My Major Award

After receiving my OSCAR last week, I began to reflect on those other awards that have come my way.  And I realized that there had been several awards, and these of astounding quality, that I had simply taken-for-granted.

I've never received any prominent award, or course.  No Pulitzer prize, no Noble or Guggenheim for me.  And I've never been the recipient of a World's Greatest Dad or Best Husband award either (really, people, just being a husband and a dad is enough . . . I don't need a tremendously-large cash award for putting my kids through college or being a great lover).  My wife and children can attest to my effectiveness in these arenas, and they have given me several birthday cards over the years that were dead serious (though some have contained fart jokes).

No, but I'm thinking of my Major Award now . . . the one my mother always wants to touch when she comes over for dinner and, while eating my cooking, reminds my wife that, had she not married me, she would likely be living under a wooden crate and sipping scotch ripple out of discarded flower vase.

I'm thinking of my last place Midwest Bodybuilding trophy that I garnered back in 2001.

My wife ignores this gorgeous hunk of masculine pulchritude, this bronzed god trophy with the flaring pecs, the dripping abs, the sweeping thighs . . . and she reminds me that, even at my best, I bore no resemblance to the tanned Hermes sitting on my bookshelf.  "Oh, you were a little hotter back then," she'll say, "but that was years ago . . . and look at you now." 

My arthritic shoulders are offended by such talk, but I don't let on.  I don't need a strong back to type, and writing this blog requires no particular demonstration of flat bench prowess or lat pull flexibility.  I'm a man.  I can take it.  And I'm nursing loose cartilege in my knees to boot!

Still, a little affirmation would be nice.  Perhaps some day my wife will affirm that, even though I got last place at the Midwest Bodybuilding Show, I'm first-place in her heart.  And perhaps my children will stop drawing mustaches on the trophy in black magic marker and writing Loser on the bronzed forehead.  I can attest that my mother is getting peeved.

My mother knows she didn't raise no junk.