no milk today

When I was a kid, I guess I drank a lot of milk. There was always milk in the refrigerator. It was usually a big gallon jug, as there were four people in my family, including two growing boys. My brother and I would have cereal nearly every morning and cereal required milk. Sometimes, after school or on a weekend afternoon, I'd pour a small glass of milk for myself, grab a few (or more than a few) Oreos from a package in the kitchen cupboard and have myself a quick, typically kid-friendly snack. However, if I think about it, most of the milk in our house was consumed by my father.

My father was a creature of habit. Once he did something, he would always have to do it. I suppose that started back in World War II, when, as a young seaman in the US Navy, he tried his first cigarette — and he never looked back. Cigarettes became a part of his daily routine right up until the day he died. He also always put his shoes and socks on first when he got dressed and then struggled to get his pant legs over his fully-clad feet. I don't know why he dressed in this order, but he did. He always did. My father also had a giant glass of chocolate milk and a Tastykake Chocolate Junior every night before he went to bed. It was as though he could not get to sleep without those two components. My father insisted that our kitchen was always stocked with milk, Hershey's Instant chocolate milk powder and a box of Tastykake Chocolate Juniors. The Tastykakes were usually hidden by my father so they would always be available for him and him alone. If, by chance, my brother or I would eat one, it had better not be the last one or we would suffer the wrath of one Harold Pincus deprived of his daily, late-night, pre-bedtime ritual. We were permitted to mix a spoonful of Hershey's Instant into our milk as long as enough remained for my father's milk, but if there were no Tastykake Chocolate Juniors around when my dad was ready to hit the sack — well, let's just say there better have been at least one. We seemed to go through a lot of Hershey's Instant in the Pincus house. Between my father, my brother and me, a one pound can never seemed to last very long. I remember the lid of the metal container had to be removed with the help of a crowbar, but a metal spoon handle would often suffice. The recommended two "heaping" teaspoons never delivered enough chocolate flavor for my liking and I would usually add a little bit more to my milk. I think I caught my father dropping up to three spoons worth of Hershey's Instant into his milk. His rationale being "I'm paying for the goddamn stuff. I'll use however much I goddamn please." My mom, who was in charge of keeping our kitchen's food inventory maintained, never allowed the Pincus house to be without Hershey's Instant.

As I got older, I did not follow in my father's footsteps. My taste for milk did not carry over into my teen or adult years. I have never poured myself a glass of milk to drink anywhere past the age of ten. I still eat cereal every morning, but I pour a  minimal amount over my Honey Nut Cheerios A few years ago, my son asked if I am still drinking cow's milk. He went on to explain that I should cut down on my dairy intake and suggested that I switch to almond milk for my cereal. At first, I balked. Then —  very much unlike my father —  I took my son's advice. I bought a carton of almond milk. I tasted no difference between almond milk and cow's milk. I've been buying almond milk ever since.

My wife told her father about my switch and he said he'd like to try almond milk. My father-in-law is not the most flexible or receptive-to-change person I have ever met. He (much like my own father) is very much set in his ways. My wife bought a carton of almond milk for my father-in-law. Allegedly, his highly sophisticated taste buds detected a "taste" in the complex flavor profile of almond milk and he rejected this little non-dairy, "I don't like anything new" experiment. The remainder of the carton was sent to our house. (This has happened several more times since as he half-expected to like almond milk on subsequent samplings. He did not.) While I do not fancy myself a food connoisseur in any respect, I cannot detect the remotest "almond" flavor in almond milk.

I still have no desire to pour and drink a glass of milk. As a matter of fact, the thought of it is a little nauseating. I'll happily drink the few drops left at the bottom of my empty cereal bowl, but that's it. No big glasses of milk for me.

I will, however, eat a Tastykake Chocolate Junior if one is available. You know.... in honor of my dad. Yeah... that's it.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

moneygrabber

There's an old joke. A guy calls a plumber to fix a small leak in a pipe. The plumber arrives and he's led down the basement steps to view the leak. The plumber examines the pipe from all angles, assessing the situation. Finally, he says to the homeowner, "This looks like a 'Miami job.'" The homeowner asks, "You mean you saw a similar type of leak on a job in Miami?" "No," the plumber clarifies, "I mean with the money I get from you for this repair, I'll be able to spend a month in Miami."

