BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Yep, I know… Y’all weren’t expecting another blog entry until Wednesday morning when the next installment of Mahwage deploys from the queue.  However, I did warn you back when I extolled the virtues of the “post this in the future” function of WordPress, that I might occasionally drop a little something on you completely unannounced if the mood or circumstances struck.

Well, this is one of those times… I will admit, however,  that I considered just adding this missive to the queue for future posting as well, but since it somewhat involves that annual February event known as the “Salad Bowl”… Wait… “Cereal Bowl”… No… That ain’t it either… Well, all I know is that it has bowl in the title and people have parties while looking at Football on TV, so there…

Now, those of you who know me fairly well are certainly aware that “Football” isn’t my thing. Neither is Baseball, Basketball, or Soccer. Hockey, well that’s a different story, but since the “Rice Bowl” or whatever they call it has something or another to do with Football and not Hockey… Well, I guess we need to talk about Football.

Obviously, my personal perception of this activity isn’t quite the same as that of the overwhelming majority of the masses. In fact, when I set out to describe my view of this particular sport I have found it to be a waste of time to bother reinventing the wheel. What I mean by that is this: Andy Griffith explained it best in his old monologue, “What it was, was football…“

Yeah… The sheriff of Mayberry. Harry Broderick from Salvage One… Matlock… Uh-huh, that guy. For those of you who may be way too young to remember, before Mister Griffith became Barney Fife’s keeper, or appeared in movies, he was quite an accomplished stand up comedian of sorts. Yeah… No kidding. He didn’t have any cool puppets, nor did he insult the crowd for effect. He was a bardic sort of comedian. He simply told funny stories, and one of them happened to be all about an experience with seeing a “football” game, ostensibly for the first time. It became one of his most popular and beloved monologues, and is a classic.

Now, I’m certainly not about to plagiarize Mister Griffith’s routine, (I do, however, highly recommend it if you have a chance to hear it – much of his material is available on CD by the way), suffice it to say, my perception of football is much the same as his: A bunch of guys running around in a cow pasture fighting over a petrified pumpkin for no apparent reason.

But, of course, I didn’t come here to talk to you about “Football,” but you already knew that… I came here to talk to you about the “Soup Bowl” party… (You know, that actually sounds kinda close to what I remember hearing it called… Hmm…)

You see, every year some friends of ours host one of these massive shindigs. A bunch of folks show up, each toting a dish of food and a cooler. So, as always is the case with our gatherings, there is food for days and much malted beverage to be imbibed. I suppose, in most respects, that is what brings everyone together… But then, there is that whole pumpkin in the cow pasture thing on TV…

Of course, not everyone attending the party is that much of a “Football” fan… Granted, we do get caught up in the excitement near the end and we will all be plastered to the TV hooting and hollering, but that usually happens sometime around the last 5 minutes or so. Maybe even the entire last quarter if things are close and much violence is ensuing, if you know what I mean. But, I think that’s all just a matter of contagious excitement or something.

Still, for the most part, there are the “Football” fans and there are the Commercial fans. Generally the commercial fans consist of the wives. That isn’t intended as a sexist remark by any stretch of the imagination, it just happens to be how things are with our particular group. Still, some of the wives are Football fans too. Well, to some extent. In fact, I can actually remember coming down the stairs one Sunday to find E K lounged out on the sofa with a beer in her hand, watching a football game and explaining it to our daughter who was all of about 3 at the time. But, even taking that little event into account, E K isn’t what you’d call a rabid fan by any means…

Yes, just in case you are wondering, there really is a point to all this rambling…

So here’s the thing. Generally, what happens is that the wives will gather in one room and play cards or some manner of dice games or some such. I tend to mosey back and forth between the camps being a bit of a social butterfly, so to speak. But, that’s not really my point either…

Back to the “thing”…

Last night, the game being played by the ladies was some kind of semi – yahtzeeish – bone – throwing – what have you that involved rolling dice and passing tokens left, right, center, or even not passing them at all depending on your roll, until the last person with a token rolled a “dot” or some such, and won all the tokens in the center. Whereupon the game started all over again. Fairly simple, and it even looked like a bit of fun when things got rolling, (pun not intended, but I’ll definitely take it…)

Now, the folks hosting the party have a 21 year old son who was there along with a friend of his. Both of them are good kids.  I just thought I’d throw that out there… Well, actually, it does also play an integral part to my monologue here…

You see, the friend, we’ll call him what’s is name to protect the innocent, while interested in the “Football” game, was also familiar with, and interested in, playing the game with the dice. So, since the first half of the football game was kind of boring, he joined the ladies in the dining room.

