A Tale of Two Hares

 

I shuffled from side to side as the line for the giant Easter Bunny slowly moved forward. It looked like the same chair in the Blue Ridge Mall where I’d seen Santa. Maybe they knew each other. It was finally my turn. I tried to sit still long enough to list all the toys and candy I wanted Mr. Bunny to leave in my wicker basket on Easter Sunday.

Little Philip: We need to put out the baskets. The Easter Bunny is going to bring my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures.

Mom: It’s dinner time, we have a few hours. And how do you know what he’s bringing?

Little Philip: I told him what to bring me.

Mom: Like chocolate eggs?

Little Philip: Yes! But also a chocolate bunny the size of my head and not empty inside.

Right before bed, the baskets appeared on the kitchen table. Each one was a shade of brown and filled with plastic neon grass. I woke up to check at 10, no Bunny yet. Then midnight, still nothing in my basket. Hmmm. Then 5, jackpot! It was a muted celebration, as I wasn’t allowed to wake Mom up until the sun was up.

Little Philip: The Easter Bunny came!! MOM!!!! Are you awake?

Mom: Ummm, yeah. What did you get?

Little Philip: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures, the bunny one I wanted! And Cadbury eggs! And a chocolate bunny. But…

Mom: But, what?

Little Philip: It’s hollow and barely the size of my hand.

Mom: Don’t you have enough candy?

Usagi Yojimbo fought Shredder until it was time to put on my Sunday best and head to Granny’s. The rest of the day was filled with egg hunts, ham, rolls, and enough sugar to keep Wonka out of the poor house.

We shuffled from side to side as the line for the giant Easter Bunny slowly moved forward. It looked like the same chair in the Asheville Mall where she’d seen Santa. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. It was finally her turn to tell Mr. Bunny what she wanted in her basket for Easter. I caught bits of chocolate, books, and markers, but couldn’t make out the rest through the bustle of the mall.

Philip: Did you tell the Easter Bunny what you wanted?

Elle: Yeah.

Philip: What did you tell him?

Elle: Why?

Philip: So, I can make sure he gets you the right stuff.

Elle: He knows what to get me.

Philip: Ugh.

The next week, Mr. Bunny was making an appearance at Elle’s daycare. It was all she talked about. I heard about it on car rides home, before bed, and even between bites of dinner. The day finally came.

Philip: You ready to go?

Elle: Sure.

Philip: What’s the matter?

Elle: I don’t wanna talk about it.

Philip: Ok. How was the Easter Bunny?

Elle: I don’t wanna talk about it.

Philip: Hmmm, ok?

Elle: He’s not real. I know so.

Philip: I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

Elle: I saw his zipper!!

Spaghett-a-plenty

Little Philip: Hey, Mom! What’s this?

Mom: Spaghetti

LP: In a box? How much is in here?

M: A pound

LP: How much does a pound weigh?

M: Eyeroll

LP: Is that how much hamburger and sauce we have too?

M: Yes, a pound of each

LP: (Quick math.) So… seconds tonight!

⸻

As a kid, I lived for spaghetti night. Not only did that mean a second helping, but it also meant leftovers the next day. Leftovers where you added a small amount of water to the container before microwaving to keep the noodles from drying out.

There are three ways to upgrade a simple spaghetti meal. The first is shaker Parmesan cheese that comes in the round green container. You usually need to bang it on the table to loosen it up before piling it on the pasta.

The next upgrade requires a little bit more time and labor. Garlic bread. Specifically the over-buttered Texas toast slices that come frozen in the yellow box. Because why wouldn’t one want to place their tomato-ey tangy carbs on top of garlicky buttery carbs?

And the final, ultimate upgrade? You combine the same cheese, breadcrumbs, ground beef, and other ingredients to make meatballs. Meatballs can come in all different sizes, small enough to eat in one bite or large enough to throw Sammy Sosa out at third from right field.

I’ve had all types of spaghetti—from canned Spaghetti-O’s in a drafty two-bedroom house to spaghetti and meat sauce in a single-wide trailer in a trailer park to spaghetti and seafood in Florence, Italy. My favorite by far is the spaghetti and meatballs that Matty makes, and specifically the first weekend she made a ginormous batch at my apartment.

Elle: What’s for dinner tonight?

Philip: Spaghetti and Meatballs

E: There’s a lot here!

P: Yeah, a whole week’s worth, it was just made this weekend.

E: These meatballs are the size of softballs!

P: Make sure you put a little water in it before microwaving.

