Cooked Weenies, Anyone?

Father’s Day.  A time to celebrate dads.  And cook weenies.  I think that’s kind of a funny correlation.  Hot dogs and dads.  What is the reason for grilling meat on Dad’s day?  Is it a reminder of just how hard he works, that he might as well cook something up that distinctly resembles a penis?  Is it a symbol of his devotion to this whole family thing?  Maybe a representation of how he feels (like a cooked weenie?).  Maybe we should switch it up a bit, and Mom’s should grill weenies on Mother’s Day.  Totally makes more sense to me.  Dad’s can go to brunch and visit the spa for that much needed facial.

For Mother’s Day this year, I promptly forgot that I have a mother, and I focused on the fact that I am a mother.  Selfish?  Sure.  But sometimes selfish is yummie.  It was sunny.  That made me happy.  That’s all I needed.  Until my husband had to come home sick from work, then I also needed beer (which I’m sure my thoughtful daughter would have bought for me if she was 15 years older).  Like the good mom I am, I drug her underaged butt into the liquor store with me where we skipped around, finishing our ice cream, buying Mom a six pack.  We returned home to paint bird houses in the sun while my husband nursed a fever and watched the millionth episode of cops.  For lunch I ate chocolate chip cookies. For a snack I had ice cream.  For dinner I had my beer and Sun Chips. See?  I should have grilled the weenies.   At least they have protein.

Back to the next rapidly approaching Hallmark holiday.  I do appreciate my husband (although, I must admit I appreciate him more when he’s not watching Cops), and I want him to feel the love.   About six years ago I planned the pen-ultimate Father’s Day barbecue combined with an admittedly sacrilegious event for my daughter, who was 8 months old:

Our daughter’s BEER-TISM.

We had a hot tub in those days, before my mommy-stincts started giving me recurring nightmares of accidental child drownings.  We don’t have a hot tub anymore as a means of increasing my sleep potential.  We turned the heater off and had ourselves a grand old beer-tism.   I thought it would be amusing and sweet to honor my sister and her husband as the “god parents.”  We went overboard, with guests and friends eating and drinking, kids frolicking in the hot tub.  Dogs stealing burgers and vegetarian inspired fake-meat-products.  Dads enjoying their relaxing day in the sun, cooking their weenies (I can’t help it).

My brother-in-law held my baby girl and we anointed her with beer.  Oh yes, we really did.  We didn’t submerge her in the hot tub, but we did dip her toesies in.  It was official.  She had people who loved her, and knew how to enjoy the occasional brewski.  All would be well in the world.

It was my favorite Father’s Day ever, mainly because it was the first one with my daughter, and the first one with my husband in such an important role (Weenie Cooker).  We enjoyed ourselves, fully, except that my sister seemed a bit quieter than usual and her family left our house fairly early.  I thought that was a bit odd for the guests of honor.  I don’t even think she enjoyed a beer (if you knew my sister, you would understand this as a sign of imminent DOOM).  As the smell of various meat and veggie-meat imitations dissipated, I pondered my sister’s odd mood.  For about two weeks.  Until I ran into her mother-in-law.

Following the appropriate small talk about the weather, and the this and the that she asked me a question that confused me a bit.

“Aren’t you proud of your sister?” she asked, innocently enough.

“Um, in general, yes I am proud of her.  She’s great.” (I’m thinking, ‘Yep, she can fart with the best of them.  You KNOW I’m proud!’)

“I just think it’s such a huge undertaking to get baptized as an adult.”

“Ummmmm.  What?  Did you say baptized?  My sister?”  At this point, I am experiencing a severe, premature hot flash.  The sweat is dribbling into my eye a little.  It stings.  I blink and try to look normal, and not like I’m having some sort of Turrets-like facial spasm.

“Oh.  Oh my.  She didn’t tell you?  Oh no.  I’m sorry.  I thought you knew.”

“No, no.  It’s okay.  Really.  She must not have wanted me to know.  When did she do it?”  I asked, crossing my arms, hoping my armpit sweat stains weren’t becoming too obvious, smiling, trying to blind her with the reflection off of my teeth so she couldn’t see my eye twitching from the sweat dribbling into it.

“Well, on Father’s Day, dear?  Isn’t that funny?  It was the only day that the minister could do it.”

Oh.

“Tee hee.  Yes.  Very funny.”

And the non-beer drinking sister behavior was explained.  I managed to not only offend her religion, which was totally nice of me, but I even mocked the experience that she had that very day!  I felt like a big, awkward, insensitive ogre.  Here I was trying to honor her, in my own weird way, and instead I made a joke out of her decision.

So, while it was my most memorable Father’s Day, and I really did enjoy myself in the moment, it was not my best sister-ly behavior of all time.

Since then I have been making it up to her with special hand-crafted beer farts and noon-er phone calls about my Rob Lowe dream.  Soon I will wear her down and she will wish that I still had that hot tub.

We would throw in some scented bubbles.  Cook the weenies.

And then, I could beer-tise her, too.