my people do this to me!

Begrudgingly, Tilly's people left (minus Tilly) on their 4-1/2 hour trip home.

I'd pretty much given up all hope at this point.

Then at 5:45, my bro-in-law calls:

"Paul," I said, "what's up?"

"Tilly's been found."

Blink. Think. Clear out cobwebs. Blink again. "What?"

"She's at the Fairway Animal Hospital."

My mind skyrocketed over the Kansas City area with amazement. "Okay, is she hurt? How'd she get there? Wait! What time do they close? I'm sure they're not open on Thanksgiving! Crap! I gotta go! I'll send pics!"

On my way to the door, I grabbed my nephew (because Tilly knows him best), and my wife decided to drive. A race against time, we sped through our local neighborhoods (I'm sure a cop would escort us if he knew it was all about a dog, dogs being the great uniter and all), ignored speed-bumps, and bounced our way to the hospital with seconds to spare.

"There she is," said my nephew as we walked along the large front window. Tilly was surrounded by two doting employees and another couple.

"Hi Tilly! Where have you BEEN?" All of us were so relieved and happy to see her that all seemed forgiven. (But she'd better not ever do it again!)

The young couple standing nearby were introduced as the people who brought her in. After slobbering all over them, we got the skinny: Tilly was found in Fairway (which we'd all driven through numerous times) hunkered down behind this couples' air conditioner unit. Their other dogs were going nuts, barking up a storm, and they discovered Tilly, scared and nervous. Her tags were missing, but they took her to the hospital where they scanned her embedded chip and contacted Tilly's owner.

Everything was right with the world! Huzzah! Tilly's people were overjoyed to see video and photos and the next day, my mom-in-law would take Tilly back to Oklahoma to reunite with "mom and dad."

REUNITED! (And it feeeeeels so good...)

I got on all my websites and updated my story that Tilly had been found, so everyone could call off the (*ahem*) dogs.

In a fascinating coda to the tale (tail?), a woman responded: "That nice couple who found Tilly is my daughter and her husband. Ever since she graduated from college, she's saved numerous dogs. A while back, they had found another runaway dog in the exact same spot where Tilly was found. Dogs must feel something so strong that they know they'll be safe with my daughter and attracted to her house."

Wow. Cue the Twilight Zone theme...

Anyway, happy ending, normal is good, and I could finally relax. Whew. Then I started to wonder: maybe we could fix our country if we got Trump a dog. Just sayin'...

Okay, I'm gonna take this opportunity to pimp my book Secret Society (the first in the Killers Incorporated trilogy). Yeah, sure, it's a darkly comic thriller series about a secret cabal of serial killers working for an  evil nationwide conglomerate, bla, bla, bla. But a dog plays a crucial part in the story, humanizing (I hope!) one of the killers. (And don't worry, the dog has a happy ending.) Check it out here.