Forecasts, Sledding, and Soggy Jeans

 

I have never won the big, life-changing, instant-retirement lottery. But then again, I only play when it reaches $1B, because I can’t be bothered with a measly couple of hundred million dollars. I do know how that would feel, though. It starts as simple as a kid sitting in front of the 6pm WLOS news waiting for the cold mid-January weekday forecast. Then suddenly, those magic words are uttered, “Tonight, possible snow showers.”  

That night would be met with restlessness, tossing, turning, and getting up to check out the window to see if snow was visible against the glow of the streetlight. This was always a gamble; not enough sleep and no snow would mean a hard day at school. 

This would mean getting up at normal school time, checking outside, and then sitting cross-legged in front of the TV with the news on, hoping the blue crawler showed that my school was out for the day. Yeah, getting up early on a day off — it’s actually not so bad with snow piling up on the ground.  

News13 always showed their crawler in alphabetical order. The crawler always went forward, never pausing, so if you looked away for a moment, you were back to watching it. When I was a student in Buncombe County, it was great! For Elle, as a student in Transylvania County, not so much. The anticipation for me as an adult carried the same weight it did when I was a kid. I couldn’t wait for Elle and me to get out in the snow and let her imagination run.

Most Southern people do not own proper snow attire. I would usually find myself outside in a knit cap, a hoodie with a t-shirt underneath, jeans with long underwear, wool socks, and waterproof hiking boots. Luckily, Elle was better prepared with the appropriate coats, scarves, gloves, boots, and hat. While she was busy playing, I would be doing my best not to drown in all the water my jeans had accumulated.

The driveway was gravel, went straight down with no curves, and at the bottom was even a little berm before the ditch started. A perfect place for a snow sled to speed down. The sled I had as a kid was wooden with red metal rails and a red steering rod at the front. I didn’t know it, but you were supposed to wax the rails; I don’t think we ever owned any sled wax. Elle’s sled was a purple plastic two-seater with a yellow steering rope, and it would fly!

I would climb onto the back of the purple sled and put my feet down to anchor so it didn’t move. Elle would sit down in front of me, scoot as far back as she could, and then hand me the steering rope. “Ready?!” “Yeah!!” I would pull my feet off the ground, tuck them in beside her, and give a small push with my hands. Down the hill we flew! Within seconds, we were at the bottom, laughing and giggling. “Can we do it again?” “Sure!”

Elle: The snow’s too deep for me to walk back up the hill.

Me: Ummm

Elle: ….

Me: Get in the sled and I’ll pull you up the hill, but hold on and sit still so you don’t tip it over.

We went down the driveway at least five times, and each time ended with me pulling her in the sled back to the top of the hill. A real test of endurance, kind of like if you combined Rocky chasing the chickens and running up the steps into one exercise. Turns out the world only has so much oxygen, and I used it all that day.

E: One more time

M: Ummm, pant, pant

E: Hmmm?

M: Ummm, we have to go inside — the hot chocolate is getting cold

E: We haven’t made it yet

M: Exactly

I’m not a coffee drinker, but I am a hot chocolate drinker. I believe the perfect hot chocolate is made with Swiss Miss, milk instead of water, and those tiny marshmallows that almost fully melt before you take the first sip. Throw in some soggy jeans, a slightly sore back, and a daughter sipping her own while watching cartoons as the blue, out-of-school lottery crawler slowly scrolled at the bottom, revealing the next day’s closings.

Operation: V-Day

Valentine’s Day in the year 2026 was a different one for Matty and me. We had decided instead of gifts and cards we would just do a nice dinner and maybe a movie afterwards.

I was tasked with finding a restaurant.

Unfortunately, I waited until the Monday before to start looking, and almost every restaurant in Atlanta had no reservations available for dinner — so lunch it was! This allowed for an early movie and for us to get home in time to watch AEW Collision!

We left the house early for our 1:30 p.m. South African lunch at Yebo Beach Haus — Matty’s pick — and as fate would have it, Atlanta construction workers do not celebrate V-Day. Once traffic began to clear, she drove through downtown, weaving in and out of lanes as if we were being followed. But we still missed that reservation.

I quickly made a new one at Eclipse di Luna - Buckhead. We actually arrived a few minutes early for the new lunchtime and were seated immediately. While deciding on the food, I noticed that her R’s rolled like wheels on an Aston Martin while mine clunked as if falling off a flatbed trailer. Tapas of churrasco steak, lamb chops, scallops, calamari, and ribs filled the table alongside sangria, lychee martinis, and a couple of orders of bread. Each small plate was just as good as, or better than, the next. After finishing off a flan, we wobbled out the door to our car.

