Ranch, Dressing

I’ll be the first to admit I sometimes come up with crazy ideas. “Harebrained schemes,” as the old-timers might say. These have included:

  • Creating a hamburger-hot dog hybrid called a burgerdog. Not ground beef rolled into the shape of a hot dog; these already exist. I want to take things a step further and stuff a hot dog inside a hamburger, then grill it to meaty perfection.
  • Developing a food-themed fashion line color-coordinated to meals (e.g., a red outfit for spaghetti, green for pesto, etc.). This would eliminate embarrassing stains and dry-cleaning bills. The tagline? “Dressed for ingest.”
  • Marrying Amy Adams so we could “fill our cozy little love nest with red-haired babies.” My reasoning was, besides being single and lonely at the time, we were both artists: she could love my books, I could love her movies, and together, we could love each other.
  • Packaging up the bottom inch of Nestle Drumstick® sundae cones—you know, the best part, with that cone-encrusted chunk of chocolate—and marketing them as “Drumstick Bites,” a delicious and portable dessert.
  • Combining Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire into one state because they’re nothing more than bite-sized nuggets that happen to neighbor one another.
  • Opening a Chinese restaurant with fortune cookies designed to stroke the ego (“you are one sexy beast”), egg-shaped egg rolls, edible takeout containers, sporks instead of chopsticks, and a Man v. Food-inspired “one-ton wonton challenge.”

Looking at that list, it’s kind of amazing that I’m not rich by now (or home-schooling a ginger-haired kid or three). In retrospect, my current obsession seems rather bland in comparison: I want to become a rancher. Never mind the fact that I know nothing about agriculture or livestock or farm equipment and machinery, and let’s overlook my fingers (which are only slightly more calloused than a newborn’s) and my bank account (a few million dollars short of what it would take to buy land and hire people who would actually know what the hell they were doing). The devil’s in the details!

I’m sure I’m romanticizing the whole ranching lifestyle. I don’t really want to give up my cushy writing job for a hardscrabble life on the northern plains where you’re subject to the whims of Mother Nature. Today, I worry about missing a deadline or overlooking a crucial apostrophe. If I were a rancher, my livelihood would be in jeopardy due to a million factors beyond my control, a list that includes drought, hail, locusts, and fluctuating cattle prices. I just like the idea of wide open spaces, being my own boss, and living off the land. To me, it’s the very definition of an honest day’s work. But I know myself too well: the first time I was elbow-deep in a cow’s uterus trying to birth a calf, I’d be longing for modern comforts like caramel macchiatos. So, no worries: ranching is a no-go.

I still think the burgerdog could be a runaway hit, though.

Be afraid, Golden Arches. Be very afraid…

43 thoughts on “Ranch, Dressing”

  4. Combining Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire into one state because they’re nothing more than bite-sized nuggets that happen to neighbor one another. . .Just call it Lisaville because those are the three states I have lived in.

    Unfortunately you forgot that New Hampshire doesn’t border the other two so you’d have to include those Massholes in your bite, too. *grin*

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    1. Maybe we can get Massachusetts to join the party, too? I was going to include Delaware, but they’re just too far south. You’d have to get New Jersey and New York to merge too, and I doubt anyone is clamoring to take on Jersey.

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  8. “Dress for ingest” nearly made me do a spit take. That whole idea sounds rather Ron Swanson inspired.
    I’ve also dreamed of farming. When we got chickens, a friend warned me they were a gateway livestock. I wanted goats next. Hubs said no. I also love growing my own food in a garden, but most of our plants don’t thrive. So, accepting my limitations, especially because I too love caramel macchiatos.

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    1. I would skip the chickens and go straight for the goats myself. Tara and I actually talked about getting one once! Alas, there are city ordinances and whatnot banning them here. I guess the goat will have to wait for our spot in the country.

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      2. Oh…good point. Tara has worked so hard on the garden she probably wouldn’t be very happy to see it all disappear into the belly of a hungry goat.

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  9. Sounds like you want to be a gentlemen farmer. Those were the days when you could buy low, sell high, take care of some horses, charge some rent for the horses and move along. I hope those days are still here. That was my father’s gig moving from the city to the Catskills so many decades ago.

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    1. I once made a bet with a guy who didn’t think I could eat every meal—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—with a spork for one week. And I blogged about the whole thing! (Spoiler alert: I totally won.)

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  13. Mark, I love your idea about the fortune cookies to stroke the ego. LOL!!!

    And hey, look, you never know what might happen in the future for you. You might very well become a rancher. And you’re in the perfect location for it too. Perhaps that’s one of the subconscious reasons why you moved there.

    Have a super weekend, my friend!

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    1. I believe it’s never too late to reinvent yourself, but ranching seems like a stretch. I’ll just drive by and admire all the ranches! Not the same, but also, not nearly the same amount of work.

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