I recently had an opportunity to make a road trip to the upstate for Trans-South Wrestling's "HARDCORE BOOGIE" event. The name comes from the fact that TSW would be hosting appearances by a pair of members of the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame, those being "The Boogie Woogie Man" Jimmy Valiant and "The Hardcore Legend" Mick Foley.
For more information on Trans-South Wrestling, visit them on either Facebook or Twitter via these links:
The opening contest of the evening would be between Jaxson James and The Stro who, as you may or may not recall, was at one point in time a member of World Championship Wrestling's roster where he performed as The Maestro. Stro, as he refers to himself on social media, is also going by the name Papa. I don't know where that came from or what it is supposed to represent, but he comes to the ring with what appears to be a branding iron. Again, I don't know what it is but that's the gimmick he's going with.
This was a simple match but that's not a bad thing! Jaxson James is one of the best young talents we have in this area and one of a select few out of that group who has a look that will help him earn a living at some point in his life doing this crazy wrestling thing.
Following that was this bout between Josh Powers and Kameron Kade. Both Powers and Kade are known to have consistently strong showings; Powers in particular has gotten a reputation of being a reliable, versatile performer. I can attest to his talents as I've seen him perform at least half a dozen times in the past year and I would say that while he may not have the aesthetic of a top notch wrestler he has the tools. If ever the two meet up he'll be one to watch even more closely.
What I wasn't really sure about here is that I thought only a short while ago Kameron Kade was a villain in TSW yet he received a hero's welcome as soon as he came out of the back. I guess pro wrestling fans always have had short memories when it comes to that sort of thing.
One of the real stars of the evening came to the ring after the Powers/Kade match, that being the hardcore legend himself Mick Foley!
Foley would spend a few minutes addressing the fans in attendance, during which he made sure to put over TSW as being a quality promotion with great wrestlers. Not long into his talk, he was rudely interrupted by George South and Alex Avgerinos. South was quick to deem himself a superior author to Foley, essentially say that George's book - Dad You Don't Work, You Wrestle - is in a class above any of Mick's publications. Of course this approach to criticizing a fellow writer's work didn't wind up going so well for George...
I have to say that this was one of the most entertaining segments of the entire show. The interaction between Foley, South, and Avgerinos was fantastic and it did a great job in setting the stage for the main event of the evening.
Professional wrestling promoters, generally speaking, want to make the main event match THE match that fans go home talking about. It should be what sells the show and what ultimately makes fans want to come back for the next event. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way and a match on the under-card winds up stealing the show. That's exactly what happened at "HARDCORE BOOGIE" as Chase "Cauliflower" Brown and "The Southern Savior" John Skyler went out and had themselves a real barn burner.
Skyler and Brown are fantastic talents; Brown being the more traditional, old school style of grappler and Skyler being the modern heel. You throw in the presence of Skyler's manager, "The" Tommy Thomas, and you've got what was the match of the night in my opinion.
Everyone knows the old saying "less is more". I'm theorizing here but in my mind that statement goes along with the mechanical concept of how machinery with more moving parts are more likely to break down, hence the ideal of simplistic design being paramount. If you take that line of thought to the world of professional wrestling, the more competitors you involve the more likely it is that the end result is going to be messy, for lack of a better word.
I say all that to say this: The idea of a 4-way elimination tag team match at this level coming off well is a 50-50 prospect at best. This match wasn't bad but there's a lot going on here and not very much of it makes sense. It was an over-booked bout in my opinion; I'd have much sooner seen Chemical Z (Jett Black & TK Stark) have a rematch against Eric Adamz and Hardcore Hunter coming off TSW's last show where Adamz & Hunter brutally attacked Chemical Z in a post-match beat down.
With that, it was main event time!
We learned during Mick Foley's segment that what started off as an ordinary wrestling match would instead metamorphose into a "submit or surrender" match. "What's a submit or surrender match?", you ask. Good question because I was a little fuzzy on what it involved myself. Essentially it's a scenario where the only way to win is to either make your opponent submit or have them give up the contest in some way, shape, or form.
