Silent Night (part 3)

That said, Monday was a waiting game, like being stuck in traffic behind a terrible accident. But a terrible accident involving a bus full of people you know. All you can do is sit and wait to hear if there are casualties, but you know that emergency services are having difficulty getting there because of all the backed-up traffic.

All of our information was coming through the radio and my wife’s phone...


You can find the rest of this piece here:

Food and Reading: Why the Two Go Together

When I first met my wife, she didn't like steak. Actually, she didn't like any kind of "slab of meat" whether it came from a cow or a pig. Her previous experience with slabs of meat had been mediocre at best. Basically, her parents, when she was growing up, didn't know how to cook meat and, inevitably, what she would get was a tough, unspiced, piece of leather-like substance that needed a laser to cut it. Which she didn't have. Which meant she had to saw on it with a knife for several minutes per bite. But that was okay, because it took so long to chew that she had plenty of time to saw off the next piece.
We at a lot of chicken at the beginning of our relationship.

But, see, I didn't understand her position about the meat. My experience with the same kinds of "slabs of meat" was completely different but, then, my mom was a cook. She had this metal mallet thing with different sized spikes on either end that she used to pound steak with before she cooked it. There was never anything unchewable in our house. Mostly, I never even used a knife when I was a kid unless I wanted to spread peanut butter (and, no, Briane Pagel, I never put peanut butter on steak).

However, there was even more to all of this than even I knew.

Every once in a while, we did get steak or pork because it needed to go in something, like steak fajitas and, because we had it, every once in a while, I would just cook steak or pork chops. At first, my wife's reaction was "wow! this is good!" BUT "I don't like meat." She was so invested in the whole not liking meat thing because of her notion about how it wasn't good that, for a while, every time we had it and she liked it she thought it was some kind of aberration. Some accident. The next time would be back to how it was when she was growing up, so she actively campaigned against there being a next time.

But I'm a guy, and I like slabs of meat. Which is where it gets kind of interesting because, to me, a slab of meat was a slab of meat. So the slabs of meat we ate were, well, fairly cheap slabs of meat. Which is what I'd grown up eating and I liked just fine.

Of course, I didn't have a hammer like my mom had so, although the steak we had always tasted good, it was sometimes a little tough. Still, it was enough to cause my wife to eventually change her opinion about slabs of meat.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened or why, but, at some point, we tried a slightly more expensive cut of meat, New York strip. Probably, it was on sale. The difference was amazing! I mean, AMAZING! Oh, my, gosh, the better cut of meat held the flavors of the spices so much better, and it was incredibly tender all on its own. Then we tried a rib-eye cut and it was even better! I love the rib-eye!

See, I didn't know, except theoretically, that there was a difference in the experience of the meat. Previously, the rib-eye I'd had had not been well-cooked or well-spiced, so it didn't actually compare well to the, basically, crappy cuts of meat we'd been having at home. My wife, also, was astounded. We don't eat the cheap cuts of meat anymore.

The point here is that sometimes (frequently) we don't know that something is, well, crappy until we've had something better. The thing we're used to just... is. We think that's how it's supposed to be and as good as it's going to be. It happens with food, and it happens with books.

With books? What?

Yes, it happens with books.

Frequently, we get stuck on reading particular types of books or just one or two particular authors. Sometimes, there is better quality stuff out there, but we've established whatever it is as part of our "reading identity." For instance, part of my reading identity during high school (and something I carried into college) was that I was a reader of Piers Anthony (and, really, I hate to keep using him as an example of this, but it is what it is). I read everything he put out. I even tracked down a couple of out-of-print books he'd written early in his career because my goal was to read every book he ever wrote. A goal I gave up during college when I finally started branching out in my reading and discovered that there were so many better books out there. Or, at least, books I liked more.

Which is why you should taste new things. Like, every time you have the chance, taste new things. What's the worst that's going to happen? You won't like it. Big deal. So you don't eat (read) that thing again. And on the other side, you will find things that you absolutely love. Or can learn to love. I didn't used to like broccoli, after all, but that might have been because my mom always boiled it (in the South, anything that's not fried is boiled); the point is that now I really like broccoli. A lot. But it did take some getting used to.

