There has been much drama around here of late, though on such a rarefied, general level that it hardly seems worthy of inclusion here. Still, I haven’t done anything here in a longish time, so I should likely bore you with details, anyway.
I believe we’ve already gone over the storms of the last few weeks – after the last dramatic outage I spoke of (Iron Giant vs the Power Station, indeed, thanoseid) there was another outage, this time during the day. Lightning strike on a pole, apparently. Unconnected with that was a major freaking outage that put much of the area northeast of Houston in darkness for the entire night, and that was due to an entire dynamo going down.
That’s not what I’m here to preach about today, brothers, oh no. A little over a week ago, we returned from dinner to find a fire truck parked in front of our neighbor’s house. My wife, Lisa, being the demure, quiet type, immediately leaped out of the car and bellowed to a nearby fireman, “What happened?” Turns out there was quite a gas leak from the neighbor’s meter – the hiss was audible, nearly sixty feet away, and the fire fighter opined that since the repair crew had not yet shown up, it might be, um, wise for my family and myself to make ourselves scarce for the next hour or so. Just to be safe.
Safe is a good thing, so we gathered up our other neighbor, crazy Ronnie, and got back into the car. Where to go for an hour? Lisa went to her defaults, declaring that we should go to Garden Ridge Pottery, so she and Ronnie could ooh and aah over cheap, mass-produced folk art for an hour – especially since there was a Best Buy next door, so my son and I wouldn’t be too bored. I said that could work, since I haven’t been to Best Buy since a Fry’s Electronics – or as I refer to it, “The Man Mall” – opened much closer (and with a far better DVD selection) than Best Buy.
Well, Ronnie had never been to the Man Mall, and the kid was now chanting “Man Mall! Man Mall!” so we went there instead.
Now, much has been written, and in a far more scholarly manner, about the difference between men and women shopping. The hunter vs the gatherer mentality. Suffice to say that even confronted by the incredible bounty of the Man Mall, I was hard pressed to find enough to ooh and aah over for an hour. When I finally caught up with the women folk in the CD section after 55 minutes, and asked “Are you ready?” I was greeted with a disgruntled “We’ve been ready.”
I’m sorry. I will pay for this for the next… oh, however many years I have left… but I immediately flashed on every time I’ve sat, useless and morose, on one of those uncomfortable laundromat chairs that stores like T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s have at the front, for useless and morose husbands. The trip to Walmart for wood screws and twine that turned into a two hour search for bathing suits. The many times my wife has brandished the tenth grotesque wood and paint creation at me, brightly asking, “Isn’t this cute?”
And I replied, in my best Abe Simpson, “Welcome to my world.”
As I said, I’ll pay for that for years.
It was worth it.
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drfreex.com 
I just read this aloud to Christina. She loved it.