In case you haven’t done the math just yet, that made him the sole male at a table full of mature, but nonetheless incredibly gorgeous women. And, you know, that whole mature thing has its perks as well, but we won’t go there…

Well, actually we will, but not just yet…

Anyway, damn smart kid, IMHO…

At any rate, long about halftime we husband types were standing around in the kitchen gnawing on some hot wings and popping open fresh beers. One of the husbands poked his head through the doorway to see what was up with the dice game, then started laughing and jokingly announced so that everyone could hear, “Hey, what’s is name is in there being a girl with all the rest of the women.”

It was a good-natured jibe and definitely drew a round of chuckles.  Still,  you know me… I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to explore the half-full, half-empty principle where it applied to this situation.

When the chuckling died down I replied, “Yeah, but look at it this way. He’s the only guy in a room full of good looking women. Seems like a smart move to me.”

One of the other husbands snorted and said, “Yeah, but they’re all old and married.”

I had pretty much expected a response in that vein, after all, I’ve known these guys for a long time. I’m not saying they are completely predictable, but I do know how they think, so I definitely wasn’t surprised by what he said. Of course, as we all know, when you expect something it is much easier to be prepared… And, I was.

I nodded in response to his rebuttal and said, “Well,  I guess it’s all in how you look at it, you know… I mean, if they’re old then so are we, right?”

“Well, yeah,” came a chorus of responses from the men, punctuated here and there by a “no sh*t” or two.

“Well then,” I continued. “So you have a whole room of mature, hot women who are married to the likes of us old bastards, which pretty much means they are probably all getting pretty desperate, know what I’m saying? And right now they’re sitting in there with a guy who is still young enough to get it up repeatedly without  the aid of pharmaceuticals.”

A chuckle ran through the room, but I wasn’t finished yet. I let things settle for a moment before pulling the pin on the punchline.

I looked around at the guys and shrugged, then gave them a nod. “But, you’re probably right,” I finally offered. “I mean, it’s not like guys ever have that whole older woman fantasy when they’re his age…”

Yeah, I know… Pretty evil, eh?  But I just couldn’t help myself.

More to come…

Murv

Well, to some extent they go hand in hand. Love, lust, and all points in between. You start out in lust and as you get to know one another the lust becomes love, and if you are lucky, they blend together to become this Love/Lust amalgam that carries on throughout your relationship and/or marriage.

But, before you get all excited or start calling me Doctor Phil, I should point out that I’m actually here to talk to you about dominos again. And, no, still not the pizza.

You see, I’ve been married to EK now for Twen-koff-koff yea-koff…Okay…for real, 21+ years, and we “co-habitated” for a year prior to that. So, we’ve been ’round the block in the ol’ Radio Flyer a couple of times – always with me pulling as she beats me with a buggy whip and screams “faster, faster…watch out for that crack in the sidewalk…slow down…careful around that turn…faster, faster!” But, as usual, that’s one of those “other” blogs (actually, they probably wouldn’t even let me post it here…but I digress…)

My point being, I’m no stranger to the relationship game, marriage game, whatever… Now, let’s be clear. I am in no way claiming to have all the answers. Hell, I don’t have ANY of the answers. I just pull the wagon and do what I’m told. I’m merely pointing out that I do have at least a passing familiarity with interpersonal relationships between two folks who make up a couple.

Since the EK and I have been together for better than two decades, just like any other couple we have settled into some behavioral patterns. This is not to say that love and lust are gone. The love is there stronger than it was in the beginning, and growing daily. Lust…well…can’t really get into that here (LOL)… But, like I said, as with any couple, patterns will emerge. Ways of interacting. It’s just all part of life. Therefore, a half hour or so ago when I nonchalantly and jokingly said to my wife, “what are you making for dinner tonight?” her response came as no surprise, and the dominos began to teeter…

I suppose you might need a bit of background first…You see, my wife almost never makes dinner. In fact, whenever I go on tour for a week or two at a time, I spend the week prior to my departure working in the kitchen – cooking, packaging, and freezing meals in reusable “freezer to microwave” containers so that I know she and my daughter will eat something other than crackers and yogurt. It’s not that she’s lazy. She’s about as far from lazy as you can get… Hell, I wish I had her energy… It is just that she really dislikes cooking. With a passion it seems. Me, on the other hand, having grown up in a family with diners and restaurants, I absolutely love to cook. So, this makes at least part of the division of labor in our home a no brainer. Put simply, the kitchen is my domain.