So don't get into a reading rut. Try new books. Try new authors. Even if you like what you're reading, now, you might find that it's really just the cheap cut.

***

Also, remember, we are still taking submissions over at Indie Writers Monthly for your time travel stories!

Just click the link for all the details! Real prize money involved!

The Shelf Life of Serial

Every time I do one of these posts, it makes me think of cereal. I just can't help it. Last time, I talked about Grape-Nuts; this time I'm thinking about cereal I liked when I was a kid.

I suppose my first favorite kinds of cereals were those ones with the dried up marshmallows in them, specifically Boo Berry and Fraken Berry.

(Yes, I had to get the Star Wars one in there.)

My aunt used to buy those for my cousin and me down at the farm when I was little. I mean, like, before I was five, but I never got those at home, and, as we got older, my aunt and cousin quit being down at the farm all the time (because of school, I suppose, like me), so that cereal quit being available to me. I always wanted Lucky Charms, but my mom would never buy them for me. Or any marshmallow cereal for that matter. Any time I got any of those was over at friends' houses.

I ended up settling on Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. Thinking about it now, that was because my mom liked that particular cereal, so that was the only kind of sugar cereal we had around my house as a kid. Okay, not true: we also tended to have Frosted Flakes, but I didn't really like those, so I tended to ignore their existence. Now, don't get me wrong; I really liked the Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch (and still love the idea of it, even now, but, after being off of sugar for... years, now, and after not having had any of it since, basically, living in California, I don't want to go back and try it, now. I might find out it tastes like dirt), but, sometimes, I wanted to have other kinds of cereal, like Crunch Berries, which is still Cap'n Crunch, but my mom wouldn't even go for that.

Actually, all of this cereal talk is making me realize some things about my childhood that are better saved for another day, especially since this post isn't actually about cereal. So let's play Homonym!

and talk about The real answer here: Serial!

I've been doing Shadow Spinner as a serialization for over a year, now, and I've learned a few things. You'd hope so, right? As I said when I started all of this, it's all been kind of an experiment, one in which some  of you have been participating, and I figure it's about time to let you in on some results.

1. Overall, I'd say that serialization is a very viable option in today's publishing world. I know that I've gained a lot more exposure by releasing Spinner in parts rather than if I'd just released it all at once. In that respect, it has worked very well. I've gotten reviews and ratings from people I don't know who, for the most part, have really enjoyed Spinner, and that has been gratifying to see. I've also gained an unknown number of friends on Facebook due to Spinner, people who are following me there specifically because of Spinner. So, yeah, I'd say doing the serial thing has been a positive experience. And I may do it again...

2. However, I think 34 parts is too long. I knew that from the beginning, but, not having done it before, I didn't know that I knew it. Of course, I didn't write Spinner to be a serial when I was first writing it, and the format I wrote it in, the short chapters, was to fit in with the creative writing class I was teaching. If I had known what I was going to do, I would have structured it differently. Or, if I'd really thought about how long the process would be that I was setting up, I may have combined the chapters or something. But none of that matters for this particular project, because I can't go back and change how I've done it, only remember it for the future.

3. The Kindle releases do not help the sales of the physical book. That was a bit of secondary experimentation I was doing. Release the full physical book before the serialization was finished, but I can't see that it made any impact on sales. People wanting the physical book will buy it, but it has nothing to do with the serialization.

4. At this point, I can't see that Shadow Spinner has had any impact on sales of The House on the Corner. Maybe it has, but, if it has, it has been small enough that I can't see it. What that means is that House has continued to sell at approximately the same rate as before I started the serialization of Spinner. But, then, House has been out for a while, so, maybe, without Spinner sales would have dried up altogether and it's only Spinner that has kept sales going. I have no way of knowing.

5. What I do know is that the release of new Spinner parts has almost always resulted in the sale of various older parts, depending on what was available for free on any given release day. Actually, most of those purchases would come later during the week after one of the free days, so that tells me people must have been reading and deciding they wanted to go on. At least, I think that's what it's telling me.

