Two of Life's Lessons Learned

I have declared war on my body as of Christmas. It seems the fruitcakes and pies have done quite a lot of damage to me, and I have enlisted the help of Lifetime Fitness. I just have to plug Lifetime Fitness for anyone that has one near them, because they have a super fun happy slide for their pools – and there’s NO age limit! Well, there is, but those over 30 are allowed and that’s all that matters.

Since the Fruitcake bomb was dropped, I have gone there every night to run at least an hour, and burn 1,000 calories. It’s only been a week but I see a huge difference, mostly I can’t walk anymore. However, that’s another story as tonight I am going to tell everyone what lessons I learned tonight.

I go to the Gym after the kids are in bed, and often after my wife starts getting ready for bed. She went to sleep very early one night, as she can’t sleep and was up at 2 am that morning.

I get around 10:45, still sweaty and stinky because I was going to life some weights before taking a shower. I’m in the Bronco, which is great on a lovely December Texas night, which is around 75 F. It’s a bit chilly, but not enough that anyone really would say “Wow, this is Winter!” I park in the garage, and try to get into the house through the lovely door that grants me entry and exit from the insanity of my home.

It’s locked. Now a normal person would reach into their pocket and get their house key, and that’s exactly what I would do, if I was wearing my pants that were just right inside the house. I have a door key on my normal truck keys, but the Bronco has a simple little key, and no others as it can scratch up the dashboard! What’s really blowing my mind is my wife NEVER locks this door.

I check all the other doors, and I’m completely locked out. Life lesson #1 – I should have a spare outside. I could have easily bought one of those really cool hollow rocks, and thrown it into my front flower beds that are full of rocks and plants. “Shoulda Woulda Coulda” as my wife says. The wife. Speaking of her, I look in and I see the TV is on upstairs as the bedroom is flickering with lovely TV lights. I bet she was watching Family Guy, without me, which just upsets me so much!

I start ringing that doorbell. At first it was sorta fun, I was singing “My Doorbell” by the White Stripes, but after 15 minutes I only realized my thumbs were numb, the dogs were sick of barking, and by my estimates, family guy was over and the wife wasn’t waking up.

Damnit. I went to Plan B.

Back in the garage, I closed the garage door so not to disturb my lovely neighbors, and started honking that horn. The dogs were excited there was a new noise, and started the barking! I admit I don’t know much about antique cars and trucks, but I learned that night if you honk your horn for about 10 minutes or so, it will run out of air and make a very low deep “DOOOOOOOOOOOOP DOOOOOOOOOOOP” noise instead of it’s normal loud honk honk noise.

Damnit. I thought about Plan C.

I didn’t have a Plan C, however being the resourceful guy I am, I had the theme music from MacGyver as I hauled the ladder to the back yard. By now the dogs are so happy to see me, as they are sick and tired of barking. Also, it feels much colder now and I’m still in my sweaty gym clothes, and it’s getting pretty damn cold. I won’t even get colorful here and tell you how the unmentionables were now covered in ice cubes, oh wait, I just did.

I got the ladder and got up on the patio roof, and shimmied up to the bedroom window. This window is roughly right at my wife’s nightstand, so I am roughly 4 feet from her head. I can hear the TV faintly, and heard the lovely voices of that weird show after Family Guy with that talking meatball, fries, and coke cup. I swear that show would freak me out if I ever did drugs, getting the munchies and staring at a drink and fries, I would probably get in a fight with them to get in my belly and start crying that they don’t want to and I’m not really a mean guy.

So I start banging on that window. By now I’m on the verge of no longer caring about the sleeping neighbors and start whispyelling her name as I bang. It’s getting damn cold. My arm is a bit numb. I keep banging. After 10-15 minutes I’m pretty upset, and realize there is something really abnormal about my wife at this moment. This is no surprise, she had trouble sleeping, and I have surrendered to the fact that she took some sleeping pill(s).

Plan D.

I crawled over to my 4 year old son’s room. Or is he 5? I’m not really sure. I just now he lives in this house and eats our food, and often its our favorite foods to! Well, that makes me upset, and I needed that to do what I was going to do to him. I start banging on his window, and no longer care if my neighbors were enjoying what could be their very last night of sleep on this planet. I am yelling his name and banging, and he’s a pretty heavy sleeper. I can just see him through the blinds, as his nightlight is on.

Finally, he gets up, and comes to the window. I am telling him to open the window and look out… and he reaches out and pushes play on his radio, and now I can hear Mozart playing as he crawls back in bed. Yes. My son, who eats my food, and steals my legos and transformers from my childhood, just turned on his radio to drown out the sound of his freezing dad outside.

I had it. I start kicking the wall and banging on the window and screaming his name out. Finally, he fully wakes up, but in unison he started to cry as any frightened 4-5 year old does when they hear someone banging on their windows and walls. He finally calms down a bit and opens the window and I hear him say something.. I don’t know what, but I bet it can be loosely assumed as “WHAT THE HECK, DAD?”

I tell him to go downstairs and open the garage door, and he’s still crying and not understanding me. I keep trying to talk to him, but it’s not working well. So I say I will give him $20 to open the garage door – and wow – everything just came clear to him. I see him leave his room, and run down the roof, then the ladder, then with the dogs straight to the garage door, where he has opened it and let me in amid his tears.

I picked him up ever so gently, hugged him, told him how much I love him, and carried him back to bed, tucked him in, and he went back to sleep.

Now, to go find out what the hell was with that person that I normally would refer to as a “loving wife”.

I turned on the lights, slapped off the TV and yelled - "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU LOCK THE GODDAMN DOORS FOR?!". I was very cold, so it actually came out at first as “wha da fu did you wock da godam doors fo?” which after I yelled it I realized I made no sense. So I got closer to her, and yelled much more clearly to wake up.

Nothing. Yup, she took sleeping pills. Finally she opened one eye, and asked “huh?”

I ask why she locked the garage door, to which she replies “I didn’t lock any doorzzzzzzzz” and she went out cold again. Yup. That’s her defense. Well, the second lesson I learned is don’t try to have a real conversation with anyone doped up on sleeping pills, it won’t work.

What is really blowing my mind is she still swears to this day that she didn’t lock that garage door, and even suggested I did somehow – with the keys that were locked inside the house.

Next lesson, even if you are right- you are wrong. I already learned that lesson long ago, but the rest of you guys out there may not.