Category Archives: Wives

Further Adventures of a House-Husband: Cooking and Laundry Edition

All About Me, Home Life, Pets, Wives

I’ve gotta say; this house-husband thing isn’t working out the way I had thought it would. I came into this expecting hours and hours of Oprah Winfrey and bonbons. Since I’m not really much of an Oprah fan, I thought I could substitute John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movies (I figured that whole Oprah thing was probably more of a guideline than a rule).

Well, I’m two weeks into this, and not only have I not had time to watch a single moment of Duke-based entertainment, I still don’t even know what a freaking bonbon is, or where to get ’em. Obviously, I’m doing something terribly wrong. I mean besides the things that I know I’m doing wrong.

Take today for example. It started out pretty good. I drove my truck into town and filled up all the gas cans for the lawn mower. Came home and filled up the mower. I even checked the oil and hydraulic fluid. I was feeling pretty darn manly, I don’t mind telling you (Did I mention that our mower is a Dixie Chopper? Advertised as the World’s Fastest Mower. How manly is that?). You could almost hear the testosterone coursing through my veins, like a bullet-train through a tunnel in Manly Mountain. For two or three glorious hours, I mowed the crap outa this place (in many places, literally. We have a lot of dogs). But like all good things, it came to an end, and I had to return to the house to fulfill my domestic responsibilities.

Now, at the risk of being called a girly-man, I’ll admit I don’t really mind doing some of the household chores. When you think about it, even the word household is really kind of manly. Household. To hold the house. It conjures up visions of defending your castle, even if your castle is a split-level 3 bedroom with 2 1/2 baths and an attached garage, and you’re only holding it against dirty dishes and dust bunnies (hey, allergies kill, ya know?). You just have to use a feudal mind-set.

Anyway, I like to crank up some Stones, or Rush, or Lucero, and rock out while I do the dishes or whatever. But today was laundry. I freaking hate laundry. But, my wife, the hard-working and diligent Jess, is out there bringing home the bacon, so fair’s fair, right? WRONG! I was taught to work by my Dad, who taught me that if you do things right, then you make things easier later, a philosophy that I have been unable to impress on the partially hyper-efficient light-of-my-life, Jess.

One of the things that I previously admired and valued in her was her ability to get naked faster than any other human being in history. Even in winter, when she, as a firm believer in dressing in layers who hates to be cold, can divest herself of approximately 12 layers of clothes in about 3 seconds. Time to go to bed? FFFTHOOP! She’s naked, in less time than it takes to type the sound effect. As I said before, I always thought of it as one of her most endearing qualities. Until I had to start doing the laundry. Now I’m faced with trying to separate all these layers into individual pieces of clothing so I can get ’em in with the correct load (and before you accuse me of being overly fussy and not nearly manly enough about the laundry, let me just say that, inconvenient as it is, I feel like I need to do my best for her. After all, she’s always done her best for me.). The point is, her method of undressing significantly increases the time and effort required to do the laundry correctly.

Of course, once the laundry is done, it’s time to fold the laundry. Now, when I was single, I never bothered folding laundry. I figured, screw it, it’s clean, that’s the important thing. Worrying about wrinkles just seemed silly and vain when there are so many really important issues in the world. However, once we were married, the lovely and sometimes terrifyingly persuasive Jess pointed out to me the error of my thinking. Honestly, I was okay with it (as I said before, it’s always best to defer to her anyway), but that was when she was doing the laundry. Now, I’m doing the folding, and I gotta say, I’m not crazy about it. Once again, her method of undressing comes into play. Not only does she get undressed incredibly quickly, she also manages to turn nearly every piece of clothing inside out, although, as an added challenge to me, she does like to leave a shirt or two right side out, and the occasional pair of pants 1/2 inside out. This usually causes multiple efforts on my part, because I just naturally turn all of her stuff inside out as it comes out of the dryer, in order to get it right side out. It is far more confusing and stressful than folding laundry should be.

Then, there’s the sheer quantity of laundry, almost all of it hers. I, myself, take the philosophy that if I didn’t do something today to get my clothes dirty, then there’s really no need to change them. Her viewpoint is different. It’s amazing the amount of clothes, even underwear, she goes through in a week. I mean, it’s like she changes them every day or something! She is an amazing woman.

Anyway, I finally get the laundry done. She gets home, and decides to go take a nap while I fix supper. Meatloaf, one of our favorite meals:

2 pounds of hamburger

2 big onions

2 eggs

1.5 tubes of Ritz crackers

Italian seasoning (how ever much seems appropriate)

1 fistfull of ketchup.

Mix it up, mold it into a loaf, stick it in the over for 1.5 hours at 350 or 400 degrees, or just remove before it starts smoking.

Since the dogs went with her to take a nap, I know there’s very little chance of her actually getting to sleep. It’s much more likely that they’ll use her as a trampoline until she takes them outside to play ball, so I figure I’ll do something, give her a little extra thrill. She has said that nothing turns her on like the sight of a man doing housework. I figure, if that turns her on, then just think how excited she’ll be if she comes out of the bedroom to find me cooking dinner . . . wait for it . . . naked! I mean, she works hard, she deserves an extra treat now and then. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t mind coming home and finding her cooking naked. Or vacuuming naked, or watching t.v. naked, or really just doing anything or even nothing at all, as long as she’s naked. Granted, it never happened, but she reads these blogs too, so . . . (hint, hint, please!, hint).

Okay now, before you get all freaked out, I’m not completely insensitive to the need for culinary sanitation, I mean after all, when you find a hair in your food, it’s nice to know that it (probably) came from the cook’s head (another reason to always be nice to restaurant staff), even if you were the cook. So, I nipped into the other room, and slipped into my culinary-themed banana hammock; the one with “kiss the cook” printed on it. And yes, it is in fine print. So what?(I tried the naked-with-an-apron thing once, but I just looked ridiculous).

Anyway, it all turned out to be pointless, since once the dogs figured out I was fixing food, they all came to investigate, and it was kind of disturbing trying to fix supper with a giant black lab licking my leg, and then I got cold because of the air conditioning, and besides, with the dogs harassing me, the hard-working and exhausted Jess actually went to sleep, so I just put my clothes back on. All in all, it was disappointing and disturbing on multiple levels.

The meatloaf was awesome though.

Being a conscientious and thoughtful house-husband is no easy thing.

The Dude, playing ball. Another reason cooking naked is not a great plan for me.
The Dude, playing ball. Another reason cooking naked is not a great plan for me.

P.S. Good luck getting that visual of me cooking in a thong out of your head. You know you pictured it. You’re welcome!

Adventures of a House-Husband: Home Cooking Edition

All About Me, Home Life, Wives
The lovely and talented Jess. The strongest woman I know.
The lovely and talented Jess. The strongest woman I know.

