Our new cat Boris is quite lazy...

A while ago, I wrote about our cat, Moe, who passed away. Moe was Laura's baby, so she was understandably devastated when he died.

We had three cats at that point, two of whom favored me a lot more than they favored Laura. Until a little over a year ago, we had just two cats, Moe and Murphy, who were the same age. Then Laura and Julia wanted a new kitten. I was against it because I didn't think it was necessary. If fact, when Laura and Julia went to pick up the kitten at the Humane Society, the HS people called me to get my permission. I felt very tempted to say that I didn't want a cat, but I relented.

Laura and Julia picked out a female they named, Suzie. Now it's been a good track record that female cats tend to gravitate themselves to me. I told Laura that she should get a male cat because I didn't want her jealous when a female kitten started to favor me. She felt that was ridiculous, so in the end, they got a female kitten.

I had requested that Laura and Julia would be responsible for the kitten so I wouldn't corrupt it. This worked for a few days, but then they got tired of always tending to the kitten, so I got brought into the mix despite my warnings. Sure enough, after a few months, Suzie started to gravitate towards me. Straight out of a cliche'd movie, Laura would be in one chair tapping her leg while exclaiming, "Suzie!". I waited and tapped my lap while also exclaiming Suzie's name. Sure enough, Suzie took off for me. Before long, Suzie was completely corrupted by me and followed me around wherever I went.

So when Moe died, Laura was sad for a bit, but then she was really pissed off because then she had no cats that favored her. It was only heightened when we'd be watching TV in the living room and Suzie would stroll into the room. She bypassed Laura's pleas and jumped into my lap.

Laura seethed, "It's not fair! At least you have two cats that still love you!"

So it was decided that we would get another cat. After several weeks, we went to the Humane Society to pick out our cat. We had been there a few times prior scouting out some cats. Laura had even had a private room session with one of the cats a week prior, an orange tabby they named, Cheddar, but she wasn't sure if he was right. She didn't have her heart set on Cheddar, but she just wanted a cat that liked to cuddle.

We picked one orange tabby cat to look at, but when he was brought into the room, he spent the entire time just wandering and paying no attention to us at all. After a few minutes, I said, "Well, I don't think he's very interested in us."

Laura agreed and they brought in Cheddar. We didn't pick him first because he was a rather scrawny cat. He was eight-months old and had a skinny body and skinny legs.

The Humane Society worker pulled Cheddar out of his cage and he immediately bounded for our private room. Once inside, he jumped up on the bench we were sitting on, put his head on Laura's leg and started purring loudly. She pet him and he responded with even more purring. Over the next 10 minutes, it was obvious that Cheddar was the cat we were taking home. He seemed to love all of us. Laura had a name picked for him: Boris, after Boris Yeltzen (don't ask).

We packed Boris into the cardboard carrier and placed him in my car. Laura had to go back to work. Julia and I started driving home. Boris started to meow loudly. He started to claw frantically at the holes inside the box.

Julia started to yell, "Dad! He's trying to get out!"

I tried reassuring Boris, but he was bound and determined to get out of the cardboard carrier.

"Oh my gosh!" Julia exclaimed, "He's dug a hole in the box! He's going to get out!"

I reached into the backseat and felt the box. Sure enough, there was a hold in the box. I reached a finger into the box to try and stroke Boris' head, but was scratched instead by the whining cat that frantically started resuming his prison break.

I looked around the front of my car and grabbed a CD case from the console. I reached back and said, "Here. Hold this over the hole."

Julia did as instructed. She held the CD over the hole, but Boris kept clawing away at the box. Julia squealed a few times and exclaimed, "This is the weirdest day of my entire life!"

She protested that she couldn't keep Boris out any longer, so I took the CD case and held it over the hole with my right arm stretched to the back seat and my left arm still on the steering wheel. I felt like stopping to calm him down, but I figured that getting him home as fast as possible was the wisest strategy.