Alex Avgerinos has evolved into a real villain for TSW, which
baffles me in a way. I still remember the days of pro wrestling's past
when a good looking young man such as him would never be thought of as
having an immoral cell in his body. He's a clean-cut gentleman, he
wouldn't think of doing something as dastardly as throwing a ball of
fire into the face of a fellow wrestler - which is exactly what he did
to reigning TSW heavyweight champion Deon Johnson at the promotion's
previous event!
There was a bit of heavy foreshadowing here as Deon Johnson came to the ring with Dirty, his tag team partner and one-half of the TSW tag team champions, who happened to be carrying a white towel with him. Alex Avgerinos, on the other hand, came to the ring by himself - no George South, so I assume the mandible claw Foley gave him earlier in the show was so debilitating that he couldn't accompany his charge. Wrestling is a rigorous activity but rarely do you see someone stop during a match to towel off because of excessive perspiration. The fact that Dirty had that towel meant something, clearly.
The finish of the match came off as being convoluted, I hate to say. Much like with the 4-way tag team match, there was a lot going on here at the end and if you weren't looking in the right spot you'd likely miss what happened to lead to the conclusion of the contest.
Overall this was a fun show with a good mix of talent and a variety of styles on display. There were some portions that could've been handled a little better, creatively speaking, and there were a handful of situations that didn't come off all that well, but that's nothing uncommon when it comes to indie pro wrestling so I'm not going to harp on that in these confines. The footage is here for you to make up your own minds!
Of course, it would have been out of character for me to have attended this event without filming an edition of my YouTube show, Rasslin' with Redbeard, during the show. You can view episode 11 of the program below, and if you enjoy it please keep in contact with me by either subscribing to my YouTube channel or liking the Rasslin' with Redbeard Facebook page!
TSW's next event will be Friday, December 5 in Laurens, SC where WWE and college football hall of famer Ron "Farooq" Simmons will be on hand for a meet & greet with fans.
I don't talk much about my job here in my blog for specific reasons, main among them being the fact that I respect my employer enough for the opportunity they have given me not to bring the goings on of my office into public view. I will tell you, though, that I have been employed in the public sector for almost 7 years now and there was a point during that time where I was heavily involved in preparing election equipment and supporting it during elections. It made for long days (pulling a 15 hour shift on an election day wasn't uncommon), but I enjoyed the work as it had a real sense of importance to it. I recognized that the democratic process we value so highly in the United States could go on as it is intended because of efforts from people like myself. As such, I did my part to try and promote participation in elections, no matter how big or small they might have been - far be it from me to log all those hours then undersell the final product.
2014 is a big year for residents of South Carolina, politically speaking, as we will be casting votes for a number of seats including that of several senators, the lieutenant governor, and the governor (unlike many states, in South Carolina the lieutenant governor and governor do not run as a team although this will change in the future). There are some interesting races out there however it's a situation where the entrenched incumbents are difficult to dislodge, meaning their challengers have a real uphill battle to face.
All that having been said, I haven't been actively involved in elections for the better part of 2 years as my role has changed and I've taken on other responsibilities. I still do a bit of work with them but nothing near what I did previously. I can't say for certain but I feel as though my having moved away from the grunt work of elections has soured me somewhat on the electoral process. It's no longer something that I focus on so it doesn't resonate with me the way it once did, and I will be forthright in saying that's rather pathetic of me. (Self-tough love, it's the new trend in psychology.) The other end of that ignorance is the fact that I don't feel a sense of importance coming from this election because quite frankly I don't feel as though any of these candidates truly represent me. This issue with representation, of course, goes back to the metaphor - brilliantly depicted as only the creators of South Park can - of how political contests in this country typically boil down to a choice of either electing a giant douche or a turd sandwich.
I don't think conditions can be surmised any more plainly than that. As Americans, more often than not we know going into an election that we've got options but none of them are particularly ideal, so we pick the one that seems least likely to lead to regret. It's kind of like being the last man in the world and the only two women left are a Kardashian sister and Paris Hilton - do you attempt to rebuild the human race or just accept the fact that we had a good run but it's time to move on?