So I was going through the Facebook the other day, and saw a post that Jim Wright, the author of the Stonekettle Station blog and very funny guy shared. Apparently some men’s rights activists are calling for a boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road. I won’t go into all the reasons why; I’ll just say that they’re pretty ridiculous. We went to see it (I’m so lucky that my wife, the lovely and discerning Jess, would rather see an action movie than a chick-flick any day), and all I can say is that yes, there are some outstanding, strong female characters, and the movie is what all action movies should want to be when they grow up. Remember how good The Road Warrior was? Mad Max: Fury Road is better. Way better.

Anyway, reading that post and seeing that movie got me to thinking about what it means to be a man in today’s society. Last week, my wife, the lovely and hard-working Jess, started a new job, and, since my plans for employment fell through, I have (inadvertently) become a house-husband. It’s not working out like I thought it would. I mean sure, I’m home all day, so I can get the chainsaw out and go cut up trees, or get my tools out and build something, or try to fix something (emphasis on the try), but it turns out there’s a whole lot of other stuff that I hadn’t really considered. Like cooking.

It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I’m not really much of a cook. I can brown hamburger, and I make a mean peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, and I’m great at picking up carry-out, but Jess is working hard all day and deserves the best I can offer. I mean, she’s got to get up at 5:00 a.m. IN THE MORNING. That’s just ridiculous. What’s even worse, is that now I’ve got to get up when the dogs start whining to be let out, usually around 9-10:00 a.m. Still in the morning.

I’m a night person. I tend to stay up late reading (something intellectual and sophisticated, of course), sometimes until well after midnight. If I have my druthers, I like to get up around the crack of noon. To get up at 9:30 or so, and have to face our pack of ravening beasties is almost more than a sensitive constitution like mine can take. But I digress.

So, once I decided that Jess deserved the best I could offer, as far as comestibles are concerned, there was really only one choice. My specialty. Possibly the greatest manly meal it is possible for a manly man to cook. Oh sure, you’ve got your barbecue experts fussing around with ingredients and formulas and whatever it’s called when you soak your meat in something overnight (okay, that just sounds wrong. Fun, but wrong), but really that’s all just fussy chemistry and slavish devotion to recipes and stuff which, when you get right down to it, how manly can it really be? All they’ve done is trade a lab coat for a “Kiss the Cook” apron, and a chemistry set for a grill and mixing bowl. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not real manly if you think about it. A manly man doesn’t baste his meat. A manly man stabs his steak with a stick, holds it in a fire until it’s charred to his liking, and eats it with his hands. That’s how a manly man does barbecue (mind you, we don’t do much barbecuing at our house for some reason).

Manly cooking is like all the other manly pursuits. It’s rough. It’s tough. It’s dangerous and experimental and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. It is the culinary expression of all the manly attributes of endurance, improvisation, daring, and courage. There’s only one meal I know of that combines all of those things: Slopbucket. A manly mess of gooey, spicy, cheesy deliciocity that, like Frankenstein’s Monster, shows an unnerving tendency to turn on its creator. It’s a meal that my family has enjoyed since before I was born, and was named by my brother Wayne. Of course, my mother’s recipe was not nearly as daring (or deadly) as my own version.

And so, after braving the horrors of grocery shopping, I had assembled all the necessary ingredients:

1 pound of hamburger

2 big onions

2 big green peppers

1 pound of macaroni

1 big jar of spaghetti sauce

1 pound of velveeta (the manliest cheese. Seriously. It’s the only one that I know of that’s entirely man-made, with no natural ingredients. Now that’s manly)

1 package of chili seasoning

1 jar of jalapenos

1 large jar of Tums (for dessert)

Step 1: Chop up the onions and peppers. Dump in a big skillet with the hamburger. Brown it all up.

Step 2: While browning the hamburger, go to the cabinet where your wife keeps all the spices and stuff. You know what I mean; all those little bottles of colored flakes and powders with weird names. Open them up. Smell them. If it smells good, dump some in. DO NOT MEASURE!!!!! Measuring is for cowards. Men aren’t afraid to make mistakes, and they’re willing to live with them. Be brave. Be bold. Dump it in. I personally always go with Crushed Red Pepper, Oregano, Basil, Garlic Powder (I prefer Garlic Salt, but unfortunately, that’s no longer an option. My wife, the lovely and caring Jess, seems to want me to live forever), and whatever else smells good. At this point, you can either mix the jalapenos in, or save them to add later.

Step 3. Stir it all up, and continue until it’s browned.

Step 4: Start heating water to a boil (In a separate pan of course).

Step 5: Once the burger is browned, drain the grease, then dump in the Chili seasoning and a little bit of water. Stir it all up, and heat it back up until all the water has boiled away.

Step 6: Boil the macaroni (in the other pan of course)

Step 7: Once all the water has boiled away, add the Spaghetti sauce. Stir continuously (more or less) and heat.

Step 8: Once the macaroni is ready, drain the water. Dump both macaroni and meat mixture (I’m not really sure to call it at this point) into a big pan and mix over heat.

Step 9: Slice up Velveeta.

Step 10: In a big dish (like a casserole dish or something), dump in a layer of meat and macaroni. Then add a layer of Velveeta. Then another layer of meat & mac., then Velveeta. Continue until it’s all in. Top off with one last layer of Velveeta. Stick it in the oven. Turn oven on to, I don’t know, 350, 450, whatever it takes. It really just depends on how big a hurry you’re in. Check it periodically. I recommend putting it in, playing a game of Solitaire, checking it, playing some more Solitaire, checking it, until it’s done. I usually figure it’s done once the top layer of Velveeta starts turning black.

Step 11: Dish it up, add jalapenos if you haven’t already, cover with Parmesan cheese, and brace yourself for at least 1 full day of digestive adventure, although it really depends on the size of your family. A batch this size will last us at least 3 days. Enjoy.

Now that is how a real man cooks. A real man doesn’t care that all the ladies at the grocery store are laughing at him because he’s wandering the aisles like Mad Max wandering the wasteland, trying to figure out where in hell they’d put the jalapenos. A real man doesn’t even mind giving up and asking one of those same ladies for help, because a real man has better things to do than wander around the grocery store. He wants to get in, get his stuff, and get out. A real man approaches grocery shopping with the same attitude that a bank robber has. In fact, in his mind, he’s probably got the Mission: Impossible theme playing in a loop while he shops, just to add the proper air of intensity.

Which brings me back to those idiots crying because there are strong women in Mad Max: Fury Road. Being around a strong woman doesn’t make a real man any less of a man. Strong women allow a man to be even stronger. Not even Mad Max can drive the car, and be in the back fighting bad guys at the same time. Strong men and women lift each other up, and help each other to accomplish much, much more than either could do on their own. Real men know this.

P.S. If you should decide to try out the recipe above, while you’re at the store, it would probably be a good idea to pick up some extra toilet paper, and a plunger. It’s very likely you’ll need them. Bon Appetit!

