Chiklin And Dumplins With No Chiklin

Chiklin And Dumplins With No Chiklin

I apologize for the delay since my last missive; but, one of my New Years’ resolutions was to not   say anything unless I really had something to say.  It happened today. 

Son 1.0 is well into his second semester at a university far far away (well, three hours) and Wife 2.0 and I don’t see him nearly often enough.  We were blessed with a visit this weekend and as fate would have it, he was at the right place at the right time.  We had our coldest night of the year and our first power outage at the very same time.  No problem, we have a generator.  However, said generator is very heavy and at the very back of a very full storage building.  So, without a single word of complaint, Son 1.0 got out of a warm bed at 7:00AM after having gone to bed at 3:00AM (well, someone had to shoot the video game villains).  Son 1.0 cleared the way to the back of the storage building and drug the very heavy generator into the back yard.  The generator hadn’t been started in two years and unfortunately had two year old gas.  Further complicating the situation was an early morning in the teens.  Again, with no complaints,  Son 1.0 pulled and tugged on the starter cord and after an epic battle, the generator started and the home was warm, the lights were lit and most importantly, Wife 2.0 was happy.  

 We next worked to repair a leak in the innards of the family truck, a real chore for the manually challenged.   Again in the very cold, and again with no complaints. 

The next calamity was the loss of our cable and internet service.  Our very tech savy Son 1.0 performed various voodoo incantations, restoring the television.  Those as hooked on TV as I am will understand this was a near miracle.  Again, no whining and no moaning from Son 1.0.  Just cheerful service.     

One would think we had completed the weekend’s tale of woe.  One would be wrong.  Wife 2.0’s computer went to heaven.  I think it had a faulty flux capacitor.  Son 1.0 said it was a bad cpu.  What does he know?  Son 1.0 worked on the computer and when it was administered its last rights, accompanied his parents to the computer store, sorted through the techno jargon, selected the just right computer and then demonstrated extreme patience teaching Wife 2.0 (he calls her “mom”) to operate the new machine. Again, no whining, no complaints.  As taught in scouting and our faith, just a “servant heart”.

Did I tell you this was Son 1.0’s first opportunity to relax after a very serious round of tests in a very serious set of courses in a very serious major.  I suspect Son 1.0 is looking forward to returning to college just to get a break.  By the way, what is calculus and why must one take Cal I, II and III?

You may wonder about the title of the story, “Chiklin And Dumplins With No Chiklin”.  Well, when Son 1.0 was four years old, we met the extended family for a meal and Son 1.0 declared he was old enough to place his order with no assistance from mom and dad.  The waitress arrived at the table and after patiently waiting his turn, Son 1.0 told her he wanted “chiklin and dumplins with no chiklin”.  We laughed until it hurt to laugh and I told that story 100’s of times and as a 5^th generation story teller, it was easily my all time favorite story.  Well, it used to be my favorite story.  My new favorite story is the one I just told you of the very bad day and the very good son.  I swear.

See you next time.