Once home, we shut him into our room and shut Murphy and Suzie out. After a few days, we opened the door and let Boris meet the rest of the cats. There was a lot of hissing and chasing for a while, but he quickly won over Suzie since they are around the same age and they became buddies. Murphy still hasn't befriended him. Not that Boris cares.

There are a few things about Boris that we have noticed. While Moe ruled the house like a tyranical king in which he did everything himself and attacked all threats, Boris rules like a lazy emperor.

Boris likes to eat.

He was practically skin and bones when we first brought him home, but he quickly got into a routine of eating. If he doesn't have food, he whines and cries. If he does have food, he whines and cries as if there isn't enough. If I add food to the bowl, you'll often hear a cat sprint downstairs to get to the food and it's always Boris.

Boris is a little demanding.

Besides the food demands, Boris will whine and complain if he doesn't have enough fresh water. He'll sit there and meow in protest of his lack of water. If that doesn't work, he dips his paw into the bowl and starts sloshing the water out of it and all over the floor. Lately, he's just taken to dumping the whole thing over to get me to fill it up with some fresh water. I thought briefly about getting a filtered pet water fountain, but I figured he'd then start complaining if the filter wasn't fresh, so I dropped that idea.

Boris also is demanding of Suzie on getting cleaned. Our old cat, Moe, cleaned his hard-to-reach areas like any other cat by twisting his head around or putting saliva on his paw and rubbing it on his out-of-reach areas. Boris just walks up to Suzie when she's cleaning herself and drops down in front of her. This is her cue to start bathing him. One gets the picture of an old emporer lounging while a bather cleans him.

Boris is an attention whore.

Moe liked his attention, but usually just from us. Boris, on the other hand, prefers his attention givers like doctor's prefer their patients, with a pulse. There hasn't been a person that Boris hasn't prompted for attention.

He's climbed onto the laps of door-to-door salespeople, a water softener representative, a gas company tech and various kids that have come over. He even rolled onto his back when he was chained up outside on Halloween so
the parade of kids could all pet him. He's like the town doorknob: everyone gets a turn.

Now that I have a laptop computer, Boris jets for my lap when I have it on. He must love the warmth that comes off of it because I can't keep him off my lap for too long.

The up side is that he's a friendly cat to everyone, which is also a downside. I've mentioned before that Moe could be very aggressive and attacked people he didn't know (or acted like he was going to). While I counted on Moe to scare away any burglar that might break in, I get the feeling that Boris will just follow the burglar around purring and rubbing against the burglar's leg while the burglar robs us blind.

Boris is incredibly lazy.

I know cats sleep a lot, but Boris has taken it up a notch. He just seems to sleep all the time. Oh sure, he gets up to eat and drink, but then he lies down to do it. As you can see in the pictures here, he lies down down on his side to drink or eat. Granted, he could stand up and stoop over his bowl like any other animal, but that would be asking too much of him. once, I saw him get up from a long nap in his favorite chair, lie down to drink and then fall asleep in mid-drink because it was so much effort to move over from his nap chair to take that drink. He also lies
down to eat.




I'm exaggerating a little. Boris doesn't sleep all the time, but he does spend a large amount of time eating, drinking and getting attention when he isn't asleep.

What I am happy about is that Laura got her wish. Boris is more than willing to lie there and cuddle. To that end, he's a great cat.

Hiding the evidence...

The other night, Julia had one of those 'Oh crap!' moments that every kid goes through. If you've ever accidentally

broke, scratched, ripped, burned, doused, crumbled, or chipped something that you shouldn't have, then you know what

I'm talking about.

For me, there were instances like this when I was a kid when I accidentally knocked the sink off the wall in our basement, which I was playing on at the time. Or it could have been the time I accidentally set fire to the kitchen cabinets when I was 2. There was the time when Bill and I were having a water fight, and I accidentally threw a glass of water all over my Mom's sewing fabrics when Bill got out of the way of the water I had just tossed at him. Pick a year in my life and I'll have an example of an 'Oh crap!' moment.