How, then, do we know which candidate is a giant douche and which is the turd sandwich? You don't get the luxury of having many secrets if you're running for office these days thanks to the prying claws of the media, a fact I am 100% certain is going to make politics interesting in the future when every candidate has to explain their drunken selfies and those videos they made while on Spring break. That sort of journalism is one way to find out who's who - I would say reporting of that nature is probably the most blunt method imaginable, however it might not be all that valuable seeing as how things can easily be taken out of context - but then you have the candidates speaking for themselves through their own ads, and that's exactly where I'm going with all this.
There are two candidates from South Carolina whose ads have made me laugh and roll my eyes, and for entirely different reasons. They are Det Bowers, a Republican running for his party's nomination in the U.S. Senate race against incumbent Lindsey Graham, and Tim Scott, a Republican and South Carolina's Junior Senator from Charleston. Before you go thinking this is a liberal rant against Republicans, I'll have you know that in terms of my political beliefs I am neither a donkey or an elephant. As I've gotten older I find that I tend to agree with the Libertarian point of view, so take that as you will.
I'm going to talk about these ads as if they exist in a vacuum because I truly believe that for some voters the content of these TV spots will be the only information off of which they'll base their decisions. I'd like for you, dear reader, to try and look at them in the same way even though you may be more informed about matters of politics than the average citizen. First, lets take a look at this ad from Bowers - pay particular attention to the last 5 seconds.
"Vote to restore trust...", said with a tone of voice that's somewhere between pleading for your life pitiful and "Please, sir, may I have a little more?" You can just feel those old puppy dog eyes of his (sitting just below those woeful eyebrows) watering up a tad as he says it for good measure. I can't tell if I should vote for him out of sympathy or if I should be concerned for the fact that he might injure himself on purpose if he doesn't win.
Next is a pair of ads from Senator Tim Scott, who has a number of distinctions for having broken racial barriers in the U.S. Senate as he is the first African American Senator from the South since the late 1800s and only the seventh black Senator, ever. (Let that sink in for a minute or two.) What I want you to take note of in this ad isn't Scott but rather the people around him.
Notice anything peculiar? No? Here's a hint.
Still nothing?
How about now?
In this ad, Tim Scott has surrounded himself with a group of people who either have severe elasticity issues with the tendons in their necks or who have been very well coached in that they are to nod along as if to agree with anything he's saying.
Senator Scott: "My name is Tim Scott..."
Audience: *agreeing nod*
Senator Scott: "I like potatoes..."
Audience: *agreeing nod*
Senator Scott: "Han Solo shot first..."
Audience: *agreeing nod*
Senator Scott: "Go Gamecocks..."
Audience: *agreeing nod*
Senator Scott: "Y'all look like a bunch of bobblehead dolls..."
Audience: *agreeing nod*
I'm sure some marketing guru was brought in to assemble that scenario
and he more than likely made what I make in a year off that one advert. I can only imagine the kind of coin that gets spent on these things, between production costs and the money spent on airtime. Nevertheless, it reminded me of an opinionated statement, which may or may not have been uttered by the one and only George Carlin, a man who not only understood comedy but had some tremendously wise moments of social commentary.
I mentioned earlier in this entry my feelings of being somewhat disenfranchised by the candidates running in this particular primary, but I never specified why. (Before I get into that, let me say that despite my misgivings I will vote in this primary and the full election in November. Not doing so would be a great disservice to the fact that the right to vote remains one of the purest symbols of liberty from oppression that we as American citizens have.) I feel for the first time in my life what I have heard others speak of when it comes to why they don't vote, and that is a sense of absolute disconnect between myself and the people I have to choose from to represent me in Washington, D.C. Never before has it struck me how they are all mostly rich businessmen, lawyers, or otherwise well-to-do individuals, and many of them are from families with established ties to politics. I'm not rich, I'm not a businessman or a lawyer, I'd say that I do alright at best, and my family is about as far removed from politics as we are from the surface of Mars. I think more people should be able to participate in politics without having hundreds of thousands of dollars and a garrison of yes men at their disposal. It's my opinion that that's the way it was intended to be when our democracy was established. Like a great many other things since then, the ideal of freedom through representation has been tampered with along the way. I guess only now am I old enough or wise enough to realize this.
