The Badometer: Part I

I try so hard to be good. I really do. I am a good person. Well mostly I am. Well, I think I am anyway. I try to do good things. You know I’m considerate and polite. I treat myself and others with respect. I’m professional and businesslike. Yeah, I’m a good person. I eat granola for breakfast. Well sometimes I do. Sometimes I eat cold pizza for breakfast but so what, that doesn’t make me bad; I’m still good. I think I am anyway. I eat fruit and I even like some vegetables. Sometimes I put blueberries in my granola. And yogurt too. Low fat. Dang, that’s so healthy. I must really be a good person. Yeah I like granola and blueberries and fruit and vegetables and skinless chicken, and low fat milk, and other good stuff. The trouble is that I like Cheetos too. I like Hershey bars with almonds and I like Nutty Buddies. I like bacon and breakfast sausage and I know they clog my veins. I like Snickers bars. I suppose that’s not such a bad thing and I suppose that they do at least one bad thing to me or possibly a plethora of bad things but the trouble is, sometimes I just don’t care. I just enjoy the Snickers bar. Clearly I’m not as good as I thought. Maybe I’m bad.

A particularly bad thing I do is eat hot dogs and enjoy them. Katy doesn’t like hot dogs so I try to only eat them when she is not home and I am feeling really rowdy. Recently we were talking about what to have for dinner and I said I wanted to have hot dogs and that I would go to the store and get her something else for dinner because I knew she didn’t like those darn vein clogging, heart stopping, cancer causing, tubes of death. She told me she wanted a mushroom.

A what?

I like mushrooms. Mostly I do. It kind of depends on where they are. I like mushrooms on pizza. For dinner or breakfast; it’s all good. Sometimes I like a mushroom burger. The thing is that a mushroom burger is supposed to have one burger and a bunch of mushrooms. How hard is that to understand? Saying I like mushrooms means that I like mushrooms with an “s”. It doesn’t mean I like mushroom. As in one single mushroom. Katy wanted a mushroom burger without the burger and with only one mushroom. I thought, are you serious, one mushroom. You want one mushroom for dinner? She said she would put it in a bun and have a mushroom burger. Whoa, whoa, whoa! That’s not a mushroom burger. A mushroom burger has to have a burger and the mushroom part means mushrooms not mushroom. Whatever. She said I could eat my nutritionless hot dogs and she would have a mushroom. One of them. One huge mushroom. Big enough to fit in a hamburger bun all by itself. Are you serious? Is there such a thing? Are they grown or are they manufactured? Are they even real? I think a mushroom that is that big is a processed mushroom or something. They take a bunch of real mushrooms, grind them up, press them together, and cram them in a mushroom mold to make them look like one, giant mushroom. What holds it together? Surely whatever is in that processed mushroom is worse for you than a little hot dog. Or two. Or three. And you want me to barbecue a mushroom? Are you serious? One mushroom all by itself? Who ever heard of such a thing?



I love my wife and I will do a lot to help her be happy. Even make her a fake mushroom burger.

The trouble is, is that as weird as I think barbecuing one mushroom is, I look at that darn thing on the barbecue sitting there next to my hotdogs and I think I’m not good; I’m bad. Katy is eating a mushroom and I’m eating hotdogs. What is wrong with me?

I decided to hook myself up to the badometer (rhymes with speedometer) to check to see if I am good or bad. The badometer is a scientific device of course. It is available at Radio Shack, Amazon, and directly from the manufacturer at Badometer.com.

If the hotdogs next to the mushroom aren’t enough to tell me I’m bad, the badometer confirmed it.

Dang it! What could I do?

I hooked Katy up to the badometer and of course she got a good reading. She always does.







I made fruit salad.



It improved my reading on the badometer.



But I just know that I will never be as good as my wife. Still, I refuse to eat one monster shroom to improve my reading. Maybe I’m just hopeless.

It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your car carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend.

Oh, and smile too. Just that simple thing will improve your reading on the badometer.