I was out in the garage cleaning trash out my car. I walked inside and I heard Julia shuffling quickly around the

kitchen. I walked into the kitchen to see the whole floor between the refrigerator and the island covered in water.

Plus, there were shards of glass on the floor.

I asked, "What in the heck happened here!" in a loud voice as I looked over at Julia. She was standing next to the

our deck door with her back to the wall. She was standing in front of something.

"Nothing!" Julia exclaimed nervously.

"Did you break a glass?" I asked.

Julia groaned a little and nervously said, "It was an accident, Dad!"

I looked on the ground. There were a couple of shards of glass on the ground. It looked like glass from the

McDonald's Shrek 3 glass that we had bought this summer. I glanced around. "Where is the rest of the glass?"

Julia hesitated and said, "Umm... It's right here."

She stepped out from in front of a blue storage tub. I walked over to it. Sure enough, there were lots of shards of

glass in the tub.

She said, "I'm really sorry."

I laughed. "Don't worry. I'm not mad. I'm just glad you didn't cut yourself."

She helped me pick up the rest of the glass on the floor and to mop up the water. My phone rang. I answered it. It's

Laura.

"Hello?"

"Uh... What was that?!" Laura asked with a surprise.

"Oh, you heard that, huh?" I asked. I had forgotten that I had called Laura at work and handed Julia the phone

before I went outside.

"Yeah!" Laura said like Elaine would on Seinfeld. "I was talking to her when I heard this loud crash. Julia said,

'MOMMY! I'VE GOT TO GO! I'VE GOT A BIG PROBLEM HERE!' Then she hung up.

I told her what had happened. Julia dropped the glass while she was talking to Laura, hung up, ran to find something to dispose of the glass and started putting the glass in the storage tub. She would have probably attempted to mop up the water herself had I not come in.

It's an almost unavoidable fact of life that your kids are going to break and spill stuff. now I'm just afraid that

she's going to spill onto more expensive things that can't be fixed like a TV or a computer.

More joys of commuting with your spouse...

Driving Adventures Part 2

I mentioned in a previous entry the highs and lows of commuting with my wife, Laura.

One of our favorite shows is one called 'The Amazing Race', which pits teams of 2 against each other in a race around the world. It involves a lot of transportation with cab rides, train rides, plane rides and a lot of personal driving in which one member navigates while the other drives. I often joke with Laura that if we were ever on that show we'd be yelling at each other constantly.

This is often true of us when we have to leave town. Invariably, Laura gets stressed out when we don't leave the house at a certain time. I think she has a problem with my packing at the last possible minute and then throwing everything that I think I might need. This usually means I bring a lot more than I would ever need, but at least I've covered my bases. One of my biggest fears is that I will be driving out of town and a sudden pang will hit me that I've forgotten something important.

Because of this, when we have to leave the house, I usually have to make a few trips inside before we leave. I'll get in the car and then suddenly realize that I don't have my keys, so I run back inside to get them. I'll get back in the car, put the key in the ignition, but then I'll have to run inside because I've forgotten my sunglasses. So I run inside to get them. We're about to leave again. I've started the car and am about to back out, when I realize that I've forgotten my cell phone, so I run back inside to get it. This either ends there or I'll remember that I need to blow out candles, turn off lights, get a drink, go to the bathroom, lock the doors, grab a book I want to read, grab some CDs, grab my music player and other assorted trips inside for something. For some reason... Laura gets annoyed by this. I have no idea why...

So when we're off to work or driving home together, Laura has a few pet peeves in relation to my driving. She suggested a lot of these, so she had some input into this story. Lest you think I am complaining out of spite, my view is that if you can't laugh at these things, then you're on the verge of splitting up with your significant other.

Laura insists that if I am driving and there is a big gap between me and the car in front of me, that I need to close that gap. She'll start to intone, "Why aren't you going faster?", "Can't you go any faster?", "Why are you driving so slow?", "Why are you in this lane?", "Why are people passing us?" or "Jesus, you drive like a grandma!".