Matty had chosen Wuthering Heights as our movie for the afternoon. I assumed she and the sons and daughters of diplomats had read it while attending the American School in South Africa. I, being the English scholar that I am, had never heard of it, but I was willing to give it a go.

The theatre? AMC Buckhead at Phipps Plaza.

What is Phipps Plaza?

A “mall” where instead of Sears you have Nordstrom Rack, instead of Kay Jewelers you have Tiffany & Co., and a place where the Louis Vuitton section in Saks Fifth Avenue has its own security and entrance.

There was not a massage chair in sight.

We did a little shopping at Nordstrom Rack and she left with a pair of shoes that were definitely too small and too feminine for me. We exited to the plaza and made our way toward the third level where the theatre was. Something off to the side caught my eye — a K-9 unit that seemed pretty excited. I had seen a couple of other dogs around; maybe it was barking at one of them. We continued up the stairs to the second level.

Guard: Excuse me, can I ask you guys some questions?

Us: Ummm… sure.

Guard: Do you have any firearms at home?

Us: Ummm… no (definitely lying to protect our Second Amendment). What’s going on?

Guard: The K-9 alerted on you, and we’re just doing a quick check. Do you take high blood pressure medicine?

Us: One of us does.

Guard: Are either of you in demolition construction?

Us: One of us sits behind a desk as a manager — but no demolition.

Guard: Okay, you guys have a great night.

We made our way up to the third level, scanned our tickets, and entered the theatre early for the movie. I grabbed us a table and a couple of drinks from the bar, and we began to talk about what had just happened — she was so frustrated I heard some Afrikaans slip out. I started to wonder what blood pressure, guns, and dynamite (not AEW) had in common.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

They all had chemical smells that could be traced to explosives.

Sometimes you don’t need the last piece to see what the puzzle will look like. It was becoming very clear to me what was happening.

There across from me, in a black leather jacket, was my beautiful wife, who recently started wearing glasses more, already spoke multiple languages (even easily picking up Italian before our honeymoon), had recently developed an interest in Korean dramas (where she read the English captions as they spoke in Korean), and now faintly smelled of explosives.

I had married a spy.

Apple IIe, Dysentery, and a Truth Lasso

 I’m not sure what age the dizzying blur of red, white, blue, and gold caught my attention, but I do remember being fascinated with the ability to ricochet bullets and lasso the bad guys. 

My early childhood was filled with classic heroes-versus-villains TV shows. Batman, starring Adam West, Dukes of Hazzard, where the cops were the bad guys, CHiPs on motorcycles, and even Andy Griffith occupied my time after long days of subtraction, reading about George Washington, writing words in looping cursive that I would rarely use anywhere else, and chasing the other kids around with a stick. 

But, one of my top favorite shows of all time?  1975’s Wonder Woman. Where Princess Diana of the Amazons with the help of Major Steve Trevor fought the Nazis during World War II and saved the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 

All of this was accomplished while flying around in an invisible jet and in Americana-inspired tights and corset. 

My heart, be still.

One day, my TV screen was replaced with a smaller screen with green font and an attached keyboard. There were games about surviving a trail to Oregon, clunky racing games, and the classic Solitaire. Also, this new contraption required a typing class to master its communication. The times, they were a changing. 

Luckily, the introduction of the computer also meant the capability to access almost any and all information available.  Gone were the days of searching a card catalog for a resource book to only traverse down the walls of shelves and find it missing. Just a few carefully typed words and anything you wanted to know about a penguin was right there on the now colored Windows-based screen. 

We didn’t have a PC at home until my senior year, but the high school library had many available and we were encouraged to use them at least once a week during my English I class.  The computers were lined against a wall with a single one by itself in a corner. An idea bloomed over time. 

It seemed like forever until no one sat at the computer in the corner and I was able to snag it. But, that fateful day came. It came not with an announcement, or a shout, but with me worming my way to the front of the line as we filed out to the library. I took my seat at the computer, started it, and waited. 

A quick glance let me know that my teacher and librarian were engaged in conversation with each other and not paying attention to me, not that they would have anyways, I never made any trouble. 

Remembering Wonder Woman and knowing this newfangled internet was full of all kinds of pictures, I began to type. 

Glancing around again, I quickly typed, http://www.  

Now to check again. They’re still chatting. I began to slowly type so I could change midstream if needed.

A  

M  

A  

Z  

O  

N  

and then quickly again .com.

Enter

Textbooks!!!! Ugh!!!