Furmanifesto

We didn’t eat out much when I was a kid.

As child I thought that this was because we didn’t have a lot of money but as an adult I have been informed that I was fairly hyperactive, especially in new environments.

When we did visit a restaurant it was usually on a Sunday night, and it was most often a Bob’s Big Boy.  I was always warned that we wouldn’t come back if I didn’t behave properly.

This type of risk/reward scenario did help me behave appropriately, even if it was only for a Sunday night.

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While I always appreciated going to eat at Bob’s Big Boy, mostly because of the Hot Fudge Cake, I could never seem to beat my brother to the punch when it came to expressing gratefulness.

See my older brother was the master of the “Thank You”.

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The Nintendo Entertainment System was ridiculously easy to attach to your home television. One plug went it into the wall and two plugs went into your TV. It was so simple you could be playing it within 6 minutes of unwrapping it.

If you grew up playing your video games on the original Nintendo Entertainment System you know that the day your NES arrived it most likely arrived with two games, Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt.

While Super Mario Brothers and Duck hunt were unquestionably awesome, neither one of them allowed two players to play at the same time.

Each game made players wait for their own turn.

This means that unless you were an only child, the NES arrived at your home about 7 minutes before the first family argument broke out; because people wanted to play Nintendo, they didn’t want to watch it.

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Before I got married I had two pieces of furniture: a rollaway bed and a dresser.  After I got married my wife decided that we needed furnishings.  I agreed with her, mostly because we could’ve played racquetball in our apartment.

The only problem with my wife’s idea is that we were poor, youth pastor of 20 kids poor.

My wife’s plan to overcome this was to drive three hours north of Portland to what was then the only Ikea store in the Northwest.  Since I had never been to an Ikea, this sounded like a great idea.

We borrowed a van and left the house at 6 AM.

We got home at 10 PM.

We were out of the house for 16 hours.

If you do the math you become painfully aware that that day I spent 10 hours wandering through carefully staged, scenario presentations of products named Lack and Gronkulla.

While we did manage to outfit our tiny home for less than $400, I have to admit that we played right into the cleverly designed post-American master planning of our Scandinavian lifestyle consultants…

We bought the meatballs.

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