In my defense, if the traffic isn't that busy, I'll be sure to close that gap because I can get around the cars. However, if the traffic is wall to wall and the cars in front of me are both neck in neck with no hope of moving to allow more cars to pass, I find it idiotic to accelerate only 50 feet to the car in front of me, only to slow down to the same speed.

I joke that if we ever get into an accident that involves me hitting a car from behind because of her urging to 'get on his ass', that I'm going to blame the whole thing on her.

"Officer, I was obeying the speed limit, but my wife kept yelling at me to go faster and to 'get on' the car in front of me's 'ass'." That's me doing air quotes by the way.

The officer will probably shrug and mutter something like, "Hey buddy, I hear you..."

The ordering of directions doesn't end with on the road danger. If we're in a parking lot, Laura will bark out parking directions, even if it's obvious as hell which spot to take. I'll be driving up a row of cars and spot an empty spot. Laura will yell, "Ooh! There's a spot right there. Right there! (points)."

"Thanks," I'll say. "I couldn't have spotted that on my own."

"No problem," Laura will smugly say.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Julia has gotten into that habit, too. I'll be driving through a parking lot without Laura and Julia will exclaim, "Oooh! Daddy! Right there's a spot!"

So while I'm getting plenty of direction on the road, I am getting no help trying to decide what to eat.

I'll be driving home by myself on a Friday (Laura has that day off) and I'll call her up to see what she wants to eat. The segue here is a little awkward I'll admit, but it does tie into driving as you can see.

Usually, she wants to eat pizza. On a side note, I've never seen a person enjoy pizza more. If she could have her way, she'd eat it 3 or 4 times a week. It's as if she has a pizza maker's blood running through her blood, except she only got the part where the pizza maker just eats them.

Unfortunately for me (and her), I worked at Pizza Hut for about 10 years. During that time, I had every type of pizza imaginable and tasted every ingredient we ever had, which includes anchovies. I worked there part time to supplement my income five days a week. To save money, I would take home a personal pan pizza almost every single day that I worked there. As a result, I've not only had about every combination of pizza that you could imagine, but I've become so unbelievable sick of pizza that I could just about throw up.

Yet on almost every Friday, Laura will want pizza. So then I'll ask, "What do you want?"

She'll answer, "I don't care. Whatever you want."

Then I'll say, "No, it's not what I want. It's what you want."

She'll retort, "You know what I like. Whatever's fine."

To which I'll start to get a little testy, "Just pick something. I don't know what you want."

She'll start to get testy with, "What do you want on the pizza? Just pick something!"

I'll come back with, "You're asking the wrong person! That'd be like me wanting some Chinese food, but then asking you to pick it out for me when I know that you don't like it that much."

"Fine," she'll sigh, "Give me a ham and pineapple."

"Now was that so hard?" I'll ask.

If only Laura would concentrate on what we're going to eat instead of the driving, then maybe I wouldn't be so stressed when I drive home on Fridays.

But I think I realized why Laura and I clash when we drive together. It came to me when we were driving through our neighborhood to pick up Julia after work. Laura turned to me and said, "Jesus, you drive like the slowest f*#$ing grandma driver I've ever seen."

Of course, I pointed out that I was driving through an area heavily populated with kids. I sped up a little and then made noises and gestures as if kids were getting bounced off my car as it plowed through the neighborhood. She laughed.

We clash because when I get up in the morning, I'm pretty wide awake. I'm not one of those people that take two full hours to wake up, like Laura. As a result of this, our morning drives are pretty uneventful. Laura is too busy waking up to notice how I'm driving. But when I pick her up at work in the late afternoon, I'm running on a half-full tank, while Laura seems to be running at full speed. I'm the one that's zoning out while she's the one thinking of the best and fastest way to get home.