But, like I said at the outset, there are dominos involved here, and again, I’m not talking about pizza…even though we are on the subject of food.

To inspect this particular dot-covered game piece we have to turn back the clock to a time EARLY in our marriage. Back when, even though we had dated for some time, then cohabitated for an entire year, and then even been legally married in the eyes of the law for a couple more years, we were still in that state of semi-honeymoon. Not the face-sucking-sex-in-every-room-with-reckless-abandon phase, mind you. Just the hyperactive love-lust combination where you want to impress your partner because you love them so much – and again, I want to be clear on this impressing thing – I’m not talking about dressing up in a negligee and posing next to the bedroom door while batting eyelashes (come to think of it, that’s a pretty good domino too, but I probably wouldn’t fit in that negligee anymore…just kidding… I mean just kidding about the negilgee, not the fitting into it part… you know what I mean…dammit, I’ve never owned a negligee, so just stop it!)

Back to the story… sheesh…ya’ bunch of weirdos…

So, in this particular instance we are talking about dinner. You see, way back when, during the days of hyperlovelustwhatever, the evil redhead decided to make dinner. (They “make” dinner here in the north, as opposed to fixing dinner, like it’s supposed to be done) Now, not being a big fan of the kitchen she wasn’t about to get herself into a major project (I’d like to take a moment to point out that it isn’t that she can’t cook, because she can. It’s simply that she hates cooking.) But still, she intended to “make” dinner. And, so she did. Cheesy tuna and noodles Tuna Helper^TM. Now, before you think I am about to complain, guess again. I happen to like tuna casserole, and mac n’ cheese, and yes, cheesy tuna and noodles. It was all good.

So, my lovely bride served up a big, steaming dish of Tuna Helper^TM, happy with herself and confident in the fact that she had done something nice for me that I would appreciate. And, I did. Harboring the same hyperlovelustwhatever as she, I sat at the table and shoveled in the Tuna Helper^TM while smiling and telling her how wonderful it was, as well as how much I appreciated her fixing dinner. In fact, I was so overwhelmed with hyperlovelustwhatever that I didn’t even hint at the fact that there was something terribly, and fundamentally wrong with the meal. Not something that would make you ill, mind you, but something fundamentally wrong, nonetheless, given what it was supposed to be. The meal went on, the dishes were washed, and well, I can’t really remember what else happened that night, but I suspect that since we were working on remodeling the house at the time we were probably both exhaused and just went to bed then straight to sleep – none of the “not so blog safe” material to worry about this time.

So, everything was good. I had done my duty and nothing need ever be said about the problem with the meal. The EK was happy, I was happy, and even the cats were as happy as cats can be.

The next day, however, it became apparent that my plan to protect the evil redhead from personal embarrassment had gone terribly awry. At this point I cannot remember exactly what I was doing at the moment of realization. I do, however, have vivid recollection of EK walking into the room with an unopened can of tuna in her hand, which she had found sitting on the kitchen counter right where she had left it the night before. With a look of realization flooding her face, she stared at me and stated, as much as asked, complete with a matter-of-fact incredulity, “I forgot to put the tuna in the Tuna Helper last night, didn’t I?”

I could not tell a lie, but I also didn’t want to add insult to injury. I simply replied, “No worries. It was really good macaroni and cheese.”

The domino in this case? Well, it didn’t have to knock much over. You see, this afternoon when I jokingly asked my wife what she would be “making” for dinner, without missing a beat she replied, “Hamburger Helper without the hamburger.”

We’re older now, and while we still have that hyperlovelustwhatever thing going on, I’ve learned I don’t really have to suffer (unless I want to, that is, but again, different blog…)

I think I’ll just go ahead and “make” dinner tonight.

More to come…

Murv