LOVATO AT LARGE: $2 million and a stubborn can of chili

A few notes from my first few weeks in Polson:

• An investment counselor just said my wife and I made almost $2 million since we started having kids. So why do I have a Walmart wardrobe, a 1995 Isuzu Rodeo and a used dog named Bruno?

• I always see joggers, hikers, bikers running around town. They will tell you they are just trying to stay in shape. But I know, as I drive past them with a chicken wing dangling from my lips, that they are just trying to make me feel lazy. Smug maladjusted, healthy dweebs. Of course, my wife says I’m so lazy I don’t even open my eyelids all the way.

• Feedback: We still don’t have any consensus on Polsonians, Polsonites or Polanese. And now the folks in Ronan chimed in with the choices of Ronanians, Ronanese, or Ronanites. Does that also leave us with Missionaries, Charlotans, Arleens and Pabloans?

• I wondered why we don’t have a Loch Ness Monster even though Flathead Lake is half as deep as the great Loch Ness. It would be a great marketing ploy. A smug 13-year-old told me that a monster here would not be called a Loch Ness Monster but a Flathead Lake Monster. Where were his parents?

• For as long as we’ve been married, which predates cell phones and the Internet, my wife and I argue over can openers. I am an analog guy who likes to take out the thing that looks like a Medieval torture device, lop off the top of a can of chili and put the darn thing back in the drawer so I can have an open counter top to spill the chili on. My wife likes the electric buzz machines that punch a hole in the top and then leave the can tantalizingly and partially open until you get the torture device to finish the job.

So I drive 1,600 miles to Polson alone, (Michelle is helping with family matters elsewhere.) move into a dingy apartment, and triumphantly buy my first can of marked-down chili (99 cents from $1.29!), jubilant as a frat boy. I see the darn electric buzz machine hanging from the apartment’s cabinet.

It’s older than my daughter’s bad attitude.

I suddenly realize that this chili is in a prison-can and I didn’t bring a torture device to release its delicious contents. So I tried the darn electric buzz machine and it promptly poked a hole in the lid and spun the can around like a miniature DVD player on meth but left the lid mostly sealed with the precious contents bubbling out a puncture hole. I tried my pocketknife, a hammer, screwdriver, the used dog’s teeth, a bowling ball.

I had worked up an appetite

Frustrated and perhaps not thinking clearly, I slammed the can in my car door, breaking the door. I set it out on the highway, causing a semi to flip out of control. Took it to the gun range where bullets bounced off it. Threw it at a smug jogger but she was in good shape and I missed her completely, instead striking a late model Subaru; then lumbering away to avoid litigation.

Then I resorted to pure desperation. I broke down, went to the store and bought a $5 torture-device can opener. The can magically twirled around beneath the torture device and in seconds I was eating the prized chili. I was so euphoric I didn’t even bother to pour the chili in a bowl, instead opting to eat it cold right out of the lidless can.

Victory over a can tastes even better with chili stuck in your beard.