Once this past week, we took Laura's new car. She decided to drive on the way there and the way back. Now I think that I've mentioned that having Laura drive is analogous to riding a roller coaster. You're pretty sure you're going to die, but you hope to God that you don't. I said in a previous story that she tails people like she's trying to dry hump the back end of their car. Last week did not disappoint. There were several times when the cars would break and I could have sworn that we were going to hit the car in front of us. I winced and grabbed the little hang down arm on the ceiling. Once or twice, I signed the sign of the cross just to be safe. After a while, I just stared at the ground or out the side. It wasn't as scary that way.

I'm all for her driving. I just need to bring something to distract me from the excitement in front of me.

Julia goes to bed at 1...

Since Julia started Kindergarten, we've sent Julia to bed at 9 pm. For the past several years, it's been at 10 pm, so it's been a bit of an adjustment for her and us.

The other day, I woke Julia up at her usual time, 7:20 am, to get ready for school. I shook her a little bit and she said, "Daddy... I'm tired. I was up until one in the morning."

"You were?" I asked. "What happened? Did you wake up and couldn't get back to sleep?"

"No," she yawned. "I was just up until one in the morning."

I was a little confused about this. She had gone to be a little later than normal, about 9:15 pm, but it wasn't that late that she would be yawning all day.

I don't think too much about it, but then when I picked up Julia from her after-school sitter, the sitter came up to us and said, "Julia's resting on the couch. She said that she was up until one in the morning, and she's very tired."

We walked over to where Julia is resting on the couch. She wasn't asleep, but she was watching TV with a sleepy look on her face.

We told her to get a move on. She got up and I told her, "Julia, you did not go to bed at one in the morning."

Julia said, "Yes, I did. That's why I'm tired."

"What makes you think that you went to be so late?" I asked her.

"That's what it said on the cable box, Dad!" she retorted. "Last night, when I went to bed, it said '1' on the box."

I laughed because now it made sense. Our cable box has a problem every now and then that instead of showing what time it is, it shows the last channel the box was on before it becomes stuck and needs to be rebooted. I've had to do it about 4 times in the last two months. It was stuck on channel 1, so Julia thought the '1' was how late she stayed up.

We smiled at the thought of her yawning and complaining all day long about how tired she was for staying up way too late. Must have learned it from me when I complain about how tired I am on Sunday mornings. (Sniff... They grow up so fast...)

Memo to self: Don't drink an energy drink as 8 pm at night...

I'm not a regular fan of energy drinks, but since they tend to be the big fade in our ever increasingly sleep deprived society, I will grab one on impulse if I've been up writing stupid comments about my football team, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, which I have been doing a lot lately. Normally, I just watch on the sidelines, but the team is struggling big time this year and I think it's because of two problems: the AD and the coach. Both, in my opinion, have got to go. I think I've been more than patient, but when you see your team embarrassed again and again on national television, it starts to get a little old.

This season, we've already been embarrassed at the likes of USC, who blew holes so wide into our defense that my Dad, who is on oxygen said that he could have run through them, and he could have two. Granted, he might not have gotten the big runs, but it would have been a nice five-yard gain and that's saying something considering how slow my Dad is now.

On Saturday, we were at the store buying some stuff to munch on for the Nebraska game against Missouri, which wasn't until 8:15 on ESPN that night. I was already kind of feeling tired since I have mowed the lawn earlier that day. Also, I had stayed up a little late the night before, so I was a little tired. I saw an energy drink called Full Throttle at the checkout in a small fridge for that night.

That night, we turned on the TV, grabbed our snacks, and sat down to watch TV. I grabbed my Full Throttle, popped the top and chugged it.

To say that the game was a bit of a disappointment would be saying it lightly. My team got humiliated again as the defense surrended 606 yards to an average team at best. Nebraska tends to make a lot of teams look better than they are lately, which is why I'm pretty freaking sick of the coach.

I, of course, stayed up a little too late venting on the message boards about the pitiful play of the team coupled with the poor planning of the coaches. Finally, a little before 2 am, I settled down to sleep... or so I thought.