If you're a frequent visitor to my part of the blogosphere (just for reference, that is the first and more than likely the last time you'll ever see me use that word) you may recall that earlier this year I made a post wherein I set a goal for myself to make at least 3 blog entries per month. I've held pretty close to true on that, although I will say that there are only two entries for the month of April even though at one point in time there were 3.
"What happened to the third one?", you ask. Well, a while ago I purchased a keyboard dock for my Asus Transformer tablet which essentially turns the tablet into a handy-dandy Android-based netbook. It's great because it's portable, has awesome battery life, and because it's Android it runs just about every app you could think of, including one that's meant for users of Blogger such as myself. I sometimes will start a blog in the app then work on it again when I'm in front of a PC or vice versa. The missing blog from April (which was an event report from a recent WrestleForce show I attended) is an apparent victim to the fact that I published that piece through the web after having started it in the app. Evidently when I went back to the app my Blogger entries were updated based on the data that was (for some reason) still queued in the app, meaning that published entry reverted to an unfinished draft state.
Suffice to say I was pissed when I realized what had happened. I guess whoever Google has working on this particular product skipped over the importance of checking date stamps on database entries; that, and they also offer no ability to recover material in situations like this. Once it's gone, it's gone. Such is life, eh?
Be that as it may, I haven't soured on the prospect of keeping up my blog but I have gotten quite into the realm of video here lately. I'm not going so far as to label myself a vlogger (there's another word you may or may not ever get from me again), however I can tell you that I genuinely enjoy the experience of working with video! Perhaps it's the newness of it or the excitement may be from my merely getting with the times - whatever the case, I've taken to YouTube and have some actual content to share. That said, what follows are a handful of my most recent videos and a bit of commentary on each. If you'd like to see my full YouTube channel, you can do so via this link.
CLIP #1) Rasslin' with Redbeard - Episode 4
I'm particularly proud of this edition of RWR mainly because I think it's the best example to date of what RWR is all about, that being an honest depiction of the fan experience at professional wrestling events. In this instance, the video follows my wife & I as we made our way to Cameron, North Carolina for an event promoted by OMEGA Championship Wrestling headlined by the Hardy Boyz as they faced off against the Briscoe Brothers.
CLIP #2) Random Clips & Match Highlights from CHAOS IN CAMERON
Also recorded during our trip to Cameron were these clips from the show we attended. I'm a little gun shy of promoting this simply for the fact that I had another highlight package I'd put together of nothing but footage from the main event (which was one of the best tag team matches I've ever seen, quite frankly), but I was asked to remove it by someone in OMEGA's "front office" after having published it. Hopefully if they see this they'll understand the point is to make people interested in their product.
CLIP #3) Team Alexander vs. Team Konley (WrestleForce; 5-4-2014)
At almost 45 minutes in length, this match is more than a little beefy. There's a story to be told here, though, and if nothing else I would hope that should you watch the entire thing you'd come away from it impressed by the skills of those involved. It takes a ton of cardiovascular conditioning to gut out a match of this length, which is why competitors like Cedric Alexander and Vordell Walker are in a very small group of elite athletes out there on the independent pro wrestling scene today. Should you not have 45 minutes to invest in it, at least watch the last 15 minutes - TRUST ME.
That's a sampling of what I'm doing with my YouTube channel. I have a few other videos I've amassed but haven't done anything with, primarily because I'm not 100% certain they're worth putting out there. I may add them someday to round out the kind of material I publish because I'll be the first to admit that my channel is very wrestling-heavy. Then again, it's my channel and I'm a big fan of wrestling, so it's only fitting. Regardless, if you've been a fan or follower of mine here on Blogger I would hope you'd take the time to see what else I've been working on. I'm still working on learning the ins and outs of this but I like where it's going.
