Saturday morning I was supposed to donate blood, platelets in particular. I had an 8:30 appointment with City of Hope and I was right on time, then I read the list of items that excludes you from donating blood: having a cold or the flu, recent piercings...tattoos. I had to tell the lady I got a tattoo in February so I'm not able to donate blood for another 5 months.
On the way home my cellphone buzzed to tell me I'd missed a call from the in-laws but they hadn't left a message. When I got home they'd left a message on our machine asking for Liz's help but she was still sleeping so JE and I played video games for a while.
The in-laws called again around 10am and Liz took the call; their TV had died and they wanted our help buying a new one. I had to violate a personal rule of mine not to set foot in a shopping center between Thanksgiving and New Years just to help the in-laws get a new TV. I did insist that I couldn't carry it (my left arm is still f'd up, torn muscles take a looooong time to heal) and that they'd have to get the TV delivered. I was angling for an online purchase but it wasn't going to happen; the in-laws wanted to visit a brick & stone store and they wanted me along for my "expert" advice, which consisted of me looking at TVs and picking out the cheapest one with the clearest picture. They got a 27" Sony Flatscreen (not Flat Panel, old style bulky CRT but in a Flat Screen) with an insanely sharp picture for just $300. Next to our old Toshiba (newer model of our old TV) it looked amazing. I'm jealous. Liz found a big screen TV online last night for cheap (for a big screen) but we resisted...I think...I wonder if she still went ahead and bought it. I did tell her to :D
The FIL asked how much for delivery and was told $50. That's too much for him and we have the SUV with us (why didn't we drive my Focus?!?!) so he says we'll take it. I repeat to Liz that there's no way I can carry the TV, or even help carry the TV, not into their house nor upstairs where they'll want it. My arm will heal on its own, slowly, but it will heal; if I attempt to pick up something as heavy as a TV I'm gonna need surgery to repair a badly torn muscle. Liz assures me it's ok and the in-laws say they'll take care of it, but I'm still skeptical.
At this point JE is begging to play some video games like we'd promised him, so I give my Credit Card to Liz and take him over to the video game section. Only a couple of systems are hooked up and of course they've all got people playing them or waiting for them, and none of the games are what JE would enjoy playing. We get to the big screen TV with the PS2 and Guitar Hero II (it's a guitar playing equivalent of Dance Dance Revolution) and there's two young boys, maybe 10 or so, jamming away to Police's "Message in a bottle". The song finishes and the boys choose another song and jam away some more. Then that