Haunting Miguel Cabrera

Something happened to me today.

First I woke up and went into my kitchen. My kitchen, usually it is a happy place for me. Yes, haha, you are thinking, “Miggy likes to eat! Sometimes his jeans make him look so pudgy! Of course he loves the kitchen.”

Well, yes, I love to eat, but my kitchen has only good things for me to eat now. To play third base for the Detroit Tigers I need to be fit and so I eat good things. Lean meats, raw vegetables or steamed ones, mango smoothies, many fruit smoothies — sometimes one cookie at night if I hit a homerun. A cookie per homerun, Miguel, I tell myself. Uncle Burgos says that is why I hit so many homeruns this year.

It was very sad to me when I decided to not eat arepas, which are delicious fried pouches of fatty meats and cheese. My jeans do not like them, but I like them, but I like playing for the Tigers, third base, very much, and so I chose to stop arepas. At first I thought, Maybe I will just cook them to smell them; surely, that will satisfy me and then I can eat plants. I told myself I would cook the arepas, smell them, then feed them to Fuffenduke (he is my dog).

This did not work. The first time I did this I snatched one arepa out of Fuffenduke’s bowl and ate it selfishly. I sat on the floor with my legs out, hunched over the arepa like this. Also, Fuffenduke had such bad farts after he ate a few. So I had to get rid of all arepas stuff from my kitchen.

I used to cook and eat the arepas in dim light with the blinds closed in my kitchen. Now I make use of the many strategically placed windows in my kitchen and make a good smoothie in broad daylight. I take a vitamin. A little wheat grass. The sun shines in on the blender and it makes me happy. You notice I am always smiling, mostly. That is because of the rich nutrients with less fat that I eat now instead of arepas.

But this morning, the kitchen was dim and there on the table were a plate of arepas. They were warm. I looked at Fuffenduke and said, Did you do this? Haha. He has no hands, even though he is very smart. But then I was afraid. Where did these come from? Was my mother here? Was it Uncle Burgos? I should have never given him keys, I thought to myself.

I made a complete search of my house with Fuffenduke following me, but there was nobody, nothing. None of the windows or doors were broken. There was no mud on the floor from Uncle Burgos — he always leaves mud on the floor even if there is no mud around.

But then I noticed my laptop computer. It is a state-of-the-art one but I do not use it often, only for certain things. It was open and glowing a sinister glow. It was hot like fire when I tried to touch it. I felt like it was watching me. I saw what was on the screen.

Then the screen, it started laughing very scary and it changed to this:

Then the smell of arepas was so strong, and I became very hungry.