Before I purchased a new car this past May, I drove my trusty Toyota RAV-4 for nearly twenty years. Over the course of two decades — as you can imagine — my car required its fair share of maintenance and repairs, as well as yearly safety inspections required by the state of Pennsylvania. When my car needed service, I took it to a mechanic named Dewey whose shop is in my neighborhood. Dewey is a nice guy, I guess. He would sometimes pick my car up at my house and drop it off when the work was completed. He has a genial demeanor, often limiting the technical jargon when he was explaining the repair that my car would need after I told of the abnormalities I thought my car was experiencing. 

The repairs that my car required — at any given visit to Dewey's shop — were extensive. Always. Even for annual inspections, at times when my car was running — in my opinion — just fine, Dewey would find something within the confines of my vehicle's body that would cost me a couple hundred dollars. Always. Once I needed a new headlight. While changing the headlight, Dewey told me that discovered that the intake valve of the deferential influx capacitor was not in tip-top working order. He innocently asked if I'd like it replaced and soon, a lousy new headlight was costing me four hundred bucks. State inspections  that should cost around fifty dollars, would always require some crucial engine component. Without a replacement, my car would not pass inspection and possible lead to a more serious issue. Of course, the new part would set me back a few hundred dollars. This went on for years. I don't think Dewey was an incompetent mechanic. I think he just went out of his way to find something wrong with my car every time I brought in. He wasn't going to let me take possession of my vehicle without a payment of at least a hundred bucks. I know nothing about the innerworkings of a car, so I was at the mercy of Dewey's perceived "expertise." So, I had him make any repair he suggested and I paid whatever he told me the bill was.

... until this year when I purchased a 2024 Subaru Crosstrek for the price of my 2004 Toyota RAV-4 and an undisclosed amount of cash. Because of the delicate computer system that is standard on new cars, I purchased an extended warranty on my new vehicle, thus eliminating any future dealing with Dewey. I would be taking my new car to the Subaru dealership for state inspections, any future maintenance and eventual repairs. My wife, who drives a 2018 Toyota takes her car to a Toyota dealer for maintenance, so, as far as I can see, Dewey is out of our lives. As a matter of fact, Mrs. P ran into Dewey at the supermarket and told him that I had purchased a new car. She said he appeared happy and wished me "good luck" with the car.

One day last week, Mrs. Pincus returned from running errands to discover that her car had a flat tire. After the involuntarily voicing of a few choice words, she called AAA and waited for someone to come and change the tire. Afterwards, we discussed her options for getting the flat tire repaired... and repaired quickly. First, we considered the Toyota dealer, but without an appointment for service, who knows how long the wait would be for a "walk-in" repair. The last thing Mrs. P — or anyone — wants to do is spend countless, non-productive hours in car dealership waiting room. The next option was rather obvious — Dewey.. We were fairly sure that Dewey, who operates a one-man repair shop, — would be only too happy to fix a quick flat tire for a member of the Pincus family. After all, we were loyal customers for over twenty years. (Yep, we took our cars before my Toyota to Dewey!) 

The next morning, Mrs. P took her "temporary spare tire equipped" car over to Dewey's shop. I, of course, had left for work a few hours earlier. That afternoon, I called my wife to see about the progress of — what I assumed — would be a fast repair. 

"How's your car?" my text to my wife read.

A few minutes later, I received this response...

She went to to explain that — according to Dewey's expert assessment — her car would need four new tires and rear brakes. 

Apparently, Dewey missed us.

Desperately.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

overnight sensation

I have always liked oatmeal. Yeah, I know… most kids didn’t. Most kids were forced to eat oatmeal. “Eat it!,” Mother would jeer through clenched teeth, “It’s good for you!” Well, that’s all a kid needed to hear… that something was good for them! They would instantly balk and frown and turn their noses up at it. But not me. I liked oatmeal and I remember that my mom cooked it – yes! actually, cooked it in a pot on the stove – on random weekend mornings. 

