The 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Surprised When Men are Stupid

The 12th Commandment: Thou Shalt Gather Rocks Suitable for Throwing

It’s pretty clear to me that during the course of this commentary, possibly already, many men who read this are going to be offended and insulted. To them, I say “Fox smells his own hole.” Or something like that because it’s been my experience that when an observation is made on the human condition, the people most offended are the ones most guilty of being a prime example of the very comments that set them off in the first place.

Women pretty much already know about all of this, so for us, it’s just going to be a head nodding, knowing smile kind of bonding session that could possibly lead to the kind of one-upsmanship only found in circles of women discussing their husbands.

OK. We know for a fact that in the male of our species, the common head cold is fatal. We know that although almost ALL ailments are fatal in men, the fact that they are almost certainly dying and can’t seem to remind us of that fact too many times, will still not be enough of a motivating factor for them to shuck their fevered asses to a physician. We know, and have commented at length on the fact, that if procreation were up to men, dinosaurs would still rule the earth. Yet even so, even in the face of their well-advertised pain and rapidly declining life span, they are still capable of acts they consider manly and heroic and women rightly label dumb as shit.

Take my husband as an example why don’t you? Not quite three days ago, while attending his twice-weekly karate class, he managed to absorb a kick from a second degree black belt that was perfectly timed, perfectly placed and perfectly excruciating in that it broke three of my husband’s ribs and detached the supporting musculature, thereby creating pressure against his lungs, making it not only painful, but impossible to breathe deeply. I know it had to hurt like a mad bastard because he drove himSELF to the emergency room. (Yes, I know. That’s an entirely different blog entry, thank you.) He’s been moaning, crying and doped up ever since. Night of the living dead doped up. Squinty eyed, shuffling, speaking barely above a whisper, chewing his food like a 90 year old man, not quite passed out doped up. Yet this morning, he calls me and he says to me “OK. I know you’re going to be angry, but I’m doing it anyway. I’m taking a pill and I’m doing it anyway.” I asked him to please explain just what the hell he was talking about. It appears that he was taking advantage of our neighbor, the mighty and infinitely snoopy Medusa, being out of town and adding another section to our six foot high, solid board on board fence in her absence. By himself.

Translated, this means he was going to be running power tools, digging a three foot deep hole, mixing and dumping concrete, and building an 8 foot section of solid board fence with three broken ribs and torn muscles, jacked to the gills on pain killers.

I said “are you completely insane?” He said “maybe, but the fence’ll be done by the time you get home.”

Frankly, I’d like to start the wagering right now. I’ve got 10 bucks riding on the fence being partially done, and him face down in the dewy lawn, snoring, while the power saw skips madly across the yard. Any takers?

The Things We Do For Love

“Like walkin’ in the rain and the snow and there’s nowhere to go . . .”

Sorry. Everything’s a friggin song cue for me and I loved that stupid song way back when.

Let me preface this by saying that I know I indulge my daughter. I know her father indulges her to an even more outrageous degree, but I also know that my daughter is pretty level headed, responsible, appreciative and an all around good and funny kid, as well as great, if not expensive, company in a shoe store. I know she has too much and is it because I had too little? I doubt it. I have no reasons and I don’t think I need any so let’s just get that out there, shall we? I know.

Secondly, we have more gaming systems between my house and the land yacht than Paris Hilton has boyfriends that used to be her most recent BFF’s boyfriend. Nevertheless, the Ringlet decided when the Nintendo Wii came out that possessing one was necessary for her survival. I thought it was merely redundant, but I looked into it anyway and found that it was something new, something fairly revolutionary in gaming and it was a gaming system that would get you up off your kiester and could actually cause you to break a sweat. Now I was interested.

But I wasn’t tremendously interested in shelling out the money for yet another box upon which to play games. So I made a deal. She saves enough money for the entire system, extras and all, and I’ll then split the cost with her 50/50. She agreed quickly. I showed her what it was gonna cost her. She paled considerably, but didn’t back down. A deal was a deal. We shook on it and I promptly forgot about the whole business. I know my child, you see. There was no way in the world she was gonna save that kind of money when there were cool useless things at the school store to be had, nifty new games for her Gameboy just calling her name, and a new stuffed animal that she had a name for before it even made it through our front door. I had apparently forgotten about the money she managed to save for her first pair of heelies, but still, that was a lot less than the kind of cash it was going to take to pull this off. I relaxed. I was safe.

Months came and went and she saved her allowance, pestered for chores, baked muffins to sell to me for her dad’s lunch, helped her father, saved, saved, saved, fished around for loose change, and in general did all the things kids do when they need money and can’t get a job at 7-11 at the age of 9. They mooch, but at least it’s productive mooching. Closer and closer she came to the required amount and as she got closer, she asked me to start checking on where we could buy one and what they cost now (like it was going to get better). I checked and I found out prices and I also found out that there wasn’t a Wii to be had outside of getting hacked into tiny little financial chunks by the scam artists on line. She would have to wait.