All of this means a few things:
1. As I've said before, I'm going to be collecting the individual parts of Spinner into collected volumes. That will keep it in a serialized format but also make it cheaper for people to buy in the future (once I've gotten beyond the free release days). The first of these collected volumes, "Collection 1: Tiberius," will contain

parts one through five. As an added bonus, I will also be including Bryan Pedas' story "Like An Axe Through Bone" because so many people have requested that I make it available other than in the physical book. [Each of the other collected editions will have a different story from a different author.] Collection 1 will be released on Monday, August 19 (along with "Part Twenty-eight: The Shadow Place").

2. In relation to the additional stories, I need a couple more. If you're interested in submitting an Imagination Room (from The House on the Corner) themed story to be included as a backup story at the end of one of these, please let me know. I'd really like to feature some other independent author at the back of each of these volumes.

3. Here's where you can help! And, really, I mean that. I'm not keen on asking for this kind of help, because it actually involves me asking you to spend money in a way beyond the general, "hey, buy my book," which is, actually, what I'm doing, but with a purpose. See, I'm going to lose all of my reviews on the individual parts of Spinner as I transition to the collected parts. [Yes, I've tried talking to Amazon about this, and, maybe, I'll explain in more detail later, but it would be too long to add to this post. Let's just say it's another thing I learned.] What I really need is for those of you that have already read and reviewed any of the first five parts (and any of you who have been thinking about doing it) to

• On Monday, August 19, buy Collection 1 of Shadow Spinner.
• Leave a review some time during the week of the 19th. [For those of you who have previously left a review, this should be an easy process. For those of you who have not, the first five chapters are really not all that long.]

Because "The Tunnel" has been out for so long, I think it's really important to make up as much ground as possible during the switch to the collection, so I would really appreciate your help.

Also, you know, you could post about the release. If you really wanted to. That, also, always helps.

4. I will be moving from a biweekly release schedule on the remaining parts to a weekly schedule. The new releases of the individual parts will still be free as will as many of the other individual parts as possible each week. However, the collections will not be free. The feedback for the later collections will not be as critical as replacing the feedback on this first collection, so, you know, pick up the later parts for free while they're available that way. But, please, buy Collection 1 and leave a review on Amazon and, even, a rating on goodreads. I can't tell you how much this will help me out. Thanks!

Chasing Thrones and Other Stuff

First up, today is the FREE! release of "Part Twenty-one: The Chase," which is pretty much what it sounds

like except without any cars or boats or anything like that. But more about that in a moment...

The next bit of news I have is that I'm now part of the Out of Print group. The blog is going to be about featuring short stories. I have one coming up in June, but there are already two on the site. Drop by and check it out, leave a comment, all that jazz. Maybe, there will be jazz. Not right now, but you can't rule that kind of thing out, especially if I say, "Hey, we should have jazz," which I probably won't, but you never know. And I mean exactly that, you never know.

Now for the other thing:
Our washing machine broke. That happened in the middle of a-to-z and all the crazy deadlines I have coming up here at the end of the school year, so it took longer to take care of than I really wanted it to. What that means is that I had to completely rearrange the garage so that we could have a new washer brought in and the old one taken out.

And I just have to say that it's more than a little bit bogus that we had to buy a new washing machine. Not that we had to buy one in-and-of-itself, because the old machine was, well, old, BUT the last time it broke (granted, that was something along the lines of 15 years ago), we were able to get it fixed at a reasonable cost, but you can't do that anymore. Basically, the cost of having the old washer fixed was going to cost us the price of a new one, and that just bothers me. It bothers me that you can't have things fixed anymore, because our society doesn't believe in fixing the old stuff; it only believes in buying new stuff. I do like the new washer; it's all water efficient and stuff, which is good for the environment, BUT I hate that everything is made around this idea of throwing it away and buying something new when the time comes.