The Tao of Poo, or: Why I’m Not A Philosophy Major

All About Me, Home Life, Pets, Wives
The Dude at Christmas
The Dude, our youngest self-propelled poo machine on Christmas morning. It’s no wonder he’s hyper-regular, with all that fiber in his diet!

Ever have one of those days when the things you dread the most turn out to be the things that give you the greatest joy? I’m having one of those today. Don’t get me wrong, the day didn’t start out too bad, it just didn’t start out too good. My wife, the lovely and understanding Jess let me sleep in a few minutes, braving the feeding of the beasts all by herself. Anyway, I got up, and while I was getting ready for school, she asked me to go to the bank and grocery after class.

Man, I hate going to the bank. I hate going to the grocery even more than I hate going to the bank, and I hate that even more when we’re on a diet, which we currently are (more or less). But, since the industrious and selfless Jess is working 12 hour days, I told her I’d do it, and said it with a smile (fake) on my face.

Then, I take the dogs out one last time. I try to keep them out extra long, because I was going to be at school most of the day and didn’t want to come home to any accidents. Since it was 16 degrees outside, it was a little difficult forcing myself to stay outside long enough to make sure they got all their business done (if I go back inside without them, they just stand at the door like, “What the hell dad?). To kill time and give myself something to do, I decided that I’d clean up the dog poo in the yard. Since we’ve got 5 dogs, this is a never-ending task. Of course, Ralph, our chief stray, refuses to poop in the yard. In fact, he pretty much refuses to enter the yard at all. He seems to think that a fenced yard is for house dogs, not real dogs like him, and so, is beneath his dignity* (of course, he’s not above coming inside and spending the day sleeping on our bed when it’s cold or raining. He’s got a kind of selective dignity). Still, the other 4 keep us busy (and we have to keep on it because one of them really loves a good poopcicle. Disgusting but true. If you ever come to our house, you want to be real careful about which dog you let lick your face).

I get the poop scoop and rake and start to work, only to find out that it’s all frozen solid to the ground. I’d need a jackhammer to work that stuff loose, so I decide the heck with it. I get all the dogs stowed in their respective spots, and head off to school. First up, Geology. Let me just say, I hate science. I hate all things sciencey. Frankly, I find science depressing and scary. My first semester of school, I had to take Environmental Science. It seemed to pretty much be a class all about, “This is how the planet works. And this is how we’re wrecking it.” Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t some kind of left-wing, ultra-liberal panic-mongering thing, it really just seemed to be pretty much common sense. I mean really, if the chicken poo from these industrial farms is so toxic with chemicals and hormones and what-have-you that the farmers can’t use it for fertilizer, then it seems like a bad idea to put it in storage facilities along the major waterways (and, if it’s not so toxic, then why don’t they use it for fertilizer? Who in their right mind would want to keep it?)

Anyway, if Environmental Science was all about how we’re killing the planet, Geology seems to be the flip side of the coin, i.e. it’s all about the many, many ways in which the planet is trying to kill us. I suppose it’s all a matter of how you look at it really. If you take the short view, then we’re definitely winning. If you take the long view however, the planet is going to win. The depressing part is that win, lose, or draw, we all end up dead. So I find science kind of a bummer. However, I like the instructor. I’d guess he’s in his mid 70’s, and very funny. His mannerisms and way of talking kind of remind me of David Letterman, so he’s pretty entertaining. I guess it could be worse.

In the afternoon, I have Victorian Literature (and I can just hear you all groaning with jealousy). I like the subject well enough, but today I seemed to get myself branded the classes’ token sexist, just because I suggested that a book (Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell) might have been written the way it was, because it was written by a woman. You see, I think the professor is scared to death of what I’m going to say, so every time I start to say anything, she tends to cut me off. So she cut me off before I could present my very cogent, insightful, and not-derogatory-in-any-way explanation for my thoughts. Thus, all I got to say was, “It was written that way because it was written by a woman.” Naturally, the class being Victorian Literature, it is about 75% female (’cause the chicks dig that stuff. hahaha). You can imagine how my truncated remark went over. I was lucky to escape with my life.

It was after school that my day finally took an upturn. I didn’t have to wait in line at the bank, which was nice and, in my experience, unprecedented. When I got to the grocery, I walked inside, got a cart, and promptly forgot what the heck I was supposed to get. I could remember several other things that we could use, such as yoghurt for the dogs (cuts down on gas. Seriously), but not what we needed. However, as I was headed back to the dairy aisle, I walked past the cleaners and remembered what I was supposed to get. Fabric softener! Then, there was no line at the checkout, another pleasant surprise.

When I got home, things continued to improve. I managed to get inside the house without losing any of the dogs (there’s no fence at the back of the house, and our dogs are all far too stupid to be allowed to roam loose. If left free outdoors, they would have the life expectancy of a mayfly – except for Ralph of course. His disdain for the other dogs is not unwarranted). I got up the stairs without tripping over any of them, got the 3 basement dogs past Elsie (the Ripper), a 13-year-old English Springer Spaniel, who crouches at the top of the stairs like a leopard waiting to pounce on the first one through the door (she has a passionate and psychotic hatred of all things 4-legged, and affects a mere hostile indifference to all other living beings except Jess. Jess is her God.).

I got them outside, and decided to give the poo-picking-up another try. It had turned out to be a perfect day for the task. Cold enough to keep it intact and rollable, but warm enough that it wasn’t stuck to the ground like cement. The dogs were all being good, and the 2 youngest, Dude, a 7-month old Black Lab, and Mattie, a 1-year-old Beagle were running, wrestling, and wearing themselves out, which boded well for a peaceful evening.

So all-in-all, it’s been a pretty good day, and the high spots were all the things that I had spent the day, if not dreading, at least not looking forward to at all. Plus, I came up with this post which, regardless of how much or how little you enjoyed reading, I have thoroughly enjoyed writing. Writing it has also given me something to do that was so much more fun than studying for tomorrow’s Spanish test, which is really what I should be doing.

Anyway, to finish this off, let me leave you with this thought. Every day and every life has its ups and downs. It’s how you deal with the poo, even when it’s not yours (or maybe especially when it’s not yours but you still have to deal with it) that makes or breaks your day. Call it the Tao of Poo.**

Have a lovely day. Or evening. Or whatever.

 

*Actually, now that I think of it, I don’t know where he poops. He’s lived here on the compound for 8 or 9 years, and I’ve never seen him go, or seen any evidence that he does. All I can figure is either he goes way back to the woods to do his business, or he’s got a freakishly highly-evolved and efficient digestive system. Probably the former, but even that’s kind of weird, ya know?

