Me: I need a new pair of blue slacks. These are falling apart.
TR: What size do you wear?
Me: Between a 34 and a 36. So 35, I guess… but they don’t make odd sizes.
TR: They do, they just don’t make many of them, so they’re hard to find.
Me: Yeah. I think the ratio’s like 50 to 1.
TR: Something like that.
Me: Or, more likely, every few hundred pairs of pants, some worker measures wrong, and they go “Oops. Can’t throw those out, slap a 35 label on it.”
Me: Hon, I’ve been thinking I’d like to get a Wacom tablet.
TR: That would be cool. I think you should.
Me: Really?
TR: I’ll tell you what. You can get a Wacom tablet, if you let me buy a new couch and love seat.
Me: Let me get this straight. If I let you spend $1500 on something you want, you’ll let me spend $300 on something I want?
TR: Yep.
Me: That sounds fair.
I was heading home when my wife called me and asked if I’d stop at Del Taco and get her some nachos for dinner. She had been sick for a couple of days and housebound, and I was going to pass right by a Del Taco so it was no trouble. I pulled into the parking lot and headed into the restaurant while she was still on the phone.
“Can I help you?” Asked the cashier when it was my turn to order.
I held up a finger and mouthed “Just a sec.” to the cashier.
“Okay, what did you want?” I asked into the phone. TR can be very particular about how her food is made, so I wanted to get it just right.
“Macho Nachos.” She told me.
“I need an order of Macho Nachos.” I told the cashier.
“What kind?” She asked me.
“What kind?” I said into the phone.
“Just the regular kind, with the taco meat.” TR said.
“Taco meat.” I told the cashier, who punched a few buttons on the register. “What else?” I said into the phone.
“Add guacamole and salsa.” TR told me.
I repeated that to the cashier, who punched a few more buttons. “Anything else?”
“Anything else?” I asked TR.
“Does that come with sour cream?”
“I dunno… does that come with sour cream?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good. That’ll do it.”
“Okay. That’ll do it.” I said to the cashier.
She punched a few buttons and gave me my total.
“Will that be for here?”
I’m so glad there is a fast food industry. I can’t imagine what the unemployment rate would be without it.
I live in dirt. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true. If you’ve ever been to the Mojave Desert, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Most of the Mojave is made up of dirt. And it’s not fun dirt, either. It’s dry and hard and nothing grows in it except for weeds and Joshua trees. I wash my car, and two days later it looks like it’s never been cleaned. I had to dump a ton of soil in our yard just to grow some grass. You get the picture.
I also live in wind. The winds in the High Desert of California are legendary. You’d think that having a nice breeze blowing through would be a good thing, cool things down and such, but it’s not. The wind is hard and unsteady, stopping intermittently only to start again and blow all that much harder. You can almost hear the wind god turn his head, inhale and then turn back to exhale with a loud “SSshhhhhhshhhhhheeeeeeeeeewwwwww.” Then he turns his head and starts the whole process all over again. I tried flying a kite in this wind once. The kite sailed up into the air. Then the wind died and it started to plummet. Then the wind started up again, and instead of sending the kite back up into the air, it grabbed it and threw it to the ground. I could almost see the face of the wind god laughing maniacally. I know I heard him as I picked up the broken pieces of $3.99 Kmart Special. The gods only think they have a sense of humor.
When wind and dirt get together, it’s not pretty. I was sitting in my living room one Saturday afternoon and heard a loud BOOM and sort of a whooshing noise. I looked out the front window to see that a dust devil the size of the Chrysler Building had just attacked our house and was moving onto my neighbor’s. I went outside and found that the swing set had been upended and my entire house was covered in a thick layer of dirt, along with miscellaneous bits of trash. That was fun to clean up.
I mention all of this simply because I wanted to give some context for this story. This week my wife landed a job teaching kindergarten at a local elementary school. She’s very excited, but also a bit stressed because the school year starts on Monday and she needs to get her classroom ready quickly. Yesterday she brought two metal bookshelves home from her classroom that she intended to spray paint in bright red and blue colors. Because her time is limited, she wanted to get it done right away. However, it was very windy outside, and I told her that it probably wasn’t a good idea to spray paint outside. I was worried that the paint would blow all over her, all over the yard, all over the house, etc. I was also worried that dirt might get blown all over the wet paint. I suggested that she put down some newspaper and paint them in the garage. She didn’t think it was such a great idea, but was willing to defer to my obviously expert opinion on the matter.
Half an hour later I was in the bedroom reading when I felt that strange burning sensation I get when I’m being glared at angrily. I looked up from my book to find my wife boring a hole in my forehead using nothing but her eyes.
“What’s wrong, Snookums?” I don’t know why I resort to pet names when I know I’m in trouble. It’s never had the intended effect.
“You… told… me… to… paint… in… the… garage…” Her voice was cold, but obviously restrained. I could tell I was on shaky ground.
“Um. What happened?” I asked with as much innocence in my voice as I could possibly muster.
“Follow me!”
Obediently I got up and followed her into the garage. A red haze hung in the air. Not only that, but everything in the garage now had a red tint to it – the areas of floor not covered by newspaper, the kids’ bikes, some laundry piled up by the washing machine, a few boxes, everything.
“Um. Sorry?” I ventured.
I won’t elaborate on what followed, I’m trying to put it behind me. Suffice to say that I now not only live in dirt, I also feel like dirt… At least I’m in my native element.