But all of that is beside the point, because the point is this: While I was rearranging the garage, I found

Yes, that is a first edition copy of A Game of Thrones, only read once, by my wife before I met her (and that is, indeed, my thumb in that picture). She didn't care enough about it to ever want to read the next one, so it's just been in storage, mostly, since then. I checked around ebay and copies like this one (sans dust jacket) have been going for over $100, so we're going to sell it. However, before I stick it up for auction, I thought I'd see if there are any of you out there that might be interested in it before I dump it off on the highest bidder. Aside from the fact that it doesn't have a dust jacket, it's in great shape.

As mentioned above, today is the FREE! release of part 21 of Shadow Spinner, so, if you can't afford the copy of Thrones, you can still come away with FREE! stuff. Here is today's list of FREE!:
"Part Twenty-one: The Chase" (FREE! Monday, May 13 and Tuesday, May 14)
(The rest of these will only be FREE! on Monday, May 13.)
"Part Twenty: The Sword of Fire"
"Part Nineteen: Lost in the Garden"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Five: The Police Car"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
"Part One: The Tunnel"
So there you go... 16 of 21 of the current Shadow Spinner pieces available for FREE! today. Spread the word! Spread it like peanut butter. Not regular butter. Unless it's melted. That could be okay. But don't try to spread it like cold butter, because that just rips your bread up and makes a mess.

The Serial Experiment

When I was a kid, I had this cousin... no, wait, I still have the cousin, even if I haven't seen him in more than 20 years. Let's try again:

When my cousin was a kid, actually, when he was a baby, his mother (that makes her my aunt) had trouble getting him to eat his baby food. He would do that baby tongue thing and just push it all out of his mouth. It didn't matter what flavor it was, he just wouldn't eat the baby food. Somewhere in trying to get him to eat, they discovered that he liked ketchup, so my aunt took to mixing it in his baby food to get him to eat it. Growing up, my cousin thought ketchup went on everything.

I mean that. When we'd all be down at my grandparents for the holidays, say, Thanksgiving, he'd get his plate of food and pour ketchup over everything on the plate. On the turkey and the ham. On the mashed potatoes and green beans. On the dressing (also known as stuffing for those of you that don't know what dressing is, except they're not really the same thing) and the sweet potatoes. The only thing that didn't get ketchup was the pie. This was just how he ate, and everyone was (mostly) used to it.

Until one Saturday morning when he and I and another of our cousins were down at my great-grandmother's house. One of the few things that didn't get ketchup (other than pie) was cereal. Except, on that particular Saturday morning, he decided he was going to put ketchup on his cereal. Yes, my other cousin and I were entirely grossed out by this idea, and my other cousin tried to pull rank because she was the oldest of us (and could also beat him up at need) and threatened him all the way to Sunday (which was only  the next day, so I guess it wasn't that big a deal) about the ketchup, but he wouldn't be dissuaded.

Finally, the bargain was struck that if he put ketchup on the cereal that he would eat it no matter what, that he would not under any circumstances leave the table until the bowl of cereal was consumed. She was going to sit there and not let him up until he ate every last bite. He had no doubt that he would eat the cereal, so he made the deal readily enough.

I wish I could remember what kind of cereal it was, but I don't, but that's only secondary to what happened next. See, the ketchup went on, and the milk started turning pink. And so did the cereal. In fact, it turned into a bowl of pink mush. My cousin wouldn't eat it. He did manage to try it, but it was as gross as it looked, like a lumpy bowl of Pepto-Bismol.

We sat at that table for a long time. A very long time. It was one of the few times in my life that I remember being bored. But my female cousin wouldn't let my male cousin up from the table. We all just sat there being completely miserable. And, then, we sat some more. My cousin, the ketchup eater, outlasted the enforcer. That was probably somewhat due to me and the fact that I kept saying, "Let's go..." I told you, I was bored. Finally, FINALLY, we, the girl and I, left. We left Mr. Ketchup sitting there with his bowl of... whatever it was with strict instructions that he was not to leave the table until he's eaten every single bit of that cereal.

Yeah, right.