**This is why I’m not a Philosophy major.

Humor Is Hard: Living With A Humorist Is Harder

All About Me, Home Life, Wives

Ok, here’s a quick one:

It’s not easy trying to be funny all the time. In fact, sometimes it seems like the harder I try to be funny, the less funny I become. Comedy, I think in a lot of ways, just happens. Oh sure, you can work on it, polish it up, make it even funnier with word choice or presentation, but if that original grain of comedy isn’t there to begin with, it just ain’t gonna be funny. That’s why there are so few Holocaust jokes.

Let me give you an example: The other night, we’re getting ready to call it a night. I get up and take some dishes to the kitchen, and behind me I hear my wife, the lovely and understanding Jess say she needed to go to the bathroom before we took the dogs out one last time. Now, we’ve been dieting (sort of), and eating a lot of salads, which means there’s a lot more fiber and roughage in my diet than normal, with all the drawbacks that accompany that sort of dietary change. So I’m thinking, great, she’ll be in the bathroom, so here’s a perfect opportunity to vent a little internal pressure while she’s not around. So I did. You wouldn’t think that the human digestive system could withstand that kind of pressure, you know? Just another one of God’s engineering marvels, I guess.

So, naturally, as soon as I’d released enough natural gas to propel a small car across the continental United States, the loving and apparently potassium-deprived Jess got up and immediately started shrieking about a cramp in her foot. Unfortunately, instead of sitting back down where she was, she staggered across the house and into the kitchen, where she proceeded to brace herself against the counter right next to me while she gasped in pain. Now, I’m not totally insensitive, so I asked her if there was anything I could do for her, hoping that, while I hate to see her in pain, maybe it would be enough to distract her from the air’s newly aromatic qualities. It didn’t.

She replied, “You mean besides not farting?”, and then proceeded to alternate between crying with pain, and telling me I need to see a doctor because there’s something seriously wrong with me, and complaining, “Oh God, it’s gotten in my mouth!”

I pointed out to her that it was not my fault because: 1) She wasn’t even supposed to be in the kitchen, she was supposed to be in the bathroom, far away from my fetid glory, 2) I had vented before I knew she was coming into the kitchen, and 3) The diet and all the salads were her idea. Unfortunately, my protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears. She wasn’t having any of it.

Fortunately, once her cramp faded and she was able to escape outside to the fresh air, she soon began to see the funny side of it, and was even able (eventually) to laugh about it.

Anyway, so that’s an example of a funny story that just happened. It is, I hope, made even funnier by my own inimitable style of storytelling (of course, if I can’t make a fart story funny, I should just give up). But it’s not always that easy. This is about the fourth blog post I’ve started this week. Each one started out pretty funny, but then got less and less funny until, by the time I’d gotten to the point, I was really just kind of griping, and/or preaching, and not funny at all. Let’s face it, you’re not reading this blog looking for depth of thought, insight, or analysis (unless there’s seriously wrong with you), you’re here just looking for a good laugh.

I hope this gave you one.

Winter, Under Armour, and the Last Few Shreds of My Dignity

All About Me, Home Life, Uncategorized, Wives

This winter just keeps tightening its icy claws on the tattered remains of my dignity. Friday, I got up early to go help move some folks from our church into an assisted living facility. Since it was about -100 with the wind chill, I felt it a good idea to dress warmly, so I grabbed the Under Armour ColdGear. You know what I’m talking about. The stuff all the pro footballers wear (and everybody who gets their fashion tips from the NFL. You know who you are.). It’s been a long time since I’ve put it on, and yes, I’ve gained a little weight, but still, what are essentially very stretchy, form-fitting longjohns should not be that hard to get into. I’d forgotten what a pain in the backside (and aren’t you proud of me for saying “backside” instead of what I’m thinking?) it is to get into the Under Armour, especially if you’re a middle-aged man with a tendency toward portliness. Trying to get those pants on is just tough, especially when you’re standing up and too stiff to be able to reach your feet for any length of time without overbalancing and having to stop trying to wrestle your foot through that stretchy tube so you can grab a wall to keep from toppling over like a Weeble on a stick and cracking your head on the sink (and if you think that sentence was overly complex and difficult to read, it’s nothing compared to putting on a pair of Under Armour pants for a middle-aged fat, I mean portly, man).

It was not made any easier by the fact that my wife, the merciless and easily amused Jess, was still lying in bed, giggling her butt off watching my frantic efforts to get dressed with incurring any permanent injury. Eventually I got both feet all the way through the legs of the Under Armour, and was able to start wrestling them the rest of the way up. Now I don’t know what kind of freakishly-shaped people work for Under Armor, but their products are obviously designed for people with about 6 more inches of leg, and a much higher waist than I’m equipped with. By the time I got them pulled up, there were still excess Under Armour leg bunched up around my stumpy little legs, and the waistband was all the way up around my nipples, and so tight that the drawstring was just kind of insulting (nobody with less than a 20 inch waist would need that drawstring). Next, it was time to attempt the shirt.

Like the pants, the shirt was obviously designed for someone of a completely different shape, apparently someone with a teeny-tiny little head. Trying to get my head through the neck hole reminded me of how being born must have felt. I finally got my head and arms through, and got the rest of it stretched over my torso, listening to Jess giggling the whole time. Finally, I looked in the mirror. Standing there encased head-to-toe in black, extremely form-fitting Under Armour, I realized I looked like the cousin that the Michelin Man’s family never talks about. It was not a good look for me. Jess thought it was hilarious.

I quickly finished dressing and went down to the truck. Fortunately, thanks to Monday’s exertions (if you’re unfamiliar with that story, feel free to read my previous blog post) the truck started right up. I drove up to the barn to pick up the trailer and my son-in-law. We got the trailer hooked up and had to wait for the other guys who were going to help, our preacher and one of the other guys from church. We waited, and then we had a smoke, and then we waited some more. Finally, I called Troy (the preacher) to find out what was going on. It turned out the other guy, who shall remain nameless (you know who you are, Steve Thornburg), was running late.

They finally arrived, and we set off. I’ll spare you the mundane details of the move: suffice to say that we got everything done, and only nearly died two or three times. Eventually, I made it home. I went inside to get undressed, got my pants off, and remembered something I needed from the den. In getting to the den, I had to walk right in front of Jess, who just had to make a comment about how cute I looked in my “tights”. I pointed out to her that they were not “tights” and were, in fact, very manly cold-weather gear of a type favored by professional athletes. I also pointed out to her that she wouldn’t tell Mean Joe Green (I don’t actually watch football, ok? I prefer more “cerebral” entertainment, like Downton Abbey.) that he was wearing “tights” (although, to be honest, she probably would. She’s very much a “calls-’em-as-she-sees-’em kind of girl). She just laughed and said I could call the Under Armour anything I liked, but they were still “tights”.