Usually, my head will hit the pillow and I'm out like a light. This time, I had a little trouble falling asleep. I waited and waited, but nothing happened. I couldn't sleep. Plus, I'm sweating a lot, even though I had a fan on me. I got up, went to the bathroom again and noticed that my heart seemed to be racing. I put my fingers up to my neck and checked my pulse. It was beating at 120 beats per minute. No wonder I couldn't fall asleep!

I did the only thing that I could think of. I took two generic pink allergy pills, the kind that make you drowsy. Sure enough, at about 3:30 am, I started to get really drowsy. Finally, I headed to bed.

Right on cue, Julia woke me up a little before 8 am, which gave me about 4 hours of sleep. All right...

My huge head or when they say three days, they mean three days...

I recently sent for some sunglasses through the mail because I lost my last pair. And when I say 'lost', I mean that someone stole them from my front porch. Either that, or I mistakenly threw them away or put them in a place I would never see them again.

Buying sunglasses is always a risky proposition for me because of my large noggin. My head is a bit larger than the normal-sized head, which has caused some problems for me.

When I went out for football in high school, they had to special order a football helmet for me because they couldn't find a helmet that was big enough for my huge melon. They had me try on everything they had, but nothing fit. Then, the coaches called around and got a helmet for me from a neighboring school that had gold on their helmets rather than our usual white color. It fit, but I asked, "What about the gold?"

The head coach, a fairly surly man, said, "Maybe if you turn into a player, we'll get you one." Ouch. I was on the scout team, so it didn't look good. Despite that setback, they did find one. I guess they didn't want me to attract too much attention standing on the sidelines with my gold helmet.

When I was in Army basic training, I ran into this problem again when they tried sizing me for a hat. We split into lines, and we walked down to a guy at the end, who looked you up, tied a tape measure around your head, picked up a hat, and placed it on your head. I walked up and he did just that, except when he pulled the tape measure around my head, it didn't line up with his hat sizes listed on the measuring tape.

The man grunted a surprise like, "Oh my goodness!" Then he grabbed the largest hat that he had, a 7 and 3/4 hat, and put it on my head. He tried to pull down, but it wouldn't come down to my forehead. He tugged and tugged and it wouldn't move. Of course, this led to a stoppage of the process as everyone within earshot got to come by and look at my enormous head. They then sent me to a seamstress and she measured my head. She said she would have some modified hats for me later that day.

So for the rest of that day, while the rest of the guys around me had their new uniforms and hats on, I had no hat on to compliment my new uniform. This led to several calls for me to put my hat on when a sergeant would pass by. This was followed by a laughing explanation from the sergeant watching us that my head was too big and that hats were coming. My how they all laughed...

Even in my last years of the Army National Guard, the largest kevlar helmet didn't fit right. The leather liner that you placed inside the head webbing, which then could be adjusted, didn't fit my head at all. Frustrated at the tight squeeze after a while, I resorted to wearing the helmet with no liner whatsoever. Instead, the helmet just sat there on my head amongst the webbing. I placed hankerchiefs and foam on top of my head for padding, which probably would have been dangerous had I gone to war at the time.

So when I try to buy sunglasses, (see the nice segue?) I often have to try on pair after pair until I find a pair that's just right for my huge head. One of two problems can occur. Either the head width isn't wide enough or the length of the sunglass arms aren't long enough. Sometimes, it's both.

So I was searching for some sunglasses to replace my stolen sunglasses with. I opted for some Gargoyles sunglasses, which was a brand that I had worn before with some moderate fit success. I paid for it online and selected 3-day UPS select for my delivery time. The package was due to arrive on September 28th.