He hid the bowl, joined us just a few minutes later, and convinced my cousin that he'd eaten the cereal. He his the bowl really well, too, because she went back to check; she even looked under the table, and she ended up being convinced. The ironic thing there is that the bowl was under the table, just not on the floor. Later, Ketchup Lad and I sneaked back in and retrieved the bowl of cereal and dumped it for the dogs. These were farm dogs used to eating just about any kind of leftover you can imagine.
They didn't eat that cereal.

Welcome to my first post for Indie Life. Just click the link to find out more.

At this point, you might be wondering what that story has to do with being an "indie" publisher. You wouldn't be wrong to wonder that. It all has to do with experimenting with serials. Actually, it has more to do with the willingness to experiment. My cousin had these two things that he loved: ketchup and cereal, and he decided he needed to try the two together. It didn't work out for him, but he was willing to give it a try. He was willing to give it a try even though he was being told not to do it, that he was crazy, and it was just gross. Okay, so it was gross, but we didn't actually know that until after he tried it. My cousin learned a valuable lesson that day: ketchup doesn't go with everything.

As I was working on my second book, Shadow Spinner, I came across an article that stated  in no uncertain terms that serialized works are dead and that no one should attempt it. I wondered why. Many of our greatest author published many of their greatest works in serial form, and, with our growing fascination with things that are short, serialization seemed to me like it might be something to experiment with. I decided that I would start releasing Shadow Spinner a chapter at a time to see what would happen. The experiment isn't over, yet, but I think it's going well. Actually, I know it is.

And! AND! After I started releasing Spinner serially, Amazon started up its own serial arm of its publishing business. Amazon believes that serializations may be the wave of the future as far as book publishing goes. I was too late to with Spinner to get into that without removing everything I'd already released and starting over, which I didn't want to do, but I do have another idea for a different serial when I finish with this one, and I will try out their serial branch when I get to that one. Only without the ketchup.

The point is... the point is don't be scared to try new things, especially if you're just starting out. Sure, they might not all work, but you'll know what not to do next time, right? And you might just discover the next big thing, like peanut butter and peppermint. Okay, so that's still not big, but my kids swear to me that it's going to be.

Unexpected Applause: The Greatest Xmas Story Ever Told [plus news and a smart cookie]

Back in December, Briane Pagel of Thinking The Lions wrote a short story for a contest. The problem here is that when the contest said "short," it meant short. The word limit was a measly 500 words. Briane couldn't do it. Instead, he wrote a serialized story on his blog over about a 10 day time period at 500 (at least) words a day. I didn't count. And what came of it is "Santa, Godzilla, and Jesus Walk Into A Bar...", a/k/a The Greatest Xmas Story Ever Told (By Me). Yes, even the title is a mouthful (the general consensus is becoming that Briane can't say "hello" in under 1000 words (which makes me wonder what he'd be like subtitled (go watch Wayne's World 2 to get an idea of what I mean)).

If you've ever wondered what Douglas Adams would have been like if they'd locked him in a room for weeks at a time to get him to write... oh, wait, they did lock Adams in a room for weeks at a time to get him to write. Okay, if you've ever wondered what Adams might have produced if he'd been locked in a room for weeks at a time with only Twinkies and Jolt cola, you should read "Santa, Godzilla... You know, that's just too long to keep typing; let's just call it SGJWIB. It has that same frenetic energy that Adams has only weirder. Yeah, I know; how can you get weirder than Adams?

Does SGJWIB have flying couches or falling whales? No, but it does have carnivorous trees, and that's saying something. It's also saying something that it really is a Christmas story. Or Xmas, as Briane says it. Or, really, an origin of Xmas story. Except a sci-fi, futuristic story that somehow takes place in the past so that it is an origin. You know, "A long time ago in a galaxy..." No, wait. "A long time ago, right here on Earth..."

Somehow, Mr. Pagel manages to weave all of the essential elements of our Christmas traditions into a linear story. There are the trees, mistletoe, Wenceslas... I think he missed the wise men, but he gets a lot of it in there. No, it doesn't always makes sense, but, then, that's why it reminds me of Adams. I mean, if I could fly because I somehow got distracted from hitting the ground while falling, I would totally do that! And SGJWIB has those kinds of leaps.

