It Really Satisfies…

One time, when I was a teenager, I found myself in a situation where I felt I might need a condom. We won’t get into the details, but that’s where I was. Back in the 80’s it wasn’t quite as easy to find an open shop carrying such things, especially when you didn’t have a car, so I ended up in a pharmacy within walking distance of the house I’d grown up in. I’d been shopping there all my life, and usually, after 7 o’clock I could count on the crusty old man who ran the place to be sitting behind the counter.

But this fateful night, it was the elderly woman I took to be his wife at the register. With great inner fortitude (or maybe it was just desperate lust) I got the little box from the back of the store and brought it to the front counter. She looked down at my intended purchase for several long seconds. Then she looked me in the eye with a mix of contempt, disgust, and perhaps sadness as she saw the little boy who used to buy Mother’s Day cards here with pocket change now all growed up and doing the nasty.

With a low growl she asked, “Is that all?”

I hesitated only a moment, and then reached to one of the boxes in front of the counter. I slapped an extra large Snickers bar on the counter and said, “I’ll have this too.”

I don’t know if she got the joke, but at the time, you always saw Snickers commercials on TV about being low on energy until you had a Snickers bar. Then you were revved up and ready to go because Snicker “really satisfies”. I thought it was funny – an early example of the true wiseass jerk I would mature into.

In any event, I was reminded of this whole sordid little moment in my post-adolescent history just the other day at the Rite-Aid by work. We recently moved offices, to a huge plaza with offices on the back side of the building, and tons of retail establishments in front. Yeah, it feels a little like working in a strip mall, at least in the parking lot, but the access to A&P, Subway, BK, Blockbuster, and a slew of delis, pizza places, liquor stores, etc. all within walking distance more than makes up for it.

So I went into the Rite-Aid with a coworker for the first time the other day. When we were standing on line, I noticed the purchases of a woman in front of us. She was normal looking. Not heavy, not skinny, mid-length brown hair, and somewhere around 30. She was buying two bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (buy one get one 50% off) and a box of Alli. I thought it was some sort of feminine hygiene product, or maybe fancy pants salon style hair care stuff. Then I did my research. It’s a weight loss pill.

So tell me this, couldn’t she have saved a lot of money by skipping the candy and the pills? I mean, isn’t one just offsetting the other? Maybe she should have gone next door and bought a freakin’ apple and called it a day.

But it did make me think of a funny story, so we won’t be too mean and judgemental. Just a little.

Spoiler alert for Carol’s B-day!

That’s right! If you are my wife, you should stop reading now. 

Okay, I’m whispering here because I don’t want Carol to hear, but I just made  a few plans for her birthday towards the end of October. The last few years have been pretty rough during the holidays for all sorts of reasons. This year, finally, we’re all looking forward to lots of family time.

I’ve got a little something in the works, and I’m psyched. I hate waiting to give presents. I get all excited and pop my cork too soon, most of the time. Maybe I need to think about baseball or something.

Anyway, it’s not like anything major. Like, nothing that would require passports or travel insurance or worrying about wearing comfortable shoes…probably not even overnight baby sitting, but hopefully it will be a decent surprise.

Now, don’t tell her I was talking about this. I just needed an outlet so I don’t up and blow the surprise too soon. And getting it out here helps keep me from telling Jake (who is a sieve when it comes to secrets) or walking around the house chanting “I know something you don’t know.”

Back Bacon

So we’re putting in a wood stove. I figure we can either pay the oil companies thousands of dollars to heat our home this winter, or we can take advantage of our three plus acres of trees – many already on the ground – to heat our home. Yeah, it costs some bucks to put in the stove, but I’d rather give that money to Tim the stove guy.

And here’s a tasty tidbit I picked up while stove shopping – did you know that a fallen tree rotting in the woods produces more noxious junk than if you burn it in a proper wood stove. Holy crap! Environmentally sound combustion! There’s got to be a flaming tree-hugger joke in here somewhere…but that wasn’t my point.

See, the best place for our super efficient wood stove is the corner where our highly inefficient wood burning fireplace was. I say was, because it’s gone. It was a corner fireplace. The fireplace and angled-off corner are now gone, replaced by a proper corner and a lovely bluestone stove pad. Demolition is awesome.

While removing the old fireplace and tearing down it’s surrounding wall to make room for the new stove, I had to work around the protruding chimney apparatus that will be removed and replaced. A few nights ago, as I was finishing up, I stood and scratched my back against the metal bracing. I got a nasty, long, scratch that made a bloody welt.

And damn, when I looked in the mirror I realized I am hiding a lot of freaking fat back there. Seriously, I need some good old 80’s style diet pills. I need to pull an Alex P. Keaton (on Family Ties – you remember that episode, right?). I had to ask Carol to put some antibiotic cream on there and I was seriously embarrassed. It’s more or less invisible until you bend just the right way. Someone tell me please, what is the best fat burner? I totally need some.

It’s time to do the South Beach thing again. I’m eating too many french fries lately. And drinking too much wine. But damn, I feel like I have a couple ham hocks over my ass. That just won’t do.

Smart balls, or not so smart…

At the risk of embarrassing myself, I have to share a funny little anecdote. See, Noah was awake at 3:50 this morning. Since he got Carol up at 3:45 yesterday, it was my turn. I argued, negotiated, cajoled, refused, was stern, read 2 stories, reasoned, left, came back, rationalized, left, etc.

We were dowstairs watching Barney at 4:30.

While he ate raisins and drank apple juice, I checked my email and did some surfing. I had several emails about how disappointed my girl is with my tiny penis (yet again). Sigh, and with the holidays here, you think I’d do something to bring her “great big more satisfaction so she stay not go to big dick man with rock hard power.”

There was a product called smart balls. I thought that sounded funny, but I didn’t want to click on a random porn-mail link that takes me to some spyware pumping Thai bordello, so I did a simple search. I came across a sex toy part of Overstock (one of my favorite shopping sites) with lots of customer reviews. Never found smart balls, but just before the rest of the family got up, I came across a glass dildo.

Several reviews complained that it was cold, and they weren’t convinced that it was really glass. Popular opinion was that it was acrylic. Here’s the funny part. Someone complained about the meager instructions. Apparently she needed some help with the, um, usage.

Now maybe it’s just surly Mr. 4AM speaking here, but should we really be selling a dildo to someone who needs a fucking roadmap to use it? It’s a dildo. It’s a handheld love rocket. If you can find your own personal “cosmos” in which the love rocket can take flight…

I mean…damn.