Posted on January 24, 2013 under Storytelling with 9 comments

The Snowbirds are heading south. And that means gathering up summer wear including a bathing suit. And if your spouse doesn’t have something modern, it may require a shopping trip. When is the last time you took your life into your own hands and agreed to go bathing suit shopping with your wife?

So you want a stern test of your marriage vows? Agree to assist your wife in picking out the perfect bathing suit. The first obstacle for a man is to actually walk through the ladies garment section of the store. Make sure that your wife is practically attached to your shoulder, otherwise you will get the “stares”. You just know what the other women are thinking, “ What is that peeping Tom doing here?”

When is it acceptable to tell a bold face lie? I can’t think of too many situations where lying gets you anywhere in life. Lying is totally acceptable, no mandatory, when your wife asks you “ how does this bathing suit look on me dear? Is it slimming?” Talk about a loaded question. What is the appropriate response? If you have been married for fifty years and have a terminal illness you might get away with just a hint of honesty. “ The color doesn’t quite suit you dear”. This is code for “ I can’t believe that you had the audacity to try that one on. “

It takes time to get the perfect match of style and comfort and this sometimes requires several, even dozens, of showings. I cannot think of many places more uncomfortable than the area around the women’s change room. What in the hell do you do when your wife is actually switching from one bathing suit to the next? I have discovered that staring at your feet is the safest thing to do. Better to be thought a stunned idiot by the other women passing by, than a leering pervert.

As sure as a bad flu eventually runs its course, the bathing suit war mercifully ends and the treasured garment is brought to the checkout – another heart palpitating exercise because you just know that your wife and the sales clerk are going to discuss the purchase… in detail. Finally, you have been granted bail for good behaviour and you return to your man cave to watch a football game. You have just settled in with a cold beer and a bag of perfectly salted chips when your wife appears in the doorway. It appears that she has been crying and I wonder if there has been a death in the family ( her mother, maybe? ) or if one of the pets has gone missing. “What is wrong, dear?” “ I look awful in this stupid bathing suit. Would you mind taking me back to the store?”

Just then, I hear thunder and lightning in the background. I grab a five iron out of my golf bag and stand in the back yard with the club held towards the sky.

Posted on January 23, 2013 under Storytelling with one comment

When was the last time you saw someone under the age of forty washing dishes by hand?  There is a whole generation of people who would not understand the connection between  Sunlight,  Ivory and Joy.  I think of these things as I plunge my hands into a sink full of warm sudsy water.  Now that our children have left home, the dishwasher, the mechanical kind, is no longer required except for large family gatherings.

I can’t confess that I actually love doing dishes.  There is a much more practical consideration.  When the winter sets in my hands are cold all the time.  I am constantly either rubbing my hands like a smoker in withdrawal or blowing into them like a quarterback playing football in January.  Most days I do the dishes twice. Not that two people make that much of a mess but it is surprising how many dishes you actually use when they’re stacked up on the kitchen counter and not buried in a dishwasher like some form of contraband.

I still go to church.  When was the last time you saw someone under the age of forty go to church? It is as rare as someone doing the dishes by hand.  I haven’t dusted off the old Baltimore Catechism lately and I haven’t attended a meeting of the John Bosco society in over fifty years.  I never quite understood why I used to go to the local elementary school on Saturdays with several of my pals, during the summer, to attend meetings of this society.  A little research shows me that John Bosco was a 19^th. century priest, educator and writer.  One of his missions in life was his dedication to the betterment and education of juvenile delinquents.  Now I understand.

I do remember the Ten Commandments and I thought about number three today while doing the morning dishes; “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain”.  There should be a caveat that goes with this; “unless you are doing the dishes with your brother or sister.”

Coming from a large family, we all learned how to cook and clean at an early age. The standoff between North and South Korea pales in comparison to two siblings on dish duty.  Now that’s a “thin green line” – the Demilitarized Zone, as it were. You know how it goes?  You’re both teenagers and have raging hormones coursing through your body.  You would rather have chicken pox and the flu at the same time than have to stand beside an obnoxious brother or sister at the sink.  One of you may have just been dumped by a boyfriend/girlfriend and your world has collapsed and then you have to suffer the additional indignity of doing dishes with that miserable excuse of a human being.

On a good day, you merely do the dishes amidst stony silence.  But if either party is having an off day, well, simply put, it’s a shit show.  The washer is piling up stuff in the drying rack at warp speed in order to get to something more important, like a street hockey game.  As quickly as the dishes land in the rack, they are being unceremoniously tossed, nay hurled, back into the sudsy water – the dryer citing Health Canada standards for cleanliness.

There are no more dish wars. Occasionally I will let my wife dry the dishes but lest she ever think of washing the dishes, I will remind her of commandment number six.

Posted on January 20, 2013 under Storytelling with one comment

The very fact that I am able to type this story indicates that my computer is working. Like most other people of modest computer knowledge, my love/hate affair with technology is a given. When my computer behaves, it is arguably me best ally. I can communicate rapidly with friends near and far and at work. It is the engine that makes my business function at a reasonably high level.

Why then, do I occasionally want to tear it from my desk, put it under the back tires of my car and drive back and forth until the last byte has been removed? Because computers are smart enough to recognize stupidity. It’s almost like the tips of my finger have an inner barcode that when placed on a computer keyboard indicate ineptitude.

Part of my handicap is that I have never taken a typing course and the qwerty keyboard remains a giant puzzle. I am reduced to the hunt and peck method. If I’ve consumed too much coffee and I try for speed, the resulting text is dyslexic. The back arrow is one of my favorite keys on the computer and probably the most well used.

I am generally speaking, a patient man. I rarely lose my temper and have an even keeled demeanor. That is, until I go to the office at 7:00 in the morning to get a head start on the day. The computer gods sense my presence as I hit the power button. Without fail, I encounter some sort of system error. Part of it is self induced if I try to enter a program before the computer stops churning and grinding as part of its warmup activity. God forbid if you try to get into a program a nano second too early for then the dreaded hourglass appears on your screen.

And that’s when my temperature starts to rise. I know that I am in the throes of mortal combat and from experience know that I will come out on the losing end. It’s called an hour glass for a reason because that’s how long it feels when you’re waiting to get work under way. I keep a hammer close by and some day when my computer needs to be replaced, I just might have a go at it. In my world rebooting means repeatedly kicking my computer.

In the meantime, I wait for the computer to give me a reprieve. When I have exhausted my patience, I go for my other three favorite keyboard symbols: CTRL/ALT/DEL. But, as I have learned, this is not always a quick and effective way to bring your computer to its senses. Sometimes it angers the computer and rather than giving up easily, it decides that the user is a moron and must repeatedly, be taught a lesson. All of a sudden, I am pressing those three keys again and now my computer screen is taunting me with so many different symbols that I may as well be in a corn maze.

Thankfully the voice of reason rings inside my thick skull. It is the voice of my wife who has told me on more than one occasion (!) to step away from the computer for about twenty minutes.  Thus pacified, my computer goes into auto correct and the love affair resumes. Until the next time I get jilted.