Here's the thing, if you're not someone that likes Douglas Adams, first, "what's wrong with you?" and, second, you probably won't enjoy Briane's... almost book. However, if you do like Adams, as I do, you should definitely give SGJWIB a try. At a buck, you really can't lose.

The story is wild and crazy enough that there's not much you can say about it in a critical way. It's one of those things you like or you don't like. I happen to like. I'd give it an A except for one thing: the ending. It felt a little like Briane decided it was just time to end the story and, so, just did that. It's rather abrupt. However, he adds in a twist that makes it (mostly) okay. It's one of those kinds of things that Briane seems to like and leaves you wanting to say, "So... what actually happened here?" But he doesn't answer those questions, so you'll have to decide for yourself.

Anyway, it's a fun read, and I give it a B+ to an A-. I need to reread it before I can make a firmer decision than that, but I'm in the middle of something else at the moment and don't have the time. The link to make the purchase is back up at the top of the post, and, like I said, if you like Adams, for a measly $0.99, you really can't go wrong.

And, now, on to the news:

1. No new Tib story (again) today. Yes, I know that's twice this month, but, well, what can I say? I just haven't had enough silence to be able to do much writing. I hate that that's an issue for me, but it is. Hopefully, I'll have the next part up next week (since the kids will be back in school) and, maybe, have some other Tib news to go along with it. On the bright side, though, this gives all of you another week to read about Tib's first meeting with the Man with No Eyes. And I know you all need that extra week, because I know only two people clicked through to it (stat counters... a blessing... and a curse!).

2. The GREAT peanut butter and peppermint experiment!
We have results. All three children have tried this... concoction, for lack of a better word, and they liked it. All three of them, which is fairly significant since they never all like the same thing. In fact, my middle child says that all of them liking something is a sign of the end of the world, so, maybe, 2012 really is the end.

I can't just let y'all go on the word of my kids, though, so I tried it, too. It's... odd. I can't say that I liked it, but I also can't say that I didn't like it. It's one of those things that makes you say, "wait, let me try that again." My experience with those things is that you usually end up liking them. Sometimes, it takes 30 tries, but you can't ever pass up trying it again which just leads to liking it. More experimentation is required.

3. The Smart Cookie Award

Michael Offutt handed me this award a few days ago. I've gotten to the point where, generally, I try not to continue the viral spread of these things, but I'm making an exception for this one:
1. because I like the name of it.
2. because Michael said he needed to give it to me so that I would have something to talk about other than my dog.

The gimmick with this award is to share four little known facts about anything. Anything is a rather broad category to choose from, so I think I have that covered. Unlike Briane Pagel, who also received this award from Michael, I'm going to stick to "little known" rather than "unknown," because I knew at least one of Pagel's unknown facts thereby discrediting his entire list (he has, thus far, refrained from commenting about this).

Four little known facts:
1. Michael Offutt is envious of my dog ownership which is why he wants me to stop talking about my dog. It's like a little thorn jabbing at him every time I mention

Isn't she SO cute?

2. Although closely related, "envy" and "jealousy" are not direct synonyms despite the generally incorrect usage of "jealousy" that has permeated our society. Mostly, people use "jealous" when what they should be saying is "envious." You are not "jealous" of someone else's success; you are "envious" of  it. You are not "jealous" of someone's new high-priced gadget; you are "envious" of it. Michael could only be "jealous" of my dog if he was envious of the relationship I have with my dog or if, say, it was his dog, but she liked me better.

3. The misuse of the word "jealousy" and its various forms is a particular pet peeve of my wife's. You should all learn to use it correctly so she will not chastise me for it when one of you slips. heh

4. Michael should get his own dog. Dogs have been shown to improve the quality of life of their owners, especially in regards to people that live alone. If Michael got his own dog, not only would it be good for him, but he could quit being envious of my dog and, instead, we could swap dog stories until all the rest of you were sick to death of it.