Comedian Shelley Berman did a routine about finding a black speck of something in a glass of milk. In this particular routine, he alluded to oatmeal just being comprised entirely of black specks, therefore he avoided it. Character actor Jack Gilford would put his trademarked “rubber face” to use in his impression of a pot of oatmeal boiling on the stove – blinking his eyes, puffing out his cheeks and opening and closing his mouth to simulate the surface activity of cooking the breakfast staple. Both of these comedy bits made me laugh, probably because I liked oatmeal… and probably because they were funny. 

 

When instant oatmeal was introduced, I was able to make it myself. I’d fill our tea kettle with water, flick on the burner. In a few minutes, the built-in whistle would alert me that the water within was boiled and ready to add to an envelope of instant oatmeal. I had breakfast and my mom was able to sleep a bit longer on a weekend morning. 

I have always enjoyed all-you-can eat buffets, especially breakfast buffets, usually experienced in a hotel lobby after a one-night stay while driving from Philadelphia to Florida. Larger, more expansive breakfast buffets were availed on the many cruises I have taken with my wife. The buffet is my favorite part of cruising, the breakfast buffet especially. The choices are nearly endless, with large platters of scrambled eggs, pancakes, waffles, hash brown potatoes, along with various meat options for the carnivores. Somewhere among the breakfast offerings is a selection of hot cereals, each in a shiny metal cylinder with a long-handled ladle at the ready. There’s always oatmeal, as well as cream of wheat (another of my favorites) and grits (a Southern corn-based specialty that I have enjoyed from time to time). I usually supplement my overly-laden breakfast plate with a bowl of oatmeal topped with a helping of brown sugar… eating it as sort of an appetizer to my cruise buffet breakfast mish-mash. 

Every so often, my dear Mrs. P will break out a pot and a cook oatmeal for the two of us, stirring up memories of when we were still kids in our respective kitchens or sailing on a giant ship in the middle of who-knows-where. 

Game changer.

If you are a regular reader of this blog (if it even has regular readers) or if you know me IRL (as the kids say), you probably are familiar with my disdain – that’s right! seething disdain! – for the overuse of the mawkish superlatives that have overrun our everyday conversation, specifically in our collective online personas. Words like “amazing” and “game-changer,” and their regular misuse, make me cringe. I have often railed against the use of the word “amazing” applied to situations that are clearly not amazing. Your kid passing a spelling test is not amazing. No one has ever prepared and consumed a grilled cheese sandwich or a piece of cake that was amazing. There has never been a movie or television show or concert or any other form of entertainment that was amazing. However, on the off-chance that there was one of these that could possibly qualify as “amazing,” chances are you didn’t see it and you didn’t witness eight of them… in the same week. Sure, there have been good food and good movies and good performances in academics, but “amazing?” Come on… Organ transplants are amazing. Discovering a cure for polio is amazing. Sending astronauts to work and live on a space station floating somewhere way up in the sky is amazing. The fiftieth steak that some French guy cooked in a restaurant…. Amazing? Really?

Do you want to know what a “game-changer” is? The shot clock in basketball. In 2018, the NBA implemented the 24-second shot clock and that changed the game. In 2022, Major League baseball decided, in an effort to speed up boring baseball games, to start each half-extra inning, after the regulation nine have been played to a tie score, with an automatic runner in scoring position on second base. Just this season, a regimented pitch clock has been installed to force pitchers to stop fucking around on the mound and throw the goddamn ball already. Those are game changers. You know what’s not a “game-changer?” Putting salt on caramel or adding a rinse aid to your dishwasher. 

I’m not sure when I first heard about it, but I have become aware of a thing called “overnight oats.” Now, I don’t profess to be a chef of any sorts, but the concept of “overnight oats” sounded pretty simple. Just follow the recommended quantities for cooking oatmeal, but instead of combining everything in a pot on the stove, you just mix it all up in a bowl, cover it and stick it in the refrigerator for – guess how long? That’s correct! Overnight! When you wake up, you can be treated to a healthy, filling nutritious breakfast… that is, if you don’t mind cold oatmeal. (Some recipes do suggest heating the concoction up in the microwave, but the general consensus of folks who have jumped on the “overnight oats” train eat it cold.) 

