Category: Stories

After I enjoyed my breakfast I would be ushered into the back for a deep tissue massage and other spa services

Post author By Evan Stark
Post date May 18, 2009
16 Comments on After I enjoyed my breakfast I would be ushered into the back for a deep tissue massage and other spa services

I don’t normally hop on over to IHOP. It’s generic food that is mass produced doesn’t appeal to my refined palate and if I want to eat breakfast crap then I will just go to McDonalds or Whataburger – both of which normally provide better tasting food than IHOP.

This morning I woke up at 4 a.m. after an especially long sleeping jag. I took a nap yesterday that started at 2 p.m. and lasted until 4 a.m. this morning and so when I woke up there was no chance I was going to go back to sleep… so what to do?

I hopped online and read some blogs, posted some comments, and then I decided I was hungry since the previous day I had slept right through dinner. I decied on IHOP.

When I walked in the place was empty save for one couple. There wasn’t a greeter and from the sounds coming from the kitchen I thought maybe a troup of monkeys had been released and they were being forced to do the dishes. Loud shrieks of laughter kept coming from the kitchen, but no one was coming out to assist me.

I waited. Where else was I going to go?

Finally after about 5 minutes someone came out and said, “Did you need something?”

“Um, yeah, I wanted to eat breakfast”

“Oh, okay, sorry”

I sat down and ordered a chicken sandwich only to be annoyed by the employee that was sitting in the booth behind me. He had his iPod with him and he decided that he would turn the music up so loud that I could hear it crystal clear through his headphones.

Ugh. I thought I would have a quiet breakfast and get some reading done before church, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Finally my waiter arrived and I ordered some food, but before it arrived a posse of peeps fresh from an Prom came rolling in and then I knew for sure that this was not going to be a pleasant experience.

It was my own fault actually because before I had ever arrived at this particular IHOP I had fantasized about the place making into something much grander than it actually was. With a cool exterior and large windows they had designed this IHOP to look like a Swiss Chalet and so I had sort of romanticized my morning breakfast. I had pictured myself sipping on a hot cup of coffee with a warm scarf wrapped around my neck while I watched skiers swoop down the mountain. When my crepes arrived they would be delivered by a “Heidi” with blond hair and pigtails and she would have a German accent.

After I enjoyed my breakfast I would be ushered into the back for a deep tissue massage and other spa services. Everything would be wooden and warm and minty fresh and they would be playing Edelweiss through the speakers and bringing me hot chocolate made of course by Swiss Miss herself.

Yes. This is what it is like in my head and this is why my reality is often disappointing. I have unrealistic expectations of many things, including women, I have this dream, this vision of someone who is great and will be an amazing mom and wife and who just instinctively knows what to do and say to make my day.

For me though, this latter fantasy is more realistic as I have had glimpses of this in my friends wives, my sisters and of course my own mother.

Job Updates Stories

Nursing Home News

My job at the nursing home is going great, however, recently the owner suggested, “Hey Eddie, you can stay in one of the rooms here and save the hotel cost.” – The problem was that he was serious. Could you imagine staying the night in a nursing home? I have trouble sleeping in my own house! Every bump, every noise, every cricket chirp wakes me up – I could only imagine the fear that would settle in my bones at the sound of someone moaning or a confused resident climbing into my bed accidentally.

On top of the weirdness of staying in a nursing home there is the size of the beds, the lack of adequate air conditioning and random nurses, some of which are strange men, come in and out of the rooms at all hours. I could just imagine one of them popping into my room and attaching an IV of some sedative or barbiturate and then me being stuck there for the rest of my life. My friends and family would probably think, “Well, this is convenient, now we don’t have to worry about what to do with him when he gets old.”

So when the owner made this suggestion I just replied, “Well that would be convenient” – but I had no plan to stay there. If they don’t want to pay for my hotel, then I can increase my rate and pay for it myself or I can find other work.

I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I have been in the same room for the past 60 years. And if I do come up missing, YOU BETTER COME AND GET ME!!!

Observations Stories

So What

What’s it like not being a Christian? What is it like not having any faith? What could possibly motivate you to continue on this planet if you think there is absolutely no purpose for our existence?

Lately I’m all “So What” all the time. I sit on my couch and as much as I know my life is pretty awesome as far as single guys lives I have to wonder – what next? So I get married, have some kids, grandkids, etc and then I die?

I remember when I was younger and at church they would talk about the rapture happening. The Lord’s imminent return was constantly a topic of discussion pretty much my entire childhood. I was fixated on it so much so that there were times I would hope that it wouldn’t happen because next week I was going to get to go to Six Flags or get my driver’s license or perhaps a girl I liked might like me back.

