Posts Tagged ‘wife’

"It's a good thing I was born a female, or I'd have been a drag queen."
–Dolly Parton

If you ever been in a state of such utter manic boredom that you were curious about what it might be like to spend time with my wife and me, all you have to do is run right out and rent "The Birdcage". The movie with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a homosexual nightclub owner and his lover and star attraction. We're identical.

Not exactly, of course. Robin Williams' character (Armand Goldman) was a much better dresser than I am, and he was in better shape. But aside from a minor difference in sexual preference, watching his basic style and his deadpan, sarcastic delivery is very much like spending an evening with me. Sad, isn't it? Their home decor is even close to ours, although we have more nekkid lady artwork and way more laundry laying around. And every time Albert (played by Lane) yelps, I look at Teres. She just smiles and looks puzzled. Who, me?

It's true. She shrieks, at every caprice of fate, real and imagined. Spilled soup. Yellow traffic lights. A ringing phone. Abrupt oral sex. Flash bulbs. Getting a question right while watching "Win Ben Stein's Money". And if you combine all these, it gets worse. Read the rest of this entry »

Every year as the temperatures start to dip and a frosty, holiday tang creeps into the air, my loving family gathers around the dinner table to begin our heart-warming, age-old tradition: planning for the after-Thanksgiving sales.

This is not something done lightly. My wife Teresa is an experienced, battle-hardened shopper, veteran of a thousand garage sales, merciless wielder of coupons and walking encyclopedia of comparison prices. No sales escape her eye, no markdowns evade her grasp. And this, this is her finest hour.

Every Thanksgiving, as we sit around the table and groan in a celebratory manner, Teresa and her brother Rodger spread out the ads and begin making their plans.

"Best Buy's always a rough one. Anything worth it this year?" she'll ask.

Rodger will look up from where he's marking out troop deployments on a map of the Volusia Mall. "DVD player," he'll mutter. "We're taking it, and taking it hard."

Neither one will have eaten much, despite the fine meal. Too encumbering. On the day after Thanksgiving — Black Friday — the slow and the weak get left behind and an extra slice of turkey could mean you don't get the last half-price digital camera.

Black Friday is the retailer's day of reckoning, when they reckon people will sudden wake up from their turkey-induced comas and realize there's less than a month left until Christmas. It seems to work. Last year we spent over $7 billion dollars on Black Friday. That's we-the-country, not we-my-family. My family accounted for less than half of that.

Retailers, delighted that they have their own national holiday, have jacked up the excitement by offering incredible deals for just that day, sometimes for just the first few hours of business. Of course this results in shoppers politely helping each other find the best deals in a spirit of wholesome togetherness.

Just kidding! It's a consumer bloodfest, more exciting, more graphic, and more dangerous than any video game on the market. Which isn't a bad idea… Coming soon: "Medal of Honor: Wal-Mart."

Most savvy shoppers, wary from previous years, pick up some basic maneuvers. They learn to get to the stores early, possibly hours before they open, because every store gets maybe 10 units of one insanely priced item and grappling for position starts long before the pimply-faced guy opens the front door. You come in pairs or teams so that you can spread out over the store and snag more bargains at once, often coordinating by cell phone or walkie-talkie. Sneakier shoppers might even buy the desired item a day early so they can refund and re-purchase it the morning of the sale to get the lower price without hassle.

Amateurs.

Teresa and Rodger chuckle at such feeble antics as they move through the store like figure skaters on a SEAL team. They work in effortless tandem, although both have their own individual styles.

Rodger favors distractions, such as yelling "Hey! $20 iPods in the children's clothing section! Wow!" and then avoiding the stampede by doing a shoulder-roll into the electronics department where he can shop at leisure.

Teresa, the retail Mata Hari, prefers the covert approach, cultivating moles inside the stores to hide choice items in obscure places for her to casually pick up while the ignorant crowds skirmish around the floor stacks. For tricky purchases she has a variety of colored vests so she can browse the warehouse stock without arousing suspicion. Waiting in line is for beginners.

Lately there's been an upswing in online Black Friday sales, which somehow takes all the fun out of it. How can you say you've truly acquired something if you didn't have to defeat a rampaging mob to get it?