It was at that point that I remembered all the fuss about Joe Namath wearing panty hose back in the ’70s, and I realized what the evil geniuses at Under Armour have done. They had figured out a way to butch up panty hose, jack up the price, and sell them to guys. Winter has made me a cross-dresser! I’m not happy about this. OK, I’ll grant you, they are warm, presumably they look good on some guys (obviously I’m not one of those select few), and I do have a newfound respect for what women go through getting into panty hose to look good for us guys, but I’m still not happy about it. At least they haven’t figured out a way to get athletes to wear spiked heels (Great for cornering and sudden stops! Gives you up to 6″ extra reach for those “just a little too high” passes!), although I’ll bet they’re working on it.

I don’t think this winter’s ever going to end. Still, I guess it could be worse. I may be running low on dignity, but my comedy reservoir seems pretty full.

 

Bah, Humbug: A Christmas Rant Just For You

All About Me, Culture, Home Life, Politics & Culture, Religion, Wives

Ok, I’ll admit it: I’ve had it with Christmas this year. I just can’t get into the spirit of things. I tried. I really did. I helped the wonderfully naughty and divinely nice Jess put up the tree and the lights on the house. I went Christmas shopping for the Grandkids, and felt like we got them some pretty cool stuff that was both inexpensive and useful/practical/fun.

Then I went shopping for Jess, and things just nosedived. I found what she had asked for pretty quickly, but I also always try to get her something as a surprise. Nothing expensive, just something not mass-produced, or at least not in this century. Every store I went to to try to find her something special or cool and unusual/unexpected this year was closed. That was disappointing.

I also had to get something for our family White Elephant gift exchange. I thought I’d go to the local “bookstore”, because they’ve got a lot of different stuff, and I thought I should be able to find something suitably stupid/funny. Wrong. First of all, I don’t think it really qualifies as a bookstore anymore. There are hardly any books, and of the books there are, 75 % of them are kid’s books, or “young adult” books. “Young adult”. Who are they kidding? Although it is a much nicer term than “basically grown-up and functionally illiterate, but still thinks carrying a book around will make them look smart”.

They do usually have a pretty good selection of novelty items (cheap, stupid junk that’s good for at least a half-hearted laugh), but not this year. Not unless you’re in the market for a Dr. Who action figure, or even worse, a Game of Thrones action figure (at least Dr. Who has been around for 40 or 50 years). It left me wondering, who do they sell this crap to? Who would want it? Let’s face it, if you’re old enough to watch Game of Thrones, then your action figure days really should be behind you. Way behind you.

Then of course, my guts went sideways on me. You know the feeling. You’re standing there, minding your own business, and suddenly it feels like giant hands are twisting your guts into balloon animals at the world’s worst children’s party. Somehow, this always happens to me when I’m in a bookstore, I’m not sure why. I think it’s just the smell of the books. It gets me all excited I guess. The only thing surprising about all this is that there are still enough real books in the place to get to me. Anyway, I head for the bathroom in that tense, walking-from-the-knees-down-only, whole body clinch (don’t try to deny it, you know what I’m talking about), and when I get there, what do I find? No seat. Seriously. It was deeply, deeply disappointing to say the least.

Now, I don’t have particularly high standards when it comes to bathrooms. I’m not overly finicky, but I do have some minimal expectations. Enough toilet paper, some perfunctory attempt at cleanliness, and a seat. That’s all I ask. The door doesn’t have to latch, I can hold it shut. The seat doesn’t even have to be bolted down securely. I prefer it to be, of course, but I can deal with some swivel in the seat. But there does have to be a seat. Now I’ll admit that I’ve gone into bathrooms that didn’t even have a toilet, just a hole in the floor, with a ceramic footprint on either side of it, but that was in places like Turkey and Kuwait, and it’s a matter of culture, not basic maintenance. At least those were clean.

This was no matter of culture . . . or was it? You know what? I’ll save that rant for another day. Suffice to say that thanks to an act of will perhaps unparallelled in modern times, I managed to duck-walk my way to the parking lot, climbed into my way-too-tall pickup, carefully worked the clutch and standard transmission all the way home, climbed down from my still way-too-tall truck, got into the house, ran the gauntlet of dogs, and made it to my own fully functioning bathroom without befouling myself. That turned out to be the highlight of my day. A little bit later, I went out to get the mail, and what to my wondering eyes should appear? A membership application from AARP.

Honestly, I think Christmas started going south on me a couple of weeks ago when I joined the choir at church. I’m not much of a singer, although I can do a pretty good Neil Young or Tom Petty, but they said they needed help, so I said why not. Now I wake up every morning with those horrible songs running through my head. In case you hadn’t guessed, I really don’t care much for religious music, much less religious Christmas music. It always just seems kind of vapid and fake. All that silent night, no crying, Mary smiling sweetly, Joseph looking on in wonder, Wise Men, solemn shepherds, everything just so . . . precious.

Think about it. Mary had just arrived in Bethlehem after walking, or at best, riding a donkey who knows how far in the extremely late stages of pregnancy. Think about how miserable women today are on a car ride to the hospital to give birth. Imagine if you asked one of them to give birth in a stable, with no drugs, no doctor, just her, Joseph, and maybe a bale or two of hay. There would not be a lot of sweet smiling going on. Not to mention the practical side of a virgin birth. Sure, it sounds wonderful to us, but how would you like to try squeezing a kid out through an intact hymen? Yikes. And then 3 weird rich guys turn up bearing gifts. The gold and the frankincense would be ok, but myrrh was used in funeral preparations. How would you like it if someone brought a coffin to your baby shower?

I think about Joseph, and I think; that poor guy. It’s tough enough for anybody to be a Step-Father, let alone Step-Father when God is the Baby Daddy. Talk about pressure. If he screws this kid up, he’s not going to end up in court. Plus he’s got all the neighbors whispering and giggling (you know they did, and you know we would too), and gossiping. How’s he going to discipline this kid. When this kid says, “You’re not the boss of me,” he’s right. Look closely at your Nativity set. Joseph’s not looking on in wonder, he’s catatonic with shock.

Now, I know some of you are saying that it wasn’t like that, it was just like in Silent Night. God could make it nice, and sweet, and painless, and wonderful. He’s God, he can do anything he wants. My response to that is why would he. God never pulled his punches on any of his other chosen people. He never even held back suffering from his own son.

When we think of all the heroes of the bible, we think of suffering. John and Paul in prison, Peter being crucified, Stephen being stoned (and not in a good way), and most of all, Jesus on the cross, suffering for all of us. It seems to me that maybe by sanitizing and preciousizing Christ’s birth, we do Mary and Joseph an injustice. That maybe we minimize and marginalize their roles, the roles that God chose them for. Because they did have to be very special people. Very strong people, very Godly people, people who knew right from wrong, and good, not only from evil, but from legal. What they did was extremely important, and like anything truly important, it could not have been easy.

Of course, maybe I just picked the wrong time of the year to quit smoking. Bah Humbug, and Merry Christmas anyway.

 

 

Michigan Renaissance Festival: A little slice of Heaven?