When I sat down to start writing this entry, I looked back over my posts
from the past because I thought I had begun using a specific title for
submissions like this one which are a big bag of randomness with no real
cohesive core topic other than that they're all my personal life
experiences or observations made during said experiences. Low and behold, I apparently never came up with a recurring
title for this sort of thing. I need to work on that - I have my Movie
Review Round-Up series (which is more than likely MIA for the time being seeing as how the Summer movie season is over), and I know I'm going to have future publications
that fall into this category of being completely disjointed in nature,
so it only makes sense to try and develop a moniker to label them as
such. They would seem to play into the title of this here blog,
Redbeard's Rambling. Rambling for the Sake of Rambling? Random
Rambles/Rambling? I like both of those but I'm going to see what else I
can come up with; if you, my dear reader, have any suggestions feel free
to contact me with them. But for now, on with the show!
Adventures in Jewelry Repair
When I purchased my wife's engagement ring and wedding band from Reeds Jewelers, I popped for an optional extended warranty plan along with it. I figured if I was already paying close to $2,000 for a piece of jewelry
I might as well take a few extra steps to take special care of the
thing seeing as how it's a big investment in my eyes, albeit one that is physically
very small. The warranty covers more or less everything under the sun when it comes to repairs, however it does nothing for us regarding replacement were it to be lost or stolen. The way it was described to me, the warranty is so thorough that if the rings were shattered into pieces so long as we could return the stones and metal they would be able to make the ring whole. (Trust me, I'm in no rush to test that claim.) Other items also included on the coverage were resizing, rhodium plating, cleaning, and the like. General maintenance, in other words, all things geared towards keeping that rock on my wife's finger shining like it were brand new.
And it's a good thing that I did choose to purchase this warranty because my wife managed to dislodge one of the stones from the setting of her engagement ring not long after I'd given it to her. How, I have no idea - I just remember the day it happened as being full of tears (for her) and thoughts along the lines of (earmuffs, kids) "Well, what the f#&^ am I supposed to do now?" from me. Fortunately, by the grace of the good Lord above, she found the stone and we were able to get it repaired. What's more, the jeweler at Reeds who did the repairs went so far as to modify the ring so that the stones were, as he put it, "sitting in a basket".
My wife's ring, prior to getting its "basket" modification
"Basket" sounds better in this context as opposed to cage or box, I guess, right?
The one oddity to the warranty is that it requires us to bring the rings into a Reeds location once every six months so that it can be inspected for any potential issues. They even gave us a little pamphlet to keep up with as the clerk performing the inspection notates their having seen the ring in it. My wife and I have been married for more than 3 years now and we've been faithful to that requirement as every six months I find myself having to wander into a store that is essentially a mine field. "We're just here to get the rings checked", I say to myself while we're there. "Keep her on track and don't let her wander around, lest you find yourself dropping another couple grand on overpriced baubles..." Don't get me wrong - it's not that I don't want my wife to have nice things, I just know that there are a lot more useful things in this world than jewelry that could be purchased with that same money (this logical approach to spending brought to you by my overwhelming sense of buyer's remorse).
Low and behold, we were due to bring the ring in this month so the wife and I made our way to the nearest Reeds Jewelers, that being the one within Columbiana Centre near the Harbison Boulevard area of Columbia, South Carolina. (Side note: A fascist was clearly involved in the organization of this mall, else "center" would've been spelled correctly.) It's an okay mall as malls go (very glamorous, lots of white and tile surfaces and plenty of shops smelling of wretched colognes with EDM blaring over their sound systems) but I haven't had much use for shopping malls since video arcades went the way of the Dodo bird. Nevertheless, the mall serves a purpose, and for us on this evening it was to facilitate the continued brilliance of one piece of jewelry.
We entered the store (which is conveniently located near one of the entrances to the mall) and my wife handed over her rings to the nearest clerk who was a young Caucasian woman, more than likely in her early 20s, with brown hair just past her shoulders. She looked like your typical college-aged girl, one who'd probably played sports at some point in her life. She was wearing a low-cut, somewhat tight-fitting dress with white, yellow, and blue stripes that ended just where it would have to in order to defend her modesty.
