"Steak"

That's one of my names, "Steak", and I like it, I like it so much that I kept it. It's the kind of nickname that you have to love, unless of course "you" are a "vegetarian", which is a lousy nickname. This is another one of those strange things that happen by mistake and then once you find out about it you can either "fix it" or "perpetuate it", guess which one I chose to do.

It started with "shoes", me and the wife were out shopping for shoes and we decided to try "Famous Footwear", we found shoes and bought shoes and then of course the clerk asks us if we want to join the "rewards club", this gets you on their mailing list and they send us coupons and discounts for shoes, the more shoes we buy the more discounts we get. The wife wants to join but she never wants to do the paperwork to join, so of course I get to do it. This is a very familiar theme that we repeat over and over during our marriage.

And then life goes on..........months later a letter shows up from Famous Footwear, it's addressed to "Steak" followed by my last name, the clerk had not only misspelled my first name, somehow she had completely changed it into a delicious main entree. I can type my name with my left hand and I never have to use my right hand, which is where the "K" is, so how it is that she made this mistake I'll never know. There is always the chance that she does this with everyone she signs up for the club.

So "Steak" it was and it was funny, who knew shopping for shoes could be funny, getting mail was funny, going out for steak was funny. The fun never stopped when it came to shoes and steak.

And then a clerk noticed it and offered to change it, this kind of freaked me out, I couldn't let that happen, I felt like Gollum and that "name" was my "ring", my "precious", so I politely declined, she then insisted and asked for my first name, and as stupid as this whole thing is I just could not let it go, I didn't want to lose it forever, if she changed it in the computer then it would go away forever, I wouldn't tell her my first name so I just begged her off and said "no" "leave it", "it's funny when it shows up in the mail", "it's funny when I have a coupon that says "Steak" gets 20% off". She smiled and left it alone, my wife was dying of laughter during all of this, but she knew what it meant to me.

It's a manly nickname "Steak", whats better then that? I use it on all of my store clubs now, 3 different grocery stores, sporting goods store, every chance I get because there can never be enough "Steak". If it ever shows up on my credit report as an alias I'm going to have to celebrate.

My favorite steakhouse is "Ruth's Chris Steakhouse", my wife's favorite is "Steve's Sizzling Steaks" no shit, true story.

I'm not Johnny Depp

I have been told by quite a few people that I "look" like him, so what I'm going to try to do is just that, I am going to see how far I can go with this, I can do the hair, although I think he likes it a bit more greasy then I do, I part mine in the middle and he pulls it straight back without a part and we both wear it about the same length so I'm pretty sure I can do the hair thing.

Mustache, soul patch and goatee, this could be a problem because I have the facial hair growing tendencies of a 10 year old, I'll know I'm getting somewhere when my wife starts complaining. What I have never done in my entire life is that I have never, ever grown a full beard, mostly because it won't grow, I end up looking like I have the "mange" with open spots that you can actually see where hair will "never" "ever" grow, like I got little baby butts here and there on my face.

I'll order me some vintage style big frame glasses tomorrow, they appear to be "Arnel's", I need a new pair anyway before the year end for my insurance allotment, I think I'll go with the Blond Tortoise.

He's only 6 years younger then me and we are roughly the same height and weight except where I'm "doughy" he's probably firmer, I'll hide that with clothes. I think I can do this, I'm not going to tell my wife about it though, she rarely reads this blog so I may get away with it for awhile, in the meantime I'll delve into the "Pirates of the Caribbean" and pickup some "Sparrowisms" I can bandy about.

This could be fun, and we all need fun so.........fun it is then :)

Crazy Pants

I have been on a weight loss journey along with my wife for the last year or so and it's been going really well, every month or so I lose enough to shout it out on face book, I still have a ways to go, my goal is around 170 to 175, I'm close to 6 feet tall so that's a nice healthy goal, not to skinny, not to heavy. So that means I have approximately 15 to 20 pounds left to lose before I can really and I mean really wear some of my old pants.

I put some of the old pants away in the closet, hung them on hangers and kept shoving them to the left to make way for the ever increasing waist size pants. I was growing so was my wardrobe, I remember wearing size 27 waist jeans as a teen but I was skinny, after I got out of the Marine Corps I was at a size 32 waist and there I stayed for the next 20 years, I need to write that again for my benefit "and there I stayed for the next 20 years". Memories.

I quit smoking cigarettes and thus began the "great expansion", at first it took some time, like I was slowly blowing up a balloon, one of those long thin ones the clowns use, my pants felt tight after I washed them and then they felt tight all the time. 34 waist, 36 waist, 38 waist, stop, it didn't go any further then that. I had quit smoking and I had quit drinking but I also had replaced both with eating and bad eating at that, old story, fat guy in mirror, doctor appointment, fat guy in doctors office, blood work, fat guy getting blood tested. The ultimate insult was the fat pants, pants with elastic "sizers". Bad times :(.

And then I got serious about moving my waist size the other way, and I did, I walked it backwards, it has taken months, almost a year now, I started feeling better, I started looking better, I was wearing a size 36 then 35 and then it happened.

My wife was rushing me out of the house to buy an area rug for our family room before she had to leave for work, so time was of the essence, I was in sweatpants (stretchy) and I will not usually appear in public wearing sweatpants, she knows this, so wheres the jeans (35) that fit? In the washer, fuck! Now what? My wife suggests that surely there must be pants that fit in the closet, I hadn't been in there, I had no idea if there was or not, I was confused and scared and being rushed so I went into the closet and found a pair of "khakis" I had bought years ago for some informal occasion, you know, Christmas day khakis, concert khakis, the pants you only wear a few times and then forget in the closet, those khakis.

Size 32

Now I start having these visions that there is no way these are even going over my hips! (I had a previous incident), but they did, they buttoned, they zipped, they were incredibly tight, as a side note I was also "going commando", and it's a good thing that I did because that sliver of "Fruit of the Loom" would have prevented a successful closure. Some bizarre twist of fate had allowed me to squeeze into a pair of pants that I had no business being in, They looked like a "spray tan" all the way down to my knees and then they finally loosened up a bit, enough for the hair on my calves to move, it looked like I had large pockets attached to my thighs, you know "KHAKIS".

Of course my wife says "you look fine lets go", she lied, so I throw on a large t-shirt to complete this ridiculous charade, I know I'm going shopping for an area rug looking like a dancer from the 80's, all I need is a headband, I walk in front of my wife to get a reaction and oh yeah......giggling. I'm pretty sure that pants are supposed to hang loosely from the waist down, these actually are form fitting, they actually conform to the shape of my ass and front. I put on a long coat and went out the door looking for a rug.

Besides the discomfort of sitting, driving and walking in my spray tan pants it all goes well, no one complements my circumcision and we find a rug, we get home and my wife say's "go put your sweats on and get out of those pants".

I reply "no way, these are 32's".