Online shopping is not for us, not this day. Already the cars have been gassed, the phones have been charged, the water bottles have been readied, and the credit card holsters have been oiled. Brace yourselves, shoppers. My wife is coming for you.

She loves the sound of Muzak in the morning. It sounds like… victory.

Don't come by our house when sunlight is spreading its golden glory. Don't look for us in the park, at the mall, or swimming at the Y. Don't even think about calling before midnight. Our family has become nocturnal.

Up until now it's been just our teenager that takes back the night. Every year after school let out he would start sleeping later and later until finally he was getting up just in time for dinner. From May to August he became a virtual recluse, a shadowy, shirtless figure glanced out of the corner of the eye during late night bathroom runs, a suburban myth who lives on canned ravioli and navigates via sonar and reflected television light.

By the second month his skin would be nearly translucent. The jeans he'd been wearing since graduation gradually hardened into a tough, protective shell. Over time the deposits of blankets and fast food wrappers in his bedroom would become a teenager-shaped cocoon from which he could strain nutrients while he stared at his computer monitor. He no longer needed to blink. Legends said he could only be killed by the rays of the sun.

During the rare times when our paths crossed he told us he prefered the night. It was quieter. Cooler. He didn't have to fight for access to the bathroom or TV or refrigerator. He could read or play video games for hours without interruption. His only problem was the abrupt shock of flipping his circadian rhythms back the day before the new semester, and that's how it's been for several years now.

Except this year he's not alone. Our younger son has begun to emulate him and his dawn-to-dusk lifestyle. At first he was doing it just to bug his brother but then he discovered that Cartoon Network's Adult Swim cartoons were the animated equivalent of independent film, only with more jokes about flatulence. Soon he too was snoring the day away.

As concerned parents we were, frankly, concerned, at least at first. But the truth is that things got a lot simpler once the kids joined the ranks of the undead. The house stayed quiet during the day. Our laundry dwindled to one load a week, including towels. My wife and I actually got to look at each other during meals. Once, we even had a conversation!

For once, summer vacation was a break for us as well. It was like sending the kids away to camp, only without paying for anything. Housekeeping was now a matter of flinging some slipcovers over their unconscious bodies and adding some throw pillows for style. A taste of early retirement.

Then, almost against her will, my wife started sleeping later and later. As a stay-at-home mom her schedule is largely defined by which kid she has to drive to what activity at what time anyway, and when they became denizens of the night she found herself helplessly following along. This behavior received a material boost from the Florida summer which insists on rollercoaster atmospheric pressures and daily thunderstorms that just scream naptime.

As the only one in the household with regular hours I became the family's ambassador to the waking world, running the daylight errands and dealing with the living. I wandered amongst their sleeping bodies, feeling like the maid in a funeral home, wondering if I should be turning them or something.

Instead, I started joining them on weekends.

It's wonderful. Our living room looks better out of direct sunlight anyway and there are never any phone calls to deal with. The VCR timer can handle any TV scheduling problems and DVDs, like cereal and pizza, can be enjoyed any time. I can walk to the car and back without breaking into a sweat. Walks around the neighborhood are bathed in silvery moonlight. And I can see my family again.

So far the only problem this has caused has been for the teenager, who's had to start getting up at 6 in the morning to get some time alone. Poor kid. He doesn't know what he's missing.

When I picked her up at the mall, she was all smiles and plastic bags. She flopped into the passenger side, gave me a quick kiss, then tore through her new stuff like a kitten through wrapping paper to produce… a game.

I was back on the road by this point, so I couldn't really look at it. All I saw was the cover: "Who Would You Do?"

"Wanna find out?" she asked with a wicked grin.

The box contained two booklets – one for girls, one for guys. There were also instructions on how to play the game, which involved a spinner wheel and everyone taking turns with questions and everyone else guessing if the player was lying or not and a bunch of other stuff we had no interest in. Instead we did what we always do with games like this, which was to just go through all the questions.

She started. "Okay, let's see. Catherine Zeta-Jones or Jennifer Lopez?"

"Easy. Catherine Zeta-Jones."

"Michelle Pfeiffer or Kim Basinger? Ewww."

"Um, Michelle Pfieffer. Better Batman character."

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