That seems like a lifetime ago and now I sit around praying for God to come already. I feel like sometimes I am going through the perfunctory motions of life – making money, paying bills, eating, sleeping – only to kill time, to have something to do before the end, which is really the beginning.

Last week as I was driving to Waco to do some IT work at the nursing home I couldn’t help but feel like my life is wasted. I’ve felt this for quite some time now and I don’t know how to change it. Perhaps this is where people get when they go into missions or they quit their jobs to do something amazing with their lives – like work at an AIDS hospice.

But even those things would only bring a marginal amount of joy compared to knowing what is in store for me when I leave this planet. I think sometimes it would be better not to know. Like maybe if growing up all I was ever told was that by believing in Christ kept me from going to hell and then right at the last minute – SURPRISE! – you’re going to the most awesome place, a place beyond all human comprehension. But instead I am like that kid who is told 6 months beforehand that he is going to get to go to Disney World and that 6 months seems like an eternity.

Maybe the entire purpose of this life is only to make us really appreciate heaven, these trials, these struggles, this inanity of life, perhaps without it we would just take heaven for granted.

And all of this just takes me back to my original point – if you don’t believe in God then what in the world get’s you out of bed in the morning? What motivates you? What keeps you from saying – So What?

Stories Tragic

Table For One Please…

Tonight I went into On The Border for dinner. When you are out of town on business it is always hard to figure out what you will do for dinner. I walked in to the rather uncrowded restaurant with it’s big chain feel and explosion of spanish color and felt alone and awkward. This doesn’t normally happen to me and so turned around and walked out.

I ventured further down the road and found a Casa Ole. This looked a little more independently owned and so I walked in with my head held high, book in hand, ready for some Mexican food.

“Just one?” The hostess said as she handed the menu to my waiter.

My waiter laughed and it prompted me to say, “Is something funny?” I felt a little perturbed because it was obvious that he was laughing about the fact that I was alone.

“Well, you are just the second guy in a row to come in and eat alone.”

“I don’t live here in Waco.” I replied, my voice stern. I don’t know why it annoyed me that he laughed. It was probably nothing, but for a moment I felt defensive, not for myself, but for all of the single people out there who get up and go it alone. We don’t have the commitment and responsibiities of married people, but often times we don’t have as much of a reason for living either.

I don’t have kids to feed or a wife to please, it’s just me and while this simplicity is bliss at times it is hell at others.

But I’m determined not to sulk or to get down on myself. Life is too short to whine about your circumstances, instead you have to do what you can to change them. I made this bed and I’m quite comfortable lying in it… even if for now it is all by myself.

Stories Tragic

Manufacturing Confusion

I came across an article recently in Wired Magazine called Manufacturing Confusion. It is in the February issue on page 38, written by Clive Thompson.

In the article Clive talks about how there is often a purposeful manufacturing of misinformation. “Is Global Warming caused by Humans? Is Barack Obama a Christian, is evolution a well-supported theory?” He opens the article with these questions and then continues to expound on the fact that we as Americans have heard so many differing opinions on the same subject that we no longer choose a side but instead we just block out what we hear and become indifferent and even ignorant to the truth.

Cigarette cause cancer, Beef – it’s whats for dinner, Atkins Low-Carb diet, Fat Free Diets, Milk Does a Body Good – as consumers we have so many advertisements thrown at us that we don’t know what is fact or ficiton anymore.

One of the most recent attempts at misinformation is those new commercials about High Fructose Corn Syrup. Obviously it is in almost everything we eat and it isn’t harmful to you… or is it? The problem with genetically modified foods is in how your body processes them and while nutritionally HFCS is the same as sugar, your body doesn’t recognize it the same as sugar.

HFCS, in my opinion, is most harmful in snack cakes, candy bars and any food where the first ingredient listed is High Fructose Corn Syrup. In these products we often will over consume because our bodies don’t realize how much sugar we are putting into our bodies.

Ever had a piece of really rich cake with homemade icing? It is so sweet that after one piece you satisfied and sometimes it is so sweet that you don’t even want to finish the whole piece. However, you can drink a 32 oz Dr. Pepper filled with High Fructose Corn Syrup that has 3 times the amount of sugar as that piece of cake and you will still want more.

My favorite quote from the aforementioned Wired article is this: “People always assume that if someone doesn’t know something that they haven’t paid attention or haven’t yet figured it out. But ignorance also comes from people literally surpressing truth – or drowing it out – or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what is true and what is not.”

In the end it is up to us as consumers to do our homework and find out what is true and what is not. We cannot throw up our hands and plop down on the couch and do nothing, instead we have to start using common sense in some areas and a little trial and error in others.