Why did I go into such detail in describing this clerk? Because quite honestly I'm old enough and wise enough to know a gimmicky retail trap when I see one. Stores like this don't hire girls like her because of their abilities in salesmanship, they hire them because they know some poor schmuck is going to buy something he can't afford because the pretty girl behind the counter told him it looks nice. I saw it happen myself when my wife and I were shopping for her ring. We were in a different store but it was the same set up; attractive girl leaning over jewelry displays showing ample amounts of cleavage gets a guy to buy, you guessed it, a high-end engagement ring and all the while he's staring at her chest like his life depended on it. It's hilarious while it's also demeaning - such is life.
My wife has passed off her ring and the clerk has taken it into the repair shop area of the store for inspection. A few minutes later the clerk returns. Much to my wife's dismay, she informs us that one of the stones is loose and the ring will need to be serviced. Wifey doesn't like to be without her bling, you see, and I don't blame her. Be that as it may, I'm not worried because we've done what we were supposed to and this is exactly the sort of thing that the warranty is supposed to catch. Then the clerk says something along the lines of "There will be a charge for this kind of service..."
Despite what Tits McShortdress believed to be accurate, there would be no charge for tightening the setting. It took a few extra minutes and the assistance of an older, more experienced member of the sales staff (who was a guy - I point that out just because) to verify what my wife and I already knew. I somewhat had the impression that they thought they might be able to get one over on us - no dice, I'm afraid. As it stands, we'll be able to pick the ring up soon and I'm sure it will be immaculate. If it isn't, lets just say I've been playing enough Grand Theft Auto 5 lately to know how to handle the matter.
Oddly Worded Advertisements
Generally speaking, I loathe advertisements. As in to a point where while I'm watching TV I will change the channel from a program I enjoy just to go to another channel with a show I have little to no interest in for the mere fact that they aren't running an ad at the time. This strategy doesn't work consistently, though, because those sneaky networks are in cahoots with one another in that nowadays they all seem to go to commercial at the same time. Hence the reason why I keep my phone or tablet nearby so that I can browse Facebook or Twitter - where I get a completely different set of ads, which I can at least scroll past with haste.
Speaking of online ads, YouTube and Hulu Plus present their own set of annoyances when it comes to the forced consumption of advertising. Hulu Plus is a paid subscription-based service, yet users are still subjected to ads and I have no idea why; you would think since people are paying to get to their content the need for ads would've been eliminated, but no, you still get ads. What's unique about Hulu Plus is the fact that when you're watching via their website and an ad comes on you have the ability to tell Hulu Plus whether or not the ad is pertinent to you. I find this hilarious because I click "no" every time purely out of spite - it hasn't yielded any real change in things, but it does make me feel better, if only for a moment, about having potentially influenced their system.
I tend to watch a fair amount of random videos via the YouTube app on one of my mobile devices. Typically there will be one or two ads per session that get tacked onto the opening of whatever clip it is I happen to be watching. These ads are usually short in length but they are incredibly redundant. I am not kidding when I say that I have been served with the same Booking.com ad no less than 50 times here lately. I would never in my life use Booking.com, simply because of having been inundated with their crappy ad.
I'm going to assume that my brain is an advancement in the continued evolution of our species seeing as how I have the innate ability to not permit advertising to influence my buying habits. I've searched my recent memory and the only product for which I've willfully submitted to allowing its corresponding ad to influence me is that of Dollar Shave Club, which is a product line I actually recommend highly. Great razors at a low cost shipped to your home every month - what's not to love about that?
