Confession No. 112 — A few words and phrases that you never want to hear

Ask the average person what words or phrases they despise and most of them will respond similarly. Profanity. Hateful expressions. Self-righteous assertions.

Not me.

Nope. I can handle the occasional swear word, rude comment or pompous ass. But there are a handful of contradictory or foreboding utterances that make my skin crawl.

I hate to tell you this
Other than ‘Beware the Ides of March,’ no phrase in the history of the English language has been more descriptive of impending bad news. And there’s always a ‘but’ afterward. More on that later.

My earliest memory of hearing the phrase came during my high school years. And the person who said it to me was likely lying through her teeth (about hating to tell me my bad news).

I had bought two tickets to a Pink Floyd concert in Dallas. My girlfriend was holding them for us, as we were planning to go together. Apparently, we weren’t as close as I thought. After multiple calls to her home, her mother finally broke the news: She’d gone with someone else.

Those words have cleaved my contentment many times since, but the pain was the worst when I had to use them in telling my 11-year-old son that Suzy — our adopted Boxer — hadn’t made it through the week while he was at Boy Scout camp.

We need to talk
Has anyone in the history of the world ever said this phrase before announcing that he’s been healed of an incurable disease? Or that she’s won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes? Not in my circles.

I’ve heard ‘We need to talk’ from my loving wife once. I never want to hear it from her again. Long story short, I was somewhere that I wasn’t supposed to be and well … she didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.

I also remember my dad using this phrase one morning when he was driving me to school. I was in eighth grade at the time.

‘Adam, we need to talk … after school.’

‘What about, Dad?’

‘We’ll talk after school,’ he responded.

All day long I worried. What could I have possibly done? Was I about to lose all of my privileges? I couldn’t figure it out during the entire seven hour day.

‘So, you wanted to talk to me?’ I asked him that afternoon as I opened the passenger-side door on Dad’s old Datsun station wagon.

‘Get in the car,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk on the ride home.’

But we instead listened to Paul Harvey through the old AM dashboard radio. This was a mind game for sure, except Dad never played those.

‘Adam,’ he said as he took a detour into a grocery store parking lot and parked the car. ‘Your language is unacceptable.’

‘OK,’ I responded. ‘What did I say?’

‘I know that you think it’s funny to cuss, but I’m not going to have that in my home.’

‘What did I say, Dad?’

‘Just watch your damn mouth!’ he snapped back. ‘There’s such a thing as shop talk and around-the-house talk. And you’re confusing the two.’

‘Sure…’ I said, still curious about the last straw and wonder whether he’d just used ‘shop talk’ or ‘around-the-house’ talk.

‘I don’t condone your swearing, but I know you’re a boy trying to show out,’ he explained. ‘Just keep it in the woods with your friends.’

And that was it. He put the car in drive and took us home. Not another word was spoken about it. Ever. — But it took at least 12 more hours for me to shake the chills from hearing his forewarning that morning.

Ifs and buts
Don Meredith once said during a Monday Night Football game ‘If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.’ Too bad very few of the viewers seemed to take his humor to heart.

‘But’ is regularly used as a boiled down way of saying ‘I have good news and bad news.’ In many cases, the word cancels out everything said before it. Think about it.

‘The transmission is fine, but…’ But all of the valves are bent and your engine needs an overhaul.
‘I like your homemade eggrolls, but…’ But I’ve had better.
‘I love you, but…’ But you really disgust me and I cannot be with you.

‘If’ is almost as irritating as ‘but’ because it often translates to wishful thinking by the speaker.

‘If you would only work a second job…’ I could have that Corvette I’ve always wanted.
‘If I could be awake by 5 a.m…’ I could walk off a few hundred calories.

And, of course…

‘If the kids go to sleep early…’ We could finish that 30-minute sitcom on the DVR that we’ve been working on for a week.

If you like what you read here, please help me spread the word. I’d also love for you to join me on Facebook (click the ‘like’ button), Pinterest and Google+. — Special thanks to Megan E. ‘Confess to Me’ Hawkins at The Underground Writer  for editing this piece.

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Since the 54th issue of Fine Cooking arrived at our door about 10 years ago, we’ve relied on only one crumb cake recipe. And this one dish that my wife makes 99 percent of the time. She’s made a few changes through the years, including doubling up on the crumb, to make this an absolutely addicting dish. (Try to eat just one piece warm from the oven. I dare you!) If you’re counting your calories, just skip over this and head to the quinoa/aloe vera juice version that I’m sure someone has whipped up somewhere. But trust me when I tell you that there is no substitute for this goodness.

New York-Style Crumb Cake

New York-Style Crumb Cake with double the crumb. This ain’t diet food!

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Crumb topping
5 ⅓ cups – All-purpose flour
2 cups – Butter, melted
1 cup – Granulated sugar
1 ½ cups – Light brown sugar, packed
3 tsp – Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp – Nutmeg
1 tsp – Kosher salt

Pour melted butter in a large bowl; add flour, sugar, brown sugar, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until blended and crumbly. Set aside.

Cake
2 cups – All-purpose flour
3/4 cup – Granulated sugar
1/2 cup – Butter, melted
1 tsp – Baking powder
1/2 tsp – Kosher salt
1 – Large egg
1 cup – Milk
1 tsp – Vanilla extract

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk egg, milk, butter and Vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix with wooden spoon until combined.

Add cake batter to a lightly-oiled (or buttered) 13×9-inch baking dish. Spread evenly with a spatula.

Optional step: Jam it up
Using 1 cup of apricot preserves, blackberry or raspberry jam, place dollops atop batter, then press lightly into batter with spatula or back of spoon.

Using your fingers, break the crumb mixture evenly over batter. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake, about 35 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Serve warm or at room temperature and don’t bother counting calories.