I waited for my sunglasses to arrive and followed the progress online. I noticed the following progress:

Sept 25th - 4:50 PM - The package is picked up
Sept 25th - 9:08 PM - The package leaves Fort Meyers, Florida
Sept 26th - 12:03 AM - The package arrives in Hialeah, Florida
Sept 26th - 3:24 AM - The package leaves Hialeah, Florida
Sept 26th - 5:00 AM - The package arrives in Miami, Florida
Sept 26th - 8:21 AM - The package leaves Miami, Florida
Sept 26th - 9:56 AM - The package arrives in West Columbia, South Carolina
Sept 26th - 10:56 AM - The package leaves West Columbia, South Carolina
Sept 26th - 12:11 PM - The package arrives in Louisville, Kentucky
Sept 26th - 3:48 PM - The package leaves Louisville, Kentucky

Then I logged in that night to the UPS site and noticed this next entry
Sept 26th - 4:31 PM - The package arrives in Omaha, Nebraska

I'm then thinking, "Nice! I'll get my package a day early."

Then I noticed the next entry.
Sept 26th - 9:52 PM - The package leaves Omaha, Nebraska

I then started to wonder what that could mean. Was it on its way to my address? Maybe it's on its way to the delivery center in Omaha. Sadly, neither were true.

The next day, this entry appeared.
Sept 26th - 10:25 PM - The package arrives in Des Moines, Iowa.

That's right. My package hadn't arrived a day early after arriving in Omaha, where it was supposed to go. Instead, it arrived in Omaha and then proceeded to take a detour to Des Moines, Iowa. I thought for a second that maybe something was wrong with my address, but my check on my order form showed the correct address in Omaha.

That night, I checked the delivery progress again. There was a new trip for the package.
Sept 27 - 3:36 PM - The package leaves Des Moines, Iowa for the destination city.
Sept 27 - 6:22 Pm - The package arrives in Omaha, Nebraska.

Finally, my package had been shipped to the proper address. While the delivery process went to 7 different cities and 9 separate trips, I did indeed get my package on the third day. I guess they didn't want me to think that if I got it a day early, that all 3-day packages were like that.

I can picture the scene at the dock when it arrived in Omaha the first time.

"Hey, we got a small package that's supposed to be delivered on Friday, but it's Wednesday night. Should we let it go on so he gets it on Thursday?"

The dock supervisor is stunned. "No, we can't let him get it on Thursday! We need to have it go to another city so that he gets it on time. What if everyone expected all 3-day deliveries to get there a day early, too? It would causes unreasonable expectations! Send it on to Des Moines. They'll send it back when they see the shipping address."

I have nothing against the fine people at UPS, but even they might admit that a customer might consider it odd that their package took a detour from its arrival in the destination city, its departure to another city and then its arrival again in the destination city.

So I finally get my sunglasses on time on Friday, which is when they should have come anyway. I look at the package. It's a huge, long box about 11 by 14 in size. The sunglasses box is only two inches by 5 inches. It's a little overkill, but I open the box and put on the sunglasses. The sunglasses fit, but just barely. In fact, the arms of the sunglasses are cutting into my temples and cutting off blood flow. I went outside when them on to see what they were like, but after three minutes of wearing them, I could tell that I was going to get a massive headache if I were to wear them all day.

I reluctantly submitted a return request to the site I got them from with a small explanation about why. They responded later that day with a return number and address. I was instructed to return the sunglasses in a high quality box, preferably the one that they came in.

After I got off work, I went to a local package mailing store and said that I needed to ship a package by UPS Ground to Florida, where the sunglasses were shipped from. The lady took one look at the box and said, "I'm sorry, we can't ship Ground in this box."

I had noticed that the box was an Express Box. Although I ordered 3-day Select, the box clearly stated not to use it for anything but air delivery. I figured they just ran out of boxes and shipped mine in whatever they had.

I said, "This is what they shipped me when I had it shipped 3-day Select."

The lady said, "Well, they must have a deal with their shipper then."

"Can I just cover up the box and ship it that way?"

"No," she replied. "If I ship it in this box it must go by one of these shipping options (pointing to the options on the box)".

"Well, how much are we talking for shipping costs?"

She muttered to herself while typing in the address of the package and then responded, "Fifty six dollars."

I had only paid 5 dollars for the original shipping.

I laugh, "Fifty six dollars to ship this?! Umm... That's okay. I'll just find another box and ship it later."

