The other morning, I decided to cook myself some eggs for breakfast. This decision came before caffiene. I staggered into the kitchen in my boxer shorts, looking for some cooking fat. The three most commonly used in this house are olive oil, unpasturized butter, and coconut oil, which is what I found sitting by the stove.

Of late, I've been reading Heat, Bill Buford's nonfiction account of what happens to an upper-middle-class writer when he decides to become one of Mario Batali's line cooks. Among the one million things I've learned about Molto Mario is that he likes his pans hot, almost smoking. So I put the coconut oil in my little All-Clad, and waited for the heat to rise.

After a couple of minutes, I cracked an egg, and showily dropped it into the pan. Apparently, even raw, viscous eggs make a splash when dropped from a certain height. Oil splattered out, peppering across my stomach in a thin band, just to the north of my belly button.

"Fuck!" I said.

I slid the second egg in more carefully while simultaneously applying a bag of frozen green beans to my stomach. I could feel the burns begin to blister already. But they didn't appear to be too serious.

When Regina returned home from dropping Elijah off at school, I showed her the results of my cookery.

"Why would you cook with your shirt off?" she said.

"You know I don't like getting dressed before noon. And at least I wasn't smoking a cigarette while I did it. That would have been even more stereotypical."

"Neal, you are such a goddamn idiot."

A few hours later, this goddamn idiot picked the kid up after school. On Thursdays, many parents take their kids to a park in Los Feliz. We joined them.

One of the mothers, drawn to Koreatown by blood, had some interesting snacks. Elijah quickly learned that he liked seaweed, though he was a bit confused about the fact that he was eating seaweed.

"Where did the seaweed come from?" he asked.

"From a farm."

"It doesn't come from the farm. Seaweed is in the ocean."

"It's an ocean farm," I said.

I had no idea what I was talking about. Then the mother asked:

"Anyone want some shrimp chips?"

Elijah heard two of his favorite foods combined. I haven't seen him that excited about food since the time I fed him a frozen "broccoli popsicle."

He ate a shrimp chip.

"Mmm," he said. "Shrimpy."

"Does he watch Pee Wee?" asked the mom.

We've been TIVOing Pee Wee's Playhouse every night off Adult Swim.

"Oh, yes."

Elijah, now encouraged, ate another shrimp chip.

"Mmm," he said. "Octopussy."

A vision of a slinky Maud Adams briefly crossed my brain. I felt proud of my son for accidentally making a clever pop-culture reference. So I decided to reward him.

"Hey, Elijah," I said. "Wanna see my burns?"

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