The junior cheeseburger, and other distortions of the media

When I was pregnant with Jacob, Josh had a vision of our future, and it went something like this:

We’d be at a restaurant, sometime in the future with young Jacob in tow. When it came time to order, Josh would say something like, “And for the little one here, we’ll have the junior cheeseburger.”

His vision hasn’t turned out quite the way we planned, seeing as we are raising a child that is no shrinking violet. Not sure how that happened when the simple act of making a phone call to a stranger makes my palms sweat.

Anyhoo.

When we eat out these days, it is for breakfast, and it usually goes something like this:

Server: Good morning, would you like something to dr---
Jacob: Mickey Mouse pancake pease!!

Even the one time we went out for lunch in the last six months, Jacob kept saying “Handeburg? Handeburg?”(Hamburger) like Rain Man while the flustered server tried to list off the specials, until we translated his order.

Anyway, somehow this vision has morphed in such a way that I now call Cody “The Junior Cheeseburger,” as in “Can you take the junior cheeseburger for a diaper change?”

My brain does this sometimes, just totally distorts stuff where I start with an idea and end up with a random nickname for our son. Like when I used to tell the story about how my father was accidentally shot by one of his friends at an eighth grade dance. Nine months later Dad was hit by a car, and the driver happened to be the priest of the boy who had shot him. Only when I tell the story, it goes something like this: My dad was shot by his friend, who was so upset that he called his priest, who then came to the dance and ran over my dad.

When I do this, Josh says, “Yeah, the media can distort things sometimes.” Basically my brain is like The National Enquirer. And while this was once kind of embarrassing, The National Enquirer is now up for a Pulitzer, so boo-yah!