Not an overly gripping story, but a little amusing...

Here's an image to show that I'm not crazy. It did happen.

I get Laura's car dirty...

Yesterday, I committed a cardinal sin against my wife, Laura.

There are a few sins that a man must never try to do. That list includes: never comment about her weight, never oggle another woman in her presence, never declare your admiration for a hot actress in a movie, never wake her up with your snoring, never leave the seat up, never scratch her car, and there are many others.

I can add a new one to my never list: never get your wife’s car dirty with her in the car. This is not as severe as the 'never scratch your wife's car with a key while she's watching, which I've done, but it's still high up there.

I mentioned that Laura got a newer used car, a Mazda 3, which also has a stick shift. Because of her lack of prowess with the stick shift, she has been having me drive on the days that we commute together. This has led to some interesting car rides to say the least. Now Laura can barely shift without lurching the car, but when I drive, she seems to expect total control of the stick shift on my part. I lurch the car just a tad and she’s exclaiming “Jeez!” or “Easy!”.

Also, when I’m driving her car, which I do when we commute together two or three times a week, she’s the world’s worst back-seat driver, except she’s in the passenger seat.

I’ll be cruising along at a comfortable speed and invariably, I’ll hear things like, “Why are you going so slow?”, “Why are people passing you?” or “Shouldn’t you be driving faster?”

If I’m in a lane that looks a slightly more congested than the one next to us, she’ll recommend, “Get in the other lane.” or “Why are you in the slow lane?”

There has yet to be a car ride yet with both of us in her car where she doesn’t critique some aspect of my driving skills.

The other day, I was driving her car when she mentioned something about my driving. We were almost home and I swear I had heard at least a dozen suggestions on how to drive better, which is pretty ironic coming from someone that drives like they want to dry hump the car in front of them. Having Laura drive is akin to being in a roller coaster. You know the ride will end soon and you pray to God that you get there in one piece. I find it’s just better if I not look up when she drives because it’s only bound to scare the living shit out of me when a line a cars start to slow down and Laura doesn’t slow down until the last second. I make frantic stomps with my foot to signal a stop. Finally she does and she looks over at me and asks, “What?”

But anyway, I was driving the other day with this model citizen of driving (just kidding honey) when I got another tip on driving. I turned to her and said in an exhausted tone, “Will you shut the f*&k up?!” My meaning was to get her to stop with the suggestions and for her to laugh. Amazingly, I nailed the right tone and she did laugh.

So yesterday morning, I’m driving again and I stop at the local gas station to get a roll of Little Debbie donuts as I had forgotten in my haste to get Julia out the door, to eat breakfast. I run in, grab the donuts and get back in the car. I pull around the back of the gas station to a side rode, which happens to have some construction. Unbeknown to me, I am heading for a rather large dirty water puddle (it had been raining all night so everything was wet). I didn’t see it because I was in the process of shifting and opening my pack of donuts at the same time, which is possible but distracting.

Laura exclaimed, “Watch it!”

We hit the puddle at a slow speed, but it was enough to send a cascade of dirty water over the entire car. She still has a nice wax job on the Mazda, so it rolled off quickly down the entire wind shield and passenger window. It rolled off the car, but many small beads of brown water clung to every part of the car.

Laura said something like, “Ungh… Ungh… You idiot!”

I laugh and exclaim, “Sorry!”

She glared at me, “Look at my car! Does it look like I’m laughing?”

I suppress a smile and say nothing. She exclaimed, “What did you think was going to happen when you hit a dirty puddle, sunshine and roses to fall on my car?”

“No,” I retort with a smile.

“It’s not funny,” Laura said defiantly. “And you know what? You are going to take my car to the car wash and get it cleaned today. And it’s coming out of your pocket!”

I laugh a little and we continue. The entire trip to work, she periodically pointed to various dirty spots on the outside and muttered, “Look at that.!” I nodded. Later, I did get her car washed. I’m not that much of an idiot to leave her car dirty when I picked her up that afternoon.