>sigh< I feel so much better now. It's all in good fun, right Michael? Right? It was a joke! Really! Hey!

Come on... it was funny, right?

Um... on that note, I'm not going to choose anyone specific to pass this on to. If you feel like you have four little known facts that you would like to pass on to the world, please, feel as if you've been granted the smart cookie award. I encourage it!

You know, now, I want a cookie.
Hey, Michael! Where's my cookie? Why didn't I get a cookie with this award?
What do you mean you ate it?
Bah!

Peanut Butter and Peppermint

It was a rare summer morning that my great-grandmother did not cook a huge breakfast. Often, there would be a dozen or so of us packed around the table covered with bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, sausage, sometimes pancakes. I formed a lifelong love of biscuits and gravy at that table. But that morning, there was no breakfast.

My cousins, Becky and Sam, and I didn't really mind, as much as we loved those breakfasts, because that meant we got to have cereal. Cereal was something of a treat down at my great-grandmother's, because there wasn't often an occasion to have it. My aunt kept it around, though, just in case. I'm sure I was having something with those fake marshmallows in it, because my mom would never buy those kinds of cereals for home. Probably Boo-berry. The adults were all gone off somewhere, so it was just the three of us.

"I wonder if cereal would be good with ketchup on it," said Sam as we were sitting down. To put this statement in context, Sam ate everything with ketchup on it. Well, everything except cereal, evidently. Ketchup on his mashed potatoes. Ketchup on his eggs. He would literally trail the ketchup over everything on his plate for things like Thanksgiving dinner. It was kind of gross.

Not that it was entirely his fault. As a baby, in order to get him to eat baby food, my aunt would mix ketchup into it, so it was a flavor he couldn't separate from the idea of food, and, at not yet 10 (he was three years older than me), he certainly didn't have the willpower on his own to try. Heck, he was still eating everything like that when he graduated from high school.

Becky gave him an immediate response, "It would be gross."

"I'm going to try it."

"No, you're not."

"Who put you in charge?"

"I'm the oldest." And, indeed, she was. By a few months.

"So. You're not the boss of me."

"That's gross. You can't put ketchup on your cereal."

Sam turned to me, "Do you want to try ketchup on your cereal?"

"No way!"

"Well, I'm going to."

Becky was getting mad, "No, you're not!"

"You can't stop me!" And Sam got up from the table to fetch the ketchup bottle from the kitchen.

"If you put ketchup on your cereal, you're going to eat it!"

"Of course, I'm going to eat it. It's going to be great!"

Sam sat down at his bowl. I stopped eating to watch him. This was before the days of squeeze bottles, so he had to wait to for the ketchup to slowly make its way to the lip of the bottle. The three of us sat there watching, waiting, until finally a blob of ketchup fell onto the cereal. He slowly circled around the bowl, making a red ring. By the time he returned from putting the ketchup away, his milk had turned pink.

Becky and I were finishing up our bowls of cereal as Sam spooned up his first bite.

"You're going to eat all of that!"

"I already said I am!" and he popped the bite of cereal into his mouth.

But he didn't swallow it. He did that thing that people do when they put something too hot in their mouths but don't want to spit the food out. Trying to hold it in their teeth so that their tongues don't get more burned. But it was cereal, and that didn't work. He couldn't get his tongue away from it. Or the pink milk he'd created.

"Swallow it," Becky commanded.

But Sam's face came down over his bowl, and the glob of cereal fell out of his mouth into his bowl.

"I told you it was going to be gross," Becky smiled. "Now, you have to eat it."

"I'm not eating that!"

"Yes, you are! You agreed!"

"I'm not eating that! It's disgusting!"

"Well, you're not leaving this table until you eat it!"

"Says who?"

"Says me!"

"You can't make me!"

Becky squinted her eyes at Sam and gave him a hard look, "Yes, I can."

