Lanky Secrets (Cigar Smoke 10-21-10)

I really hate to write this column. It’s kind of like exposing the secrets of a magician. But, for some dark reason, I have decided to do it. May my lanky soul burn somewhere south of heaven.

When you are a semi-lanky guy such as myself, you develop ways to make sure that you will always have access to the five food groups: chocolate, cinnamon rolls, cookies, chips, and candy. (I can’t believe they all start with the letter “C.” Eerie.)

Anyway, over the past seven decades I have honed my hiding skills down to a damn professional and razor sharp point. I challenge other lanky lugs out there to meet this level of deceit and disgust.

So what are some of my deceitfully disgusting tricks? Let’s say I have been out shopping and I bring home the groceries and Marge, my wife and food group cop, just happens to be standing out in the kitchen when I haul the bags in from the car. As I am complaining about how hard it is and how much of an imposition it has been for me to even have to shop in the first place, and that a real woman would have done the grocery shopping like she had promised in her wedding vows, I am secretly plotting on how I am going to hide the package of Oreos without Marge catching on.

So I take all the stuff out of the grocery bags and put them away, and then I throw the empty bags into the trashcan and I go out and watch a football game on the tube. Did you see my slight of hand? I am really slimy. You see, one of the empty grocery bags was not quite empty. It had one Oreos package hiding in it. And as soon as the Food Police went back to the other part of the house, I retrieved it and hid it again. In the freezer. Under the frost-covered package of green beans.

I told you this column would not be pretty. You are seeing a side of me that is even uglier than the regular side of me you see. I’m sorry. I just expose my faults to make you guys feel better about yourselves. Other than journalism, it’s my life.

Another disgustingly cunning trick I use is to repackage the groceries when I get out to the car in the Ralphs parking lot. I’ll put the three Snickers bars and the package of assorted sour Jelly Bellies into the same bag with all of Archie the Dog’s dog food. And then when I get home, I take out all the groceries, put them away, right in front of Marge like I am a decent honorable person, and then I take the bags of dog food items out to the laundry room and stack the dog food on the counter. And then (even Archie thinks this is lower than dog doo doo) I take out the Snickers bars and the Jelly Bellies and I bury them in the 10-pound bag of dry dog food, way down under the kibbles, close to the rat turds.

Sometimes when I’m just returning from running some errands or coming back from a Kings game or something, I will stop and buy, say, some Jalapeno lemon Chipotle salsa lime chili chips or maybe some Red Vines, or maybe both, and when I get home, I come in the house like I’m not the cunning sneak-ass low-life lanky loser that I am, and I’ll give Marge a coming-home peck on the cheek, and I’ll throw my jacket on the chair like a casual galoot. And yes, my jacket will have the aforementioned food groups stashed in the zippered pockets. I know. What kind of galoot would do such a thing? My kind.

I’ve got other equally nauseatingly tricks. If I go out to get the morning paper when we are at a motel on a trip, occasionally, (OK, a lot of the time) I will have a Holiday Inn cinnamon roll rolled up in my copy of USA Today. And I have been known to unwrap certain food group items early so as not to bother Marge with all that crackling paper noise at night when we’re watching TV.

I guess the worst, most pitiful thing I have ever done to sneak something healthy to eat was when I put some peanut M&Ms in the onion dip. Yeah, I put a huge glob of dip in the bowl, and I buried the M&Ms at the bottom. And then I would take a cucumber slice and dive for an M&M and put it in my mouth, nobody the wiser, and then I would lick the onion dip off, wait a few seconds, to clean my palette, and then eat the M&M to experience its essence of true chocolate.

I’m feeling uneasy even talking about these lanky secrets. I hope Marge doesn’t read this column and start checking the freezer and the dog food bag and the bottom of onion dip bowls. It would destroy me. Do they have a self-help group for this? I sure hope so.

I wonder if I went to their meetings if they would check my jacket pockets.