Party Animal

Because I am a kind person, a loyal helpmate, and a good wife--and because I’m not presently holding any husband guilt points in abeyance--I waved merrily as the Captain of our Dreamboat sailed off on an adventure that will take him out of local legal jurisdiction, across the state line, and eat up the weekend like Pac-Man eats little white dots. His transportation is a pollen-encrusted Saturn that is older than our cat, Sabertooth, and his fuel is the energy that comes from a weekend away from trash duty.

Lord knows I have plenty to do around the house to keep me busy, what with oiling the grout and shaving the sticky parts off the carpet. This afternoon I’ll probably hike out to the porch and check the mail. And that WalMart excursion isn’t going to take care of itself. There’s PineSol to be bought. So, with a grocery list that’s worth more than most treasure maps and an eye toward the endless amusement that comes from watching customers in pursuit of low prices and cheap thrills, it’s WalMart Ho! (Which is one of those peculiar expressions fraught with hidden meanings, all of which are curiously correct.)

I’m glad he’s making this trip. I’ll grab the opportunity to rearrange his underwear drawer to provide comic relief when he tries to get dressed in the dark come Monday morning. But still, I’ll admit to a little bit of stress-relief envy. It’s not the fact that he’ll probably go more than 24 hours without uttering the words, “I don’t care who started it, I’m going to finish it!” The main difficulty for me is the knowledge that by now he has had entire conversations with people who don’t consider an eye roll, shoulder shrug, and porcine grunt to be standard methods of communication. People who hold responsible positions in society and are not presently enrolled in the ten year college plan, payable in blood, sweat, and a decade of eating from McDonald’s dollar menu.

But at least I can finally have all the girls over for that lingerie party we’ve talked about for so long. Now I’ve just got to make sure nobody does anything crazy, like posting all the information on the Internet where everybody in the world can see, and alert him to the fact that I’m not quite ready for him to come back. The kids are gone, though, and the only one home is that crazy Labrador of his who he’s been trying to train to use the computer. Yeah, right.



PARTY TIME!