And she could, too. Sam and I both knew it. There had been an... altercation... proving it not all that long before. But Sam was my idol. Not that I didn't also look up to Becky. After all, she'd beaten Sam up in my defense, but I spent the whole summer with Becky every year and saw her on holidays and other times besides. Sam, I only saw a few times a year, so he automatically went up in esteem due to the limited time I had with him. Not to mention that he was also a boy. But I was backing Becky all the way on this one.

After all, the conditions had been clearly set at the outset, and Sam had agreed to them. It was only right that he eat the cereal.

So we sat there, the three of us. A battle of wills between my cousins, and me growing more and more bored by the minute. I wasn't good at bored. But, then, what 6ish year old is?

In the end, Becky and I left Sam sitting there at the table with the admonishment not to leave until he'd eaten that cereal. Under threat of "telling." But I no longer cared; I just wanted to go play.

I'm not sure how long he sat there at the table staring at that bowl of pink milk and the soggy substance within, but he did eventually join us. That meant a trek back to the house so that Becky could verify the truth of his statement that he'd eaten the cereal. There was no sign of it, and a search couldn't turn it up. She even looked under the table. Ironically, Sam had actually hidden the bowl under the table as he told me later, but in the time it had taken Sam to find us, someone else had found the cereal and dumped it into the tray for the dogs outside.

Let me just be clear about this: the dogs would eat anything. They got all of the table scraps all the time, and they always ate everything. Including boiled okra. But they didn't eat that cereal. Much later in the day, Becky and I found it in the dog tray. Hours and hours later. Stinking in the heart of a summer day in East  Texas. Flies buzzing all around.

Sam was lucky that day. He'd had to leave for some reason that I don't remember, which is why he wasn't with us when we found the cereal. Becky would have pounded him if he had been. She wanted to remember to beat him up later, but, by the time we saw him again, she'd forgotten.


My oldest son and I were at  the grocery store recently when we were both overcome with a desire for peppermint bark. I love peppermint bark. Actually, I just love peppermint, especially with chocolate. Most mornings, I have peppermint cocoa or a peppermint mocha as my morning beverage. However, buying peppermint bark wasn't really an option as we have a fairly firm prohibition in our household about buying candy. Especially when the kids still have buckets of the stuff from Halloween and more coming at Christmas. But! The conversation about how we both wanted peppermint bark lead my son to decide that he needs to invent peppermint and peanut butter as a "thing."

I had an immediate flashback to the above story about the cereal and ketchup which I then related to my son. He was unimpressed and maintains that his idea is going to be "Epic!" "Awesome!" and, even, "Epically awesome!" I remain skeptical.

Which is not to say that I don't think he should try it. After all, I imagine that there were people who were skeptical about the first mixture of peppermint with chocolate or peanut butter with chocolate. Which is his whole rationale behind this madness. If both of those items, peppermint and peanut butter, are good with chocolate, it must be true that they will be good together. My taste buds are already recoiling at the thought. (But we don't have any peppermints in the house, at the moment, so he hasn't been able to try this atrocity. Yet.)

Still, how often do we find that things we don't think will go together actually meld quite well. Like the accidental discovery of a friend in high school that french fries are really good in vanilla ice cream (seriously, he was just playing with his food, and trying to gross everyone out at the table when that discovery was made). That became a thing with us at McDonald's after that. And I had a friend in college who loved thousand island dressing on pepperoni pizza (I couldn't get behind that one, but he loved it). Or, you know, science fiction and fantasy. Who'd a thought, you know, before it was actually done the first time.

So... even though I foresee a disaster approaching of the magnitude of "Don't leave that table until you eat every last bite of that," part of me wants it to be good. Because it's trying things that don't seem to go together that makes life interesting.

[It's Thursday again. Man, these things just keep happening, don't they? The new Tib chapter is posted up there in the Tiberius tab (or you can just click here). This one is called "The Cop." Next week will be the first appearance of the man with no eyes in the chapter that will be called "The Police Car."

Also, I only have a few copies left on hand of The House on the Corner, so, if you want a signed copy in time for Christmas, order now! I'll be ordering more copies soon, but I'm not sure if they will get here in time to be sent out before Christmas.]