I have seen a number of online posts singing the praises of overnight oats. People have labeled overnight oats “game changers” and “amazing.” Closer to real life, one of the more vocal advocates of overnight oats is my brother-in-law (no, not that one, the other one). A self-proclaimed authority on pretty much everything, he has been making overnight oats for quite some time. He has told Mrs. Pincus (his sister) how “amazing” overnight oats are and how she and I should try its magical properties ourselves. He has not recommended this to me directly since I have not personally spoken a word to him in over a decade. (And that, my friend, is a story for another blog post!) Nevertheless, always looking for another option for breakfast, I decided to give overnight oats a shot. 

...and liddle lamzy divey

On a recent Sunday evening, I prepared a lidded Tupperware bowl with a cup of dry oats, a cup of almond milk and the amount of brown sugar I would normally add to a bowl of hot oatmeal. I thoroughly mixed the ingredients together and snapped the lid shut. I found a little spot in the refrigerator in which the mixture could congeal or ferment or do whatever it is that takes place over eight hours in cold confines. A few recipes proposed adding peanut butter, jelly, nuts, chia seeds (ch-ch-ch-CHIA!) or other enhancements, but I stuck with what I was used to for my initial run. I closed the refrigerator door. Technically, I was cooking. 

My alarm went off on Monday morning and I hopped out of bed at 5:30 with the start of another work week ahead of me. I went downstairs to the kitchen and flicked on the Keurig coffee maker. But, instead of removing a bowl from the cabinet above the sink and filling it with Honey Nut Cheerios like I have done a zillion times before, I went to the refrigerator to get, what I anticipated would be, a brand-new revelation in breakfast at the Pincus house. 

The bowl was right where I left it, on the shelf in the refrigerator. I popped open the lid. No elves had come to dance and sprinkle their magic. No visible chemical reaction had taken place. The oatmeal appeared to be oatmeal. Cold, but still oatmeal. I made a cup of coffee and took my breakfast upstairs to watch the remaining minutes of a fifty-plus year old episode of Dragnet and an older one of My Three Sons before leaving for work. 

Before scooping up the inaugural first taste, I stirred the thick mélange to reincorporate the components. I dunked my spoon below the lumpy surface and brought up a generous helping of overnight oats… and into my mouth it went. 

It was cold. 

 

And bland. 

And it had a weird texture and, to steal a phrase from many a program on The Food Network, it had an unappealing mouth feel. 

It tasted like cold oatmeal. Like oatmeal I had made and forgotten about. 

A dramatization.

Mrs. Pincus always says that I’m a “good sport.” I will do things I don’t really care to do. I will go to places I don’t really care to go to and I will eat things I don’t really care to eat. And I will not complain about it. Well…. Maybe I’ll complain about it a little. (Does writing a lengthy blog count as a “complaint?”) I ate the entire bowl of overnight oats. It was not good. I did not enjoy it. I ate it knowing that it would not be the last meal I would ever eat. With each bite, I swigged some coffee to mask the unpleasant taste until the bowl was empty. 

On Tuesday, I had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast. Overnight oats will not darken my refrigerator ever again. 

My game was not changed, nor was I amazed. 

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

washing dishes with my sweetie

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I certainly had my share of household chores. I would sometimes receive an allowance for completing my assigned tasks, but mostly my dad would forget. In his (and my mom's) defense, I was rarely denied a little extra spending money if I asked. I knew when I could ask and I knew when I  shouldn't... and that was a little game I played with my parents expendable income.

In the summer, at least once a week (when I wasn't gently reminded), I would fill this relic up with gasoline and push it all over our front and back lawns. This was a job that I inherited from my older brother once he graduated from household chores to employment in the "real" world. I didn't mind this too much. It was outside. It didn't take that long to complete. And sometimes, if the nearby Nabisco factory was in production, the air was filled with the delicious smell of baking cookies. It took my mind off that fact that I was cutting the grass, instead I mentally wandered through a magical world of 24-hour cookie ovens and stacks and stacks of Oreos and Chips Ahoy! (When I visited Walt Disney World for the first time, I was immediately taken back to this childhood scene as I passed the Main Street Bakery. It was only later that I learned that the wonderful "freshly baked cookies" scent was fake and Disney pumps it into the air to entice passers-by. Bastards!)