All About Me, Culture, Home Life, Politics & Culture, Religion, Wives

Last month my wife, the lovely and no-longer-dying Jess, and I went up to the Renaissance Festival in Holly, Michigan. I’ve got to admit, I approached the whole thing with significantly less enthusiasm than curiosity. Neither Jess nor I are into that sort of thing. We only went because it was an opportunity to hang out with her sister and her boyfriend, who are into that whole thing.

My initial impression was, I’ll admit, kind of judgmental. Anachronisms abounded. There were pirates with Ray-Bans, elves with cameras, Vikings with laptops, a couple of noblemen on scooters, and of course everyone had a cell phone.

As far as I can recall, the Renaissance was mostly the Black Death, art, music, literature, religion, architecture, and philosophy, and more Black Death. It had something for everybody, especially MOOOORE BLACK DEATH! Now with EXTRA DEATH! Ok I just checked Wikipedia (it’s ok, this is just a blog. Accuracy is optional) and I’m right. Art, science, literature, philosophy, religion, architecture and MOOOORE BLACK DEATH! (admit it, you laughed). However, plague sufferers were entirely absent at the fair (there weren’t even any funny, Monty Python-type sufferers).

There were a lot of really cool and elaborate costumes,  but again, many seemed wildly inaccurate if not just out of place. I quickly realized that the term “Renaissance” was applied very loosely. There were (in addition to the expected pirates, priests, nobles, merchants and peasants) scores of elves, hobbits, wizards, video game assassins, fairies, at least one Shrek, an Ash (from “Army of Darkness”, complete with chainsaw hand) and Spiderman in the costume of a Knight Templar.

Also, I never realized that bare midriffs were so popular during the renaissance. They were certainly in abundance at the festival. All kinds of bare midriffs. Toned ones, muscular ones, less-than toned ones, paunchy ones, even a couple of pregnant ones. Everywhere you looked, there were bare midriffs. Bare midriffs and cleavage. Lots of cleavage. Possibly even miles of cleavage. There was elf cleavage, pirate cleavage, peasant cleavage, noble cleavage, tattooed cleavage, sparkly cleavage, celtic cleavage, fairy cleavage, gypsy cleavage, young cleavage, old cleavage, sparse cleavage, ample cleavage, and even, in one or two unfortunate cases, long cleavage. There was every degree of cleavage, from reasonably demure, to the more brash, if-you’ve-got-it-flaunt-it type, to the extreme one-hop-and-she’s-topless type. Just to be clear, there was a LOT of cleavage.

Oh yeah, there was some shopping as well.

Anyway, at some point, I got to thinking about the world, and Heaven. I’m not sure why (it wasn’t the cleavage and bare midriffs, or at least not entirely). I think it was just because everyone was so happy. They were all just doing their own thing, together. I didn’t see any groups of Ladies in elaborate gowns bad-mouthing the “trampy” pirate girls. The Vikings weren’t beating up the Fairies. There were no hardcore Renaissance types complaining about how the hobbits were making a travesty of their festival. There were no hardbodies making fun of the heavy-set set for showing a little skin (or even a lot). Those who had probably made their own costumes weren’t looking down on those who’d bought theirs. Those who’d obviously spent hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on their costumes weren’t making fun of those who obviously hadn’t, and the ones who either couldn’t or wouldn’t spend much didn’t seem envious or intimidated by those who had. Everybody just seemed to take it for granted that everybody belonged. They were all free to be who they were (or maybe who they wish they were, or who they are in their hearts).

There was a real live-and-let-live vibe going on that I think we could use in the real world. I’m not talking about abandoning all principles and social norms, I’m just suggesting that maybe we should stop taking them quite so seriously. Just because someone votes Democrat doesn’t mean they want to destroy freedom and enslave us all to the government. Most Republicans probably don’t want to destroy the government and enslave us all to our capitalist overlords. Most Muslims don’t want to kill all Christians any more than most Christians want to kill all Muslims. Most gays don’t want to destroy your marriage. Certainly none of them seem intent on destroying mine. There are no gay guys beating down my door to convince me to switch teams (and what’s the deal with that anyway? Not that I’m interested, but it’d be nice to be asked, ya know? Hurtful bastards.), and most of the lesbians we know are related to me, so they’re leaving Jess alone. I mean, that would just be weird.

We’ve gotten so good at making mountains out of molehills, that we’ve forgotten what mountains look like. Nazi Germany was a mountain. 9/11 was a mountain. AIDS is a mountain. Hunger, poverty, racism,and disease are mountains. Obama doing the same thing that every other president before him has done is a molehill.

It seems to me that it would be a much better world if we all stepped back, and kind of re-prioritized things. Spent more time doing something about the actual mountains and less time bitching about the lowering of standards because the kid at the drive-through has turned his earlobes into handles.

Sometimes I think that Heaven’s gonna be kind of like that Renaissance Fair. Everybody (or at least everybody who gets in) free to worship God as they are, as He created them. There will be room for the guys from the Heavy-Metal Church of Christ (seriously, there is such a thing) and the Methodists, etc. We Christians all like to joke (usually smugly) about how we’re all going to be surprised by who will actually get into heaven and who won’t make the cut. Oddly enough though, I get the feeling that when the surprise sets in, everybody there is going to be pissed.

Of course, I could be wrong and Heaven’s just gonna be one big Southern Baptist Jamboree.

Revenge: A dish best left alone

All About Me, Home Life, Wives
Jess and I at Lake Windemere before she perfected her method for manufacturing fish food.
Jess and I at Lake Windemere before she perfected her method for manufacturing fish food.

The Sicilians say that revenge is a dish best served cold. Alfred Hitchcock said that, “Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” George Herbert said, “The best revenge is living well.” There are, of course, lots of quotes about how revenge is bad, but they’re not nearly as much fun.

What nobody seems to talk about is how messy and disgusting revenge often is. I’m not talking about messy and disgusting philosophically or emotionally, although it is that too. No, what I’m talking about is just full-on physical disgustingness.

You know what I’m talking about. When Joe Pesci beats that dude up for asking for a shoeshine in “Goodfellas”, there’s blood everywhere. Actually, most Mafia movies center around revenge, and it’s always a blood-bath. It’s the same with all horror movies, and really anything dramatizing revenge. It’s always a helluva mess. I always think, “Man, I pity the poor schmuck who’s gonna have to clean up after that.”

In the movies, somebody else always has to clean up the mess. In real life it’s usually you. You know when somebody really makes a mess in the bathroom at work, that whoever’s in dutch with the boss is gonna have to clean it up (at least if your company doesn’t employ a janitor). Even when it’s just a matter of making the new guy do it, there’s an aspect of revenge (I had to do it when I was the new guy, so it’s his turn. Kind of a pay-it-forward revenge).

Let’s face it, revenge is a nasty business, even when it’s accidental.

Last week, I posted about accidentally serving my wife, the lovely and currently recuperating Jess, a glass of spoiled milk for her upset stomach. Although she was pretty put out with me at the time, eventually even she had to admit it was kind of funny, and at the very least gave her ammunition to punish me with later.

