The face of "Modern Gold Today"

So alot of people who don't know me very well, either because they don't attend my daughter Katrina's little league softball games, or they don't eat at least twice a week at Filomena Cucina Rustica Italiana Cafe in Berlin New Jersey, have been asking me who that is cast in gold at the top of the "Modern Gold Today" Blogs page.

Everyone say hello to the late Mango Chutney Esquire the First.

She was my wife and me's first little girl. A Keeshond with a little bit of Pomeranians mixed in. An energetic pup who slept with a lot of teacup Chihuahuas. She liked them tiny. She was a dominant bitch.

Now I know "Esquire" is a male title, and Mango Chutney Esquire the First was a female, but that's not why we named her that. She's has the title 'Esquire' in her name because when we were house breaking her, my wife thought it was really homely and prosaic to just use the newspaper for her to go on, so instead we used the classiest magazine out there, Esquire magazine. And it was great, because she loved to lick the free sample cologne pages. And we got her in the early 90's, so her breath always smelled like CK One.

She was a princess.

But then on May 24th, 1999, she was involved in a tragic cotton candy eating accident. You see we had just got back from Ocean City New Jersey, and my two youngest at the time, Brittany and Franchessca, had begged me for cotton candy. Brittany got pink and Franchessca got blue. Well of course their eyes were bigger than their stomachs and when we got home, we had almost all the cotton candy we started out with, as well as two very sticky, cranky little girls. Good thing I saved the after dinner wipes from The Sizzler buffet.

So, being a Catholic and never wanting to waste, my wife ziplocked the cotton candy and put it in the fridge for after dinner. Well, there's something you gotta know about our fridge. It won't close all the way by itself. You gotta close it with some force. Faulty magnets or something. Well, that day, somebody (my daughter Annabelle), let's just say, "lacked force". (by the way, Annabelle to this day doesn't know she killed Mango Chutney Esquire the First. So if you see her, please DO NOT say anything).

So what happened next is pretty obvious as you might have guessed. Mango Chutney Esquire the First got a hold of the pink cotton candy, not the blue, and ate the entire bag. Then in a sugary-stuper she ran out back and drowned in our in-ground pool shaped like a champagne glass. Which by the way, I do not suggest getting. The glass end is great, but the stem of the glass part is too thin to swim through to get to the base, so basically half the pool has never been swam in. It's a waste of chlorine if you ask me.

So after my daughter Raquel found Mango Chutney Esquire the First in the pool filter, well, it was a sad sad day. The autopsy report said that inside, she was 73% cotton candy when she died. My wife and daughters cried all day and night, and the following Christmas, instead of getting another Keeshond/Pomeranian, I had gold necklaces and tennis bracelets made for the whole family with a Mango Chutney Esquire the First gold charm hanging off in her exact likeness, plus angel wings.

If you have to ask "why angel wings?", then you are an a-hole.

To this day, when we go to the shore, we do not recognize pink cotton candy. Only blue.

So we all agreed that we would honor her through my blogs by making her the face of "Modern Gold Today". The picture above is the last photo we took of her that day on the beach in Ocean City.

Rest in Peace Mango Chutney Esquire the First.
You are missed.