The God of Dinosaurs

There is something truly magical about a home made fried egg sandwich.  I should know because I just ate two and got sticky yellow stuff all over my work clothes and I wasn’t even mad because you can’t feel anything but a sort of confused delight when you are ingesting a fried egg sandwich.  Fried egg sandwiches turn you into the human version of a yellow lab (because yolks are yellow, not black or chocolate).  You love everyone and a warm fuzzy feeling starts in your toes and makes you crinkle your nose.  And then you take a nap on the couch with a piece of burlap because if you touch anything warmer or fuzzier than that you will burst into a shower of confetti.  You have to be careful, all the kings horses and men can’t rebuild you from confetti.

The secret to the egg sandwich, the thing that takes it above and beyond all other sandwiches, even the BLT, is chili flakes.  I did not know this.  In fact, until I ran away to Tampa, Fl last spring I thought the fried egg sandwich was an abomination.  It was an act against god.  Consuming any kind of egg not hidden safely away in a prison of flour and chocolate chips was a sin on par with murder or not loving Transformers in my mind.

You see, when I was a wee young thing, I ate approximately 16 billion colored eggs one Easter.  I remember peeling the shell off and being delighted that I was about to consume something that was kinda blue a little bit.  At least it was blue where the egg had cracked because it had been dyed by a herd of shrieking 6-to-10-year-olds who had consumed their own weight in cheap, egg-shaped chocolate.  And then, as wee young things are wont to do after eating a lifetime worth of chocolate eggs and normal eggs, I spent the next 24 hours vomiting terrifyingly colorful egg scented vomit all over everything, everywhere.  

It was years before I could walk past the dairy section in the grocery store without reliving that sulfur-y nightmare.  Christmas parties with deviled eggs became protracted, glittery torture sessions.  Chickens became little satanic minions that left their horrible thin-shelled organic grenades strewn around my yard like little Vietcong man traps, but with less death and maiming and more irrational horror.  That is how much I hated eggs.

Until I had my first homemade fried egg sandwich during a particularly brutal hangover in Florida.

It was like being crowned by Aslan.  It was like Hagrid showed up at my door, handed me a sandwich and told me I was going to be a wizard.  This sandwich was all of my dreams cooked, seasoned with salt, pepper and red chili flakes, covered in cheese, and handed to me on a plate forged by the hands of God.  And now I can’t stop eating them.  I think I’ve eaten another 16 million eggs in the last 6 months.  My arteries are probably slippery with fat and cholesterol.  The doctor could scrape it out and form little chickens that would lay little eggs.  Little eggs that I would give to geneticists who would regress their little chicken chromosomes until they became dinosaurs and then I would be the God of dinosaurs.  And that is why fried egg sandwiches are awesome.

Oh hey, I have some news

As many of you may or may not know, I have been working towards joining the Army.  Why?  You may ask.  Or maybe What?  I don’t know, I’m not you (most of the time).  The point is, I've spent the last 2 years since graduation working a variety of miserable jobs and living the way that my guidance counselor told me I was going to live if I didn’t go to college, did drugs, and spent three years as a moderately priced escort in Tulsa.  Poorly, is what I'm trying to illustrate for those of you who find nothing particularly wrong with my previous sentence.  Sure, I could move in with my parents and live comfortably and quietly.  At least, it will be comfortable until I slowly go insane from lack of occupation and crushing sense of involuntary dependency which I'm not supposed to feel until my children move me into an old folks home at 85 because I keep forgetting to turn off the oven or I put the cat in the fridge.  Or really if I got a cat at all since I'm remarkably allergic to them.  But I didn’t pay $80,000 to GVSU for that nonsense.

I want to be a god-damned grown up, is what I'm saying.  A real one, like the kind they put on sit coms, who are awkwardly funny but ultimately included in more positive sociopolitical statistics than negative ones.  I want to be someone like Mr. Feeny, but younger and, you know, a girl.  Someone who would never appear on “Everyone Loves Raymond.”  Seriously, root canals are written better than the stunningly retarded crap that show still manages to spew into the air on a daily basis. 

I want to wake up in the morning with a schedule and the knowledge that my unique skill set is being utilized, valued, and improved upon, instead of ignored and occasionally actively discouraged.  Ahem, housekeeping, ahem.  I want to buy a car that I didnt find after three weeks of research on craigs list.  Maybe even one that is less than 15 years old!  I know its a lot to ask, but I've always been a big dreamer.  I want to buy gas and food on the same pay check.  I want to drink overpriced micro-brews.  I want my life to have a point, a purpose, something more meaningful than making sure little Suzy's rental clarinet paperwork is in perfect order.  Maybe its simply my perspective, growing up as a military brat, but the military offers that and so much more.

This leads to me to purpose of my post today, my reason for hopping up onto this dusty and disused soapbox I constructed over a year ago.  If you try to talk me out of it I will punch in the throat.  And you'll never be able to talk again.  It will be a punch to end all punches and your vocal cords will fuse together into a useless, but awesome, vocal rope.  (You will, however, be eligible to be my arch-nemesis after I gain superhero status from signing up for every possible weird CIA experiment they have to offer.)  First of all, telling anyone who has the balls to join the military that their choice is wrong is a shitty thing to do.  You wouldn't do that to a teacher, a cop or a fireman, don't do that to a future soldier.  It hurts my feelings and makes me doubt myself at a time when I need to be running around like I just won at life and my prize is the library from Beauty and the Beast.  Or whatever the super bad-ass equivalent of that library is.  

Unrealized fantasies aside, it is downright mean to look at someone who is telling you their incredibly personal, meaningful and life changing decision and treat them like they made this choice out of some weird blend of idiocy and misinformation.  Second, why would you do that to me?  I have a purpose again, a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and your first instinct is to sabotage it?  Some of you reading this know how awful it is to not have any meaningful reason to stagger across the floor in the morning.  Better yet, I've lost 15 lbs, and I'm going to lose more because pushups get easier with every pound that disappears.  I can see my abs for the first time ever.  Literally ever, even in high school I could not see my abs.  I have never seen my abs and now in the morning I can look in the mirror and there they are, existing and doing ab things.  

I'm becoming healthier, stronger, and happier.  The United State Army gave me a reason to do something with my body and mind beyond finding ways to tolerate work in between marathon pinterest sessions.  You can be afraid, I know that I’m afraid.  You can be upset that I'm leaving after finally coming back to Michigan.  You can hug me, you can high five me, you can buy me a beer because I’m pretty sure that once boot camp rolls around I’m gonna need some happy memories to weave into some kind of Drill Sergent repelling patronus.  But don't tell me I'm making the wrong choice.  Be proud that I have devoted myself to a greater purpose.  Be proud that I find you all such a wonderful group of people that I am willing to step forward and devote myself to your safety and freedom.  That is how much I fucking love you.