Every Wednesday evening, after dinner, I would wend my way around our house and empty the trash cans and wastepaper baskets in each room. (We called the trash receptacle in the bathrooms "wastepaper cans," but all the other rooms had "trash cans." I don't know why that was... but that's how The Pincuses lived.) Once that portion of the task was finished, I'd drag the big metal trash cans that rested at the side of our house down to the curb for collection the following morning. When I got home from school on Thursday, I would drag the empty cans back up the driveway to the side yard where they would remain until next Wednesday. (One day, there was an "incident" involving trash collection that you can read about here.)

While I was making my rounds on trash duty, my mom was doing what 1960s moms did. She was cleaning the kitchen. This was what society had deemed as "woman's work." My mom did "woman's work." Not happily. Not unhappily. She just did it. She did the grocery shopping. She did the cooking. She did the serving. And she did the cleaning up after dinner. Looking back, I remember that my mom always ate dinner last, sometimes just sitting down as my father was using a buttered slice of bread to wipe up the last drops of gravy from his plate before lighting an after-dinner cigarette (as opposed to the several "during dinner" cigarettes he enjoyed). My dad, my brother and I would exit the dinner table, leaving my mom to finish her meal alone and eventually clear the table and load the dishwasher alone, as well. (Boy, the Pincus men certainly were little shits!)

Our house did not have a basement or a separate laundry room. We didn't even have a dining room, as sometime in the swingin' 60s, my parents converted the designated dining room to a den, with a sofa, a chair for my father and a TV. That left our tiny 10' x 10' kitchen jammed with a clothes washer and dryer along with our family table and four chairs. Our house did have a dishwasher, though. It was a portable dishwasher with a butcher-block top that my mother put to good use. The dishwasher was on wheels, so during meal preparations, she'd maneuver it near the sink and chop up.... well, whatever it is that moms chop up when they make dinner. After dinner, and once the top was cleaned, my mom would put all the dinner dishes, as well as any pots and utensils used in preparation, into the depths of the dishwasher. With liquid detergent added somewhere inside, she'd extract a large garden hose-looking tube from the back and connect it to the kitchen faucet. For the next hour or so, the kitchen faucet was off limits! You want a glass of water? Get it from a bathroom! You want to wash an apple (like I actually ate apples! Ha!) Too bad! Again, use a bathroom sink or tough it out. My mom loved that dishwasher and, as far as the rest of the family was concerned, it was her dishwasher. After all, no one else in the family knew how to use it. We didn't need to. That was "woman's work" and my mom was the only woman in Chez Pincus.

Somewhere around the time I entered high school, my mom got a job in a women's clothing store. My dad was, at first, not happy about this development. My mom, however, grew to do whatever she wanted to do, regardless of my father's opinion... and my father knew it. Once my mom started working on a regular basis, family dinners became a thing of the past. Our freezer became stocked with TV dinners and other assorted meals of convenience. Pizza was a common dinner. While my brother and I would enjoy the cheese-laden pie my mom brought home from the pizza place next to her store, my dad would frown, grumble and make himself a cold-cut sandwich, smoke a couple of cigarettes and complain about how much he hated pizza, although I never ever saw my father actually eat a slice of pizza. 

Along with "mom-prepared" family dinners, other "mom" services disappeared. No more laundry. You want clean clothes? My mom gave one lesson in how to operate the washing machine and dryer. My brother and I paid close attention and soon we were doing our own laundry. My dad, the "breadwinner" (And breadwinners don't do laundry. They.... they.... win bread!) had no intention of washing his own clothes. He fought in World War II, ferchrissakes! He didn't defeat Hitler for the honor of laundering his own socks! My dad would often persuade my brother or me to add his dirty clothes to our batch. And, of course, we'd oblige. With family dinners a thing of the past, my mom's portable dishwasher was used less and less. It was only when the sink became an overflowing mess of plates and forks and the occasional pan (my brother figured out the secret of making grilled cheese sandwiches), that my mom would run the dishwasher. Still, no one else in the house knew how to load and operate the dishwasher. It was still my mom's thing.