Unfortunately, that incident seems to have put us on a path of accidentally assured mutual destruction.

After a week, she was getting worse rather than better, so our doctor changed her prescription to a more powerful antibiotic. The two main side-effects of this medicine are feeling nauseous, and vomiting. So, a couple of nights later, we’re getting ready for bed. I’m sitting on the john reading (it sits in it’s own secluded little cubbyhole. We’re not savages), and she decided to use her Neti-Pot (or as I call it her snot-pot) to wash out her sinuses, a practice which I personally find disgusting and singularly abhorrent.

It did not go well. While I’m not sure of the efficacy of the snot-pot to clean out her sinuses, it did an amazing job of triggering her gag reflex. Naturally, since I was firmly ensconced on the fixture normally reserved for voiding the guts, she hurled (and hurled, and hurled, and hurled some more) in the sink.

Sadly, our bathroom sink was draining slow as it was, due to the enormous amount of Jess’ bounteous hair that gets washed down it every day. The introduction into it of everything she had eaten that day did not help matters. Equally sadly, at least as far as I’m concerned anyway, I’m the family plumber, which is how I ended up wrist-deep in used Taco Bell and Oreo Blizzard the other night.

Now I love my wife, and since I’ve been telling her for 20 years that I’d do anything for her, this could be seen as a golden (actually more of a grayish-brown) opportunity to prove it. I tried to take that approach. I really did. I tried to stay cheerful and upbeat about it. I know she felt terrible before THE INCIDENT, and felt even worse after, so I tried not to make her feel even worse about it, telling her it was ok, and cracking jokes as I fished . . . insert the worst imaginable thing you can think of here. . . out of the sink.

I’ve got to admit though, the joking diminished as I worked. It had pretty much completely disappeared by the time I’d worked my way down to the drain and it was still refusing to drain. As I fumbled around trying to unscrew the drain stopper and trying to control my own involuntary gagging, my good humor became more and more forced.

By the time I was forced to go looking for a pair of needle-nosed pliers to try to reach down the drain, it had pretty much vanished. Naturally, I couldn’t find the pliers. I decided to try plunging the sink, maybe I could force the blockage through.

Nope. Thanks to the overflow channel, all plunging the sink accomplished was turning the sink into a kind of puke fountain. Not a good thing. Next, I went out to my truck to get my leatherman, hoping it would reach far enough down the drain to get it flowing. Nope. Nothing was working.

Adding hot water to dilute “things” certainly didn’t help. It just re-warmed everything and got the odor going again.

Finally, I decided that the only thing left to do was to take the drain apart below the sink. Of course, by now, both hands were too wet and slick (on a side note, I think it was probably good for my hands. Fresh stomach acid – softens your hands while it exfoliates. VOMIT – You’re soaking in it. Even Madge might have a hard time selling that one.) to get a good grip on the pipes, so the search for tools was back on.

I’ve kept a couple pairs of Channel-lock pliers in my truck for years now. Naturally, they had magically disappeared. By this time, my mood had definitely taken a darker turn. There’s really nothing like a little late-night plumbing right before bed to put you in the mood . . . for homicide.

Eventually, I found a pair of channel-locks and got the pipes apart. I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details of what it took to get the drain unstopped. Suffice to say that it was not at all pleasant, and by the time it was all over, I had to take a shower, because simply washing my hands just was not gonna do it.

By the time it was all finished up, we both agreed that it wasn’t her fault, and that however inadvertent it may have been, her vengeance for the spoiled milk incident was more than complete, that she was, in fact, way ahead on the Mullins Gross-o-Meter.

We decided that we would just call it even, and say no more about it.

Obviously, no cease-fire lasts forever. Ours lasted until the following morning.

The morning started out normal enough. I got up took the dogs out, had a smoke, took a shower, and got dressed, just my morning routine. It all went horribly wrong though, when I headed for the kitchen. I’m not a big breakfast eater, but I do have a glass of juice with my morning pills (to be honest, by the time I get all my pills down, between medicine and various supplements and what-not that Jess has me on, there’s no room for food).

I am, and always have been, a creature of habit. I’m not a neat freak or anything, but some things have a specific place where they belong, and moving them has consequences. Jess knows this and yet she still insists on moving things. Personally, I think she does it on purpose, because she thinks it’s funny to see me standing there, staring at the cabinet, wondering where the damned paper plates are. I mean, we’ve kept them in that cabinet for years, and it’s always worked perfectly well. Why mess with it? But I digress.

So, on the morning in question, I fixed my juice, and turned to the microwave to get my pill container (we keep them on top, not inside, in case you’re wondering). I dumped the a.m. side into my hand and jauntily flung them into my mouth (I hate taking pills, but if you gotta do it, you might as well do it with panache). I was just reaching for the juice, when it occurred to me, where’d that blue one come from? I don’t take any blue pills.

I looked to the pill container, and sure enough, Jess’ pill container was sitting on the left, exactly where mine should be. Well, I don’t even like taking my own pills. I’m certainly not going to take someone else’s. So naturally, I spit them back into my hand.

Well now what do I do with them? I don’t want to throw them in the trash, those things are expensive. I’ve got to act quick, because they’re really starting to stick to my hand. Well, I’ll just put them back where I got them from. I mean really, what’s the harm, it’s not like we’re strangers to the concept of swapping spit, although we normally prefer to do it on a more personal level.

Anyway, I figured I’d call her from work and warn her. Unfortunately, I got caught up in stuff at work, and forgot all about it until I got home. Fortunately, by that time, she was feeling quite a bit better and eventually was able to see the humor in it. I was also relieved to find that I had made the right decision about not just swallowing them. Although most of the stuff we’re on is pretty much identical (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) I’m pretty sure her estrogen pill would not have done me a bit of good.

So all’s well that ends well, I guess. I just hope we can finally break the cycle of disgusting and inadvertent revenge.

Darth Vader, Swamp Things, and the Short-Winded Valkyrie of Vengeance

All About Me, Home Life, Wives
Jess and I in happier times.
Jess and I in happier times.

Well, I’ve done it again.

First, a little background: last weekend my wife, the currently respiratorially impaired and humor deficient Jess Vader (or should that be Darth Jess?) caught a cold which quickly turned into bronchitis. She is not a happy camper. Just getting off the couch wipes her out. Her breathing makes noises that you would never guess had any connection with the passage of air.

Most of the time, her breathing sounds like a rock crusher crossed with an espresso machine, but then it will change and sound like somebody slowly letting the air out of balloon. The other night, we were watching tv, and I could swear that there was a dog howling in pain behind our house. I muted the tv to listen, and the noise stopped. I started the tv up again, and the noise started up again. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, or if there was something wrong with the tv, or if there really was a dog in terrible trouble.