I've turned my dislike for advertising into an opportunity for humor here recently as I've begun noticing that companies are using adjectives in their scripts that strike me as being too odd to ignore. For example, why is it that suddenly so many fast food chains are obsessed with making sure that you know they're using "real" ingredients? I guess recent revelations that "beef" from eateries like Taco Bell and McDonald's is more akin to Soylent Green than legitimate beef has made them paranoid. As if that's supposed to make customers feel better about eating a highly processed food product loaded with preservatives and additives. What's funnier to me are the ads for products like iced cream or breakfast bars - they contain "real iced cream", "real oats", and "real fruit". As opposed to what, exactly? Fake iced cream? Fake oats? Fake fruit? Have things gotten so bad in our culture that we now have to be convinced as consumers that we're not ingesting flavored plastics or something?
Flaming Lean Pockets
I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've eaten a Hot Pocket over the course of my life. I've eaten plenty of food items that have had the distinction of being nuked in a microwave instead of cooked by more traditional means, but Hot Pockets were never one of those go-to things that ranked high up on my list of instant eats. For one, they aren't exactly appetizing to me - the dough is nothing like a pizza crust and the contents are so hot your palette can't process what their flavor is. I'm not one to eat something merely because of convenience, so just the fact that they can be ready in a hurry does nothing for me. Does that make me a snob? Maybe, but at least I can say with satisfaction that I'm unwilling to compromise certain things, one of them being what I decide to shove into my pie hole.
That said, earlier this month prior to heading out to attend a local independent professional wrestling card (see blog entry "WrestleForce Presents Fall Brawl 4 - A Date with Fate") I wanted to get a bite to eat but I didn't want fast food and I didn't want to engage in a full sit down meal. We tend to keep a fairly well stocked pantry at home but there wasn't a whole lot therein this day that struck my fancy either. I remembered that my wife had recently picked up a box of Lean Pockets (pepperoni pizza flavored, I believe) and I figured "Why not?"
I retrieved one of the Lean Pockets from the box in the freezer of our refrigerator. I put the box away then realized that there were no instructions on how to revive the thing from its cryogenic slumber printed on its individual packaging. I will fully admit that I didn't want to have to dig the box back out of the freezer - it wasn't that I was in a hurry or that the box was buried deep within the chill chest, I was just too lazy to go look at the instructions on the box myself. So what did I do? I asked my wife, "Hey, baby - how long do you have to put these Lean Pockets in the microwave?" She's cooked several of them since buying that box so I expected her to have that information.
"I don't know...", she said. "7 minutes, maybe? Look at the box!"
In hindsight, I should've known better than to go along with anything she said that followed "I don't know". Not doing so was the first mistake I made that day. Nevertheless, I put the Lean Pocket into the microwave, set the timer for 7 minutes, and turned it on then walked back to our bedroom to chat with my wife while it was warming up. That was the second mistake I made that day.
I was in our bedroom maybe 3 or 4 minutes before I went to walk back towards the kitchen. Our home is laid out in such a way that there's a hallway which leads from the front of the house where the living room/kitchen are to the back of the house where all the bedrooms are. When I came out of our bedroom and looked towards the kitchen, all I could see was a plume of smoke pouring out of the kitchen and into the living room...
I run to the kitchen and immediately open the door to the microwave. There was so much smoke that I couldn't tell when I got near it whether the light inside was from the bulb that illuminates the interior of the device or if the Lean Pocket was on fire. Fortunately, the pastry wasn't ablaze however it had been cooked to the point of being not much more than a charcoal briquette shaped like a Lean Pocket.
The aftermath of this incident has been lingering for more than a week now as the smoke got into every room of the house but especially the kitchen and living room. We attempted to air out the space as much as possible by opening up the windows and back door as well as turning on all the fans, including that of our air conditioner. I was trying to aid matters by using a beach towel to fan the smoke out the windows - I don't know how much good it did but the haze did eventually go away. The smell has dissipated with time and a lot of air freshener but we get treated to a less than subtle reminder of my folly whenever we use the microwave as the exhaust fan belches out air that's scented with smoke.
I learned two things from this experience.
1) Never walk away from food that you are in the process of cooking, regardless of whether you're using a stove, microwave, or any other implement of food preparation
2) Never rely on your wife when it comes to accurate information regarding cooking times for microwavable products
I'm sorry, honey - it's going to take a lot for you to re-earn my trust, because of course this wasn't my fault.