And she saved and she scrimped and she mooched and she didn’t spend a cent of her vacation cruise money she had been given and she came to me a week ago and said “I have the money. I have more than enough so can I get the Wii now?” I gulped. I started making calls.

Not a Wii in town. Nothing. Anywhere.

But.

Toys R Us was getting a shipment in a week. They would be getting no more than 39 total Wii systems, no you couldn’t reserve one and it would be first come, first served and if you didn’t get one, it would be back to waiting for another undetermined length of the time for the next shipment, tough chit.

I mulled it over. I talked to her Mr. Ringie. I made my decision. Please keep in mind that I have never waited in line for concert tickets. I have never gotten somewhere the night before, armed with a sleeping bag and a flashlight and a cooler in order that I might get a ticket, any ticket, so that I might be in attendance at a sold out show. I’ve never even gone to the mall for the midnight madness shopping that now and then crops up around the holidays. I never punched out anybody over a cabbage patch doll. Ever. I thought it was stupid. I still do.

But I had spent the last year watching a nine year old kid slowly but surely build up a fund in her little piggy bank with an eye toward something she wanted. She was looking ahead and she was resisting impulse, keeping that eye directed firmly toward the ultimate goal and I was bound and determined that a kid that young who had tried that hard to earn money to buy something that expensive all by herself and had not once asked me to “just go on and get it for me” was not going to be disappointed if there was something I could do about it, short of holding the Wii delivery guy at gunpoint.

So when the alarm clock went off at 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning, I quietly crawled out of bed, quickly got dressed, made a thermos of coffee, grabbed the iPod, a bag chair and a book and out the door I went.

I was first in line at the Toys-R-Us and I am here to tell you that the look on my daughter’s face when she met me at the door (hours later, thank you) with her share of the cost of the Wii clutched in her hand, when she happily handed it over to me, was well worth the 4-plus hours spent in a canvas chair in front of the Toys-R-Us front doors not drinking all my coffee because I realized only after the fact that there was no bathroom available and I would have peeed down my own leg before losing my place in line.

But I can also tell you that the next time she gets a wild hair and saves up all her money for something you just can’t pick up off any old shelf, it’s going to be HER alarm clock that goes off at 5:00 a.m.

Duck Duck Goose

In my town, we have this large, man-made lake in the center of the town park which borders my neighborhood. Since time out of mind, the ducks have been a fixture at that lake (more like a big cement pond if you will), and much like other countries who worship their cows and such, it's considered a cardinal sin not to just about total your car avoiding the ducks who choose the exact moment of your approach to waddle their feathered asses across the street, usually with about a dozen little fuzzy youngins trailing along behind them. Geese are fair game, but you run down a duck at the risk of punishment by crucifixion if you so choose.

I'm pretty good about missing the ducks. Had a lot of practice. Usually get some warning of their approach too, but not this morning. The daughter and I were tooling along on our way to drop her off at school and had just rounded the far corner of the lake to head down the long stretch of street bordering the east edge of the water. She was whipping up on me in "punch buggy" as usual and I happened to glance to the left at a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk. What I didn't realize was that her dog was about to scare up a whole flock of those crap on your car creatures who, when frightened, make a bee-line for the lake and they most definitely do not look both ways before crossing. I saw one duck heading for the street and thought "I can beat him", when out of nowhere, no less than 15 of the big bastards came flapping and crapping across the street. Directly in front of my car.

Everything flew off the back seat. Our seatbelts locked up, the iPod flew off the console and anti-lock brakes took hold with that "THDTHDTHDTHDTHD" racket and we came to a screeching halt just in time for them to blow over the hood of the car and across the grill on their frantic bolt for the lake. A veritable wave of feathers was flying past my windshield. People on their morning walks had stopped to see and of course to make sure no ducks were injured because that's paramount - screw the car-make sure the ducks are OK - and one guy hollered at me "Hey lady. Hold up. You got one under your car and he's almost out!" At least four other people were bent over, supporting themselves with their hands on their knees, laughing and wiping their eyes. My daughter was busy rooting around on the floor looking for the iPod and the gum that had flown out of her yap. I was just sitting there, glaring at the GD ducks and thanking God for having the foresight not to place another person who was late for work in a car immediately behind me. Ducks. I hate ducks. I have this friend with a chipmunk problem that she’s handling with a very creative use of antifreeze. Maybe I'll ship all the damned ducks up to her pool to play with the chipmunks and then upgrade my first class ticket to hell so I can sit next to someone from PETA.