I paused the tv a couple more times to listen, and was on the verge of getting up to go outside to look for Ralph, the stray dog who’s lived with us for the last 7 or so years, when I realized that the noise was Jess breathing. Every time I’d stop the tv to listen, she’d hold her breath to listen too.

Well, I was glad that Ralph was ok, but I was really starting to worry about Jess.

Anyway, with her being so miserable, she was obviously not in the mood to do any cooking, so I’ve been trying to help out by picking up carryout on the way home. Now, I’ll grant you that I’m probably the last person that anybody would (or should) choose to cater their imminent demise, but I do my best.

To be honest, cockroaches would probably die of malnutrition if they had to rely on me. Even Keith Richards probably eats healthier than I do when left to my own devices, but hey, at least I try.

Well, 2 or 3 days into her affliction, Jess was struck down even further, this time by heartburn and indigestion (in retrospect, we probably should have seen this coming), rendering her even more miserable and dejected. However, not being the sort to be kept down for long by anything, and realizing that after 3 days she was approaching a level of personal hygiene that even the French would turn up their noses at (in her own words, she was feeling “kinda swampy”), she announced that she was going to take a shower.

I pulled her up off the couch and kept her upright while she adjusted to verticality, and then went into the den to play Spider Solitaire. I heard her rattling around in the kitchen, so I looked over to see what she was doing. She was pouring a glass of milk. I asked if she was ok (I’m not completely insensitive), and she said “yeah, just some indigestion,” so I went back to my game (she’s a strong, independent woman, and I’m far too considerate to take that away from her. Besides, I was winning.).

I will admit (at the price of sounding condescending) that I left the sound off so I could hear her if she fell or called for help (I’m not a monster, you know). After a successful hosing down of all her bits, apparently her stomach was still bothering her, so she called for me, and I immediately sprang into action. She asked me to fix her a glass of milk to calm her stomach, so I went to the kitchen to get it. I got a glass, and was going to the fridge for the milk, when I noticed that she’d left the milk on the counter.

Now, that seemed a little irresponsible, even to me. I just figured that she wasn’t feeling good, and probably thought she’d need some more. So I poured the rest of the milk into the glass, and carried it in to her. She drank it, and I took the glass and set it aside.

I asked if there was anything else I could do for her, and she asked if I would comb out her hair for her. Well, I’ll try anything for her. At this point, I should explain that Jess has lovely long, very thick hair. At this time, of course, it was also very wet and looked awfully tangled to me. I grabbed the comb, and told her I’d try not to hurt her too much (give me a break. Most of the time, I don’t even comb my own hair. I just run my hand through it and trap it under a hat until it gives up and lays down.)

She stopped me before I even got started, and told me to squirt some hair goo onto my hands and to rub it into her hair. Well, I did it, and I have to say, it looked even more bedraggled and tangled than before. I got about halfway through the 1st swipe with the comb, and she took it away from me.

Then, she sort of burped (you know, the kind of inverted burp you do when you’re trying to keep your insides inside), and asked me if I’d gotten the milk out of the fridge. I said, “No, you left the milk on the counter. You know that’s not a good idea, don’t you?”

Wrong answer. Then, after she’d told me that the milk on the counter had gone bad, and that there was a jug of fresh milk in the refrigerator, I compounded the error by asking her why didn’t she dump the bad milk out. She explained (unnecessarily heatedly, I felt) that she hadn’t bothered to dump it out because SHE FELT LOUSY.

Well, you know me (or at least you’re starting to), I’m not one to stop while I’m only a little bit behind, so I laughed and asked her why she didn’t at least tell me about it. Again, she curtly explained that it was because SHE DIDN”T THINK I”D BE DUMBASS ENOUGH TO NOT LOOK IN THE FRIDGE FOR MILK! 

Well, while it’s nice to know that after 20 years of marriage I can still surprise her, I was kind of hurt by her tone. I mean, that’s just, . . . well, mean, you know? Think about it. Here I was, at her beck and call (more or less), even willing to leave a winning streak at Spider Solitaire (and if you’ve ever played, you know how rare that is), existing only to serve her. When you think about it, my only real mistake was in being overly eager to service her needs quickly, and she acts like that. Women (even the best of them, which Jess certainly is) can be so ungrateful.

On the other hand, after having her hair wadded into industrial-strength tangles and pulled and then being served bad milk on an upset stomach when she can’t breathe well enough to comb her own hair, I suppose I’ll just have to be the bigger man and forgive her. She’s a lucky, lucky girl. And I, of course, am a lucky guy, especially in that, in her current condition, my bronchial Goddess of Grumpiness, my wheezy Valkyrie of Vengeance, my not-quite-so-sweet-as-usual little Swamp Thing can’t draw enough breath to even the score.

God help me the next time I get sick.

I’m still here! More stupid stories to come!

All About Me, Home Life, Kids & Grandkids, Uncategorized, Wives

Just in case you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been posting anything recently (all 34 of you), it’s not because I’ve run out of things to say, or stupid stories. I just started an internship at the Palladium-Item for the summer, so it’s keeping me pretty busy. It’s a completely different type of writing for me, and to be honest, not nearly as much fun. It is however, great experience (for me anyway, I’m not so sure about for the Pal-Item). Anyway, I’m going to try to keep posting something up here every week, so don’t give up on me. To all of you who’ve been reading my blog, thanks. It’s nice to know there are still some people out there with good taste. Actually, since I think there are only about 30 of you out there who read this regularly, I guess that kind of indicates that there are roughly a little over 7,000,000,000 people out there with good taste. Thank God for the rest of you!

For those of you who want to be notified when I post something, down at the bottom of the page, where you can post comments, just under the comments block are a couple of boxes that you can check that will send you an e-mail when I post something.

By the way, thanks to those of you who have commented on some of my posts. It’s nice to get some feedback from readers. I’m a little surprised that I haven’t apparently angered anyone yet. Guess I’ll have to try harder. At any rate, I’ve enjoyed reading your comments.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to attract more readers to my blog. I noticed that the one post I published with Rich Mullins’ name in the title got like 1,000 views. I think the next most popular post has had maybe 100. Oddly enough, that post was about me running around without pants to keep the relatives away. I think we can all tell which post resonates most strongly with my regular readers (you sick, sick people). So anyway, for a while there I thought, “I’ll just put the name Rich Mullins in the title of every post!” Then I realized that was at least a little bit cynical, even for me. If any of you have any suggestions for me on how to lure more suckers readers into my world of stupidity, please let me know.

Anyway, I’d better close for now. It’s a little hard to concentrate on entertaining you all with my wife, the sensible and right 99.9% of the time Jess, arguing with my grand-daughter about whether she farted or not (the grand-daughter, not Jess. Jess knows when she farts, there’s really no denying it.).

Also, I have to start work on my next public apology to the not-nearly-as-forgiving-as-she-used-to-be but still wonderful Jess.