When I got married, I wanted to be as helpful as I could be around our house. I wasn't going to be like my father, sitting back and watching my wife do all the housework while I smoked cigarettes and watched TV. (Well, I don't smoke, but I still had plans of watching TV.) I vacuumed and took the trash out and, briefly mowed the lawn... until we hired a guy to mow the lawn. As a matter of fact, we have also hired someone to clean our house on a regular basis. But there was still laundry! I had remembered the basics of doing laundry from the quick lesson my mom gave when I was a teenager. I made the offer to my new bride and, reluctantly, she let me take a shot at it. Our washing machine was much different that the one at my parent's house and the dryer...? The dryer had more buttons and dials and settings than the control panel of a commercial airplane. So, after I put one of Mrs. Pincus' favorite sweaters into the dryer, shrinking it to a size suitable for a Barbie doll, I was barred from laundry duty 'til death do us part. I wasn't about to ask to use the dishwasher.

Mrs. Pincus and I have been married for 38 years. In those 38 years, I have never loaded, closed, added detergent to, or operated the dishwasher in our kitchen. If someone came in, pointed a gun at me and ordered me to show them how to run our dishwasher, I would just shrug and tell them they might as well pull the trigger right now. I'd sooner be able to show them how to bake a cake... and I don't know how to do that either, but, I'm sure somewhere, there are printed directions. The dishwasher? Well, Mrs. P instinctively knows how to work it, just like she knows all the right questions to ask doctors and repairmen. She just knows. Good thing, too... 'cause I don't have those instincts. So, while I offer my (minimal) assistance in making salads for dinner, carrying packages from the car and carrying laundry (that I don't do) up from the basement, the dishwasher falls into the "appliance" category. As far as I'm concerned, when I was flagged from using the washing machine, I took that to mean all household appliances. 

Recently, an ongoing cacophony of uncharacteristic "clanky" noises coming from our 25-year old dishwasher let us know that we should probably start looking for a replacement before it is totally out of commission. Coincidentally, the ice maker in our equally-as-old refrigerator ceased working and, along with the various broken shelf brackets and cracked drawer guides, a new refrigerator would be a good idea, too. On Memorial Day weekend, Mrs. P and I wandered around the large appliance department at Best Buy and settled on a shiny new dishwasher and a shiny new refrigerator from the good folks at Samsung (makers of the TV in our bedroom and both of our cellphones.) Arrangements for delivery were made and in a few days, the Pincuses entered the 21st century of kitchen convenience. The refrigerator is a French door model with a through-the-door water and ice dispenser and a large drawer that houses a reach-in freezer. It is a far cry from the narrow, avocado green icebox in my parent's kitchen. The dishwasher, with its gleaming, stainless-steel front, has spacious racks and a cool flat shelf at the top for things like lids and spatulas that you don't want flying around during a cycle and smashing into your dishes.

On Day One with the new dishwasher, I don't know what possessed me, but I asked Mrs. Pincus to show me how to use it. I figured: "How difficult could it be? Technology has become simpler as time goes on, so the new dishwasher should be a snap! And sure enough, it was. My wife showed me what pieces she preferred go on the bottom rack and what should be placed in the protective top rack. She showed me where the detergent goes and how much to use. (First, she had to show me where the jug of dishwashing liquid is kept.) She explained the simple, silent, push-button operation. Then, just close the door and — BINGO! — magic occurs. A cool feature we discovered is when the cycle is finished, the door automatically pops open to help in the drying process.  

Mrs. P watched as I loaded the new dishwasher. She observed the way I squeezed the liquid into the little reservoir and snapped the lid of the compartment shut. I pushed two buttons — just two! — on the control panel, shut the door and the dishwasher whirred to life. Actually, it was pretty quiet. Next morning, after turning on the coffee maker, I emptied the dishwasher. I put our dinner dishes back in the proper cabinets, the glasses in their cabinets and the flatware in the correct drawers. There were a few items that, despite living in this house for nearly four decades, I had no idea where in our kitchen cabinets they are stored. I left them on the kitchen counter for Mrs. P to put away when she woke up. But — goddamn! — I acquired a new skill!

Now almost every evening, I fill and start the dishwasher and every morning I empty it and put our dishes and flatware away (except for the things I have no idea where they belong). Once again, I have chores.

Allowance, however, is still iffy.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com