Dear Omaha Steaks

 Once upon a time for fathers day I decided to be an awesome daughter and get my father a big package of meat to grill for the family. It was a win-win situation- he likes to grill and I enjoy eating. It's like those Christmas gifts that you get for someone that are really just gifts for yourself.

Luckily, Omaha Steaks was running a special that was too good to pass up. I snatched it up as fast as I could, and to my delight my dad loved it. We enjoyed our Omaha Steaks package for weeks to come.

However, Omaha Steaks got “attached.” From that point on, I received call after call, and every week, my mailbox and email inbox was filled with coupons and “offers.” They just couldn't let it go. Like any fed up lover, I figured my ignoring them would tell them “Hey, I'm not interested anymore, please leave me alone.” However, they persisted. They figured “Maybe she's busy, I'll just call later.” No voicemail, just a few missed calls. Sometimes I would feign interest and pick up a call or two. I would listen to their spiel, but politely decline and tell them that I was either broke or too busy to talk any longer. I had hoped they would realize that they were not going to be getting anything out of me anytime soon and would look elsewhere, but this was not so. They just kept coming back for more. Near the end I got more frustrated and told them that it was just a one time deal and that I didn't really intend on ordering from them anymore. The operator sounded disappointed, but understood and would let me go. Even after I told them I didn't anticipate ordering from them anytime soon and that it wasn't anything personal, the calls still persisted.

After months of painful back and fourth conversations, I decided that this needed to end. I took myself off their email list, and I told the next operator to please not contact me anymore. However, every tumultuous relationship needs to end with a letter to give both people closure- which I think is what I and Omaha Steaks needed- closure. I basically wanted to tell them “hey, I had a great time, but this just isn't working.”

Dear Omaha Steaks,

We need to talk. Lately I feel like your behavior has gotten a bit out of hand.

It all started when you piqued my interest one day, and I decided to get to know you a bit, and I eventually decided to take a chance.

I intended this to just be a one time thing- one day of fun and then we would just part ways. Sadly, I do not think you see it this way.

Since our day of fun, I have received call after call. Sometimes I get missed calls, and sometimes you don't even leave a message. The calls are always the same, usually about how you've changed and how you've got something “special” for me.

Then came the mail. On a regular basis now I receive an abundance of mail, all promising me gifts- some of which sound great. However, to me, the gifts and letters are just sad attempts at getting back something that never really was.

I hope you can understand that we can't talk anymore. I hope you have a great life and you meet someone who really takes advantage of all the great things you have to offer. I just hope you understand, that that person cannot be me.

-Kelly Bigley

It was an immediate relief to send off that email, and I could only hope my pal Omaha Steaks could view it the same way. I wouldn't admit it, but I anxiously awaited their reply. I wondered if I had hurt their feelings and if I had been honest without hurting their ego. All I could do was wait. I got a short reply back that just stated that they would no longer contact me. Although they didn't say it, I knew they were hurt, but I had to do what I had to do- for the BOTH of us.

Its been about 6 months now and I have not heard from Omaha Steaks. Although its better this way, I still sometimes wonder what they are up to. In times like that, I just smile and think back to all the tasty tasty times we had together.

Bike

 I've never quite mastered the whole "wheels" thing. Roller skates didn't work out, and bikes didn't fare me too well either. My relationship with bikes has been much more tumultuous than my experience with skates.

If I could go back in time , I would convince my young self to just stay in that little plastic red car with the yellow top on it. You know, the one you had to pedal with your feet? Best thing ever, and even better, they still look the same as they always did. I loved it! I would pedal, usually barefoot, with some sort of frightened animal in my backseat just begging me to let it out while I refused to oblige. I was trying to play “house,” and quite frankly, the animals weren't doing a good job at obeying their “mom.” Those were the days......but they're gone now, only to be replaced by horrible nightmares of bigger wheeled things.

I never owned a trike. However, I rode one every chance I got in pre-school. How could a kid not love riding a trike? It felt like riding a motorcycle. There is an unsaid coolness to riding a trike that only those who have ridden one can understand. The cool breeze in your hair, everyone staring in envy, because usually the school only had about 2 trikes in the shed, which meant that when it was time for recess, everyone made a mad dash to the shed to be the first to get the trike and own it for all of recess. I ran as fast as my chubby little legs would let me. Fuck the whole “sharing is caring,” shit. If you weren't trikin' it, you weren't cool. On a trike, YOU are KING.

Training wheels were my security blanket. Often times, They were not correctly adjusted, so I would wobble down the road. They were my reassurance that I was not going to fall down. My bike also would break by me pedaling backwards. I knew that bike inside and out. I had it mastered. Until one day my parents decided it was time to throw ol' Kelly on two wheels. They took the wheels off my 4 wheeler and made me practice. Not too long after, I OWNED it. Mostly because I was much too large to be riding it, but in some ways it was because I was daring. I cut corners, braked hard and left skid marks on the road, and would ride in circles, cutting each turn so tight that I was mere inches from the ground. Well, at one point I got TOO confident and wiped out only to be left with my savage battle wounds.

Some time after this, my parents thought I was ready for a bike that was more appropriate for an abnormally large pre-teen. This frightened the shit out of me, and for my birthday coming up, I avoided the whole “bike” conversation. I awoke on my birthday to a menaching, two wheeled monster in my living room. No warning, no “close your eyes and count to ten!” I just walked out and BOOM it was there. I put on my pretend face and said how much I loved it, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't almost crap my pants. My stomach dropped and I was freaked out. To my parents' credit, it was a nice bike. The sight of it made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. It was a menacing son of a bitch. Look at it....just.....sitting there, mocking me. “ha-ha Kelly, ha. ha. I'm going to ruin your life!” It got to the point that anytime someone used the word “bike,” such as “hey, I have a great idea, lets go for a bike ride!” I would panic and come up with an excuse why such a bike ride was not possible. I would have rather rode my pain in the ass Razor scooter than my bike. I would have rather WALKED or RAN rather than biked.

To practice, I would ride in the church parking lot next door. It was a raised parking lot that led to a lower parking lot via a steep exit hill. I rode around the upper lot until I got my confidence up and then called my parents out to watch me. Well, right around the part of the lot where the exit hill was, I froze, and instead of turning, breaking, or doing ANYTHING conducive to my own safety, I flew down the side of the exit hill, down the grass, where my bike hit a rock that sent me flying through the air. I landed about half a foot from a boulder, my glasses flew off and broke, and I ended up with a bloody nose. The ambulance was called, and my Scottish neighbors brought me a towel to bleed on. The important thing was, I made the paper, and I was left with a harrowing battle tale of how I came so close to death.

Wheels and I, we just don't mix. Although I'm fairly confident that I could get on a bike without making myself bleed, I choose not to. I Just Say No. I do, however, still get nervous and panicky when I am around bikes. So if we ever become friends, please never ever ever invite me on a bike ride.