The politics thread is locked so let’s talk about anything else

I've never heard that.

 

You may be the luckiest man I know or you just don’t deal with millennials in any way, shape or form, which again may make you the luckiest man I know.

 

I realized today I am growing wiser, in ever so incremental fashion, in my advancing age.

Our family went on vacation a....few weeks ago. (You'll understand the vagueness of the timetable shortly) My wife, who as anyone who has met me in real life can attest is a saint, is obsessed, and not in the good way, with bed bugs. On every trip we take, overnight or otherwise, the first thing she does is make me team up with her to lift the bed and examine for signs of bed bugs.

HER: "I think this looks OK. How about your side?"

ME (looking at phone with one hand, barely holding up my side of the bed with the other): "It's fine."

HER: "YOU'RE NOT EVEN LOOKING!"

ME: "FINE!" (scans the bed, does not see sprawling bug guts) "IT'S FINE!"

Unfortunately, the bed bug obsession does not abate once we head home. Upon arrival, we must strip down and throw all our clothes in a garbage bag.

HER: "Take off your clothes."

ME: "Hey baby."

HER: "TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES AND PUT THEM IN THE BAG!"

She then seals the bag and orders me to take to a laundromat the next day.

As for the bags the clothes traveled in, she wants them in the car overnight so that any buggers can croak. But this time, we went away for more than a week in the middle of the winter. So she insisted her suitcase be placed outside overnight (mine was at my mother-in-law's). Fine. I did that, by opening up our little-used door in the kitchen and putting it on our even littler-used back porch.

Did I mention it was little-used? Because I forgot the suitcase was out there until today. When 8-12 inches of snow began falling.

I was on the phone when my wife walked into the kitchen. A few seconds later, she darts her head into the living room and hisses "WHAT IS THE SUITCASE STILL DOING OUT THERE?" I know it's bad writerly form to use "hisses" in place of "says," but she did. She hissed at me. (I have no excuse for using an adverb for writer though)

I raced out there and saw a suitcase with a lot of snow in it, and some water from earlier rains, and a twig or two. As I emptied it out the best I could before carting it into the tub, I went over the imminent argument in my head.

HER: How could you do that?
ME: It's not my fault!
HER: Of course it's your fault!
ME: It's your fault, you have that stupid obsession with bed bugs! Get the fuck over it, there are no bed bugs!
HER: (head explodes)

But I realized if I did that, I would be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future, and that every subsequent argument would end with her going "Remember that time you told me it was my fault you left the suitcase out in the snow for weeks?" and that it might be forever before I again experienced eight seconds of coital pleasure. So I swallowed my pride, meekly apologized and said I'd clean it out and see if I could rescue it. So that's where I am now, with a drying out suitcase in the tub and a wife who is merely annoyed with me and not furious. Progress, bitches.

 

Good lord, that's Bubbleresque.


As for me, I'm going to have to go behind my wife's back to receive the ultimate thrill . . . . . of having our house properly power washed.

She's in mortal fear that the hot water and detergents will kill her precious flowers, plants and vegetables (86 percent of which are not in range of the pressure cleaning anyway). So for five years they've been using cold water, and no detergents.

The "Honey, I think it's more important to protect a $200,000 investment instead of $20 plants" rationale doesn't make a dent. But fortunately she's working part time now. And if I can get the pressure washer out here first thing some morning and make sure he's done by 11 or so, I will, for the first time in 5 years, have a properly cleaned house, patio, porch and driveway.

 

Yeah, I figured it was a good old school SJ.com story to share.

 

My older brother shot my younger brother with a bb gun

 

Ah, good, old-fashioned brotherly violence. Had one older brother break the jaw of another.

 

I wish to subscribe to your newsletter and party with you both on the weekend after next. Got soap there?

 

The O'Grady brothers became fairly famous in my neck of the woods when the younger one—a nice, quiet kid—got fed up and shot the older one—a sadistic bully—in the balls with a shotgun.

 

This sounds like a G-rated version of The Bonnie Situation.

 

For the moment, but check in again after I clean the tub of suitcase-related debris.

 

I only have one sibling, but she pushed me down the stairs when we were like 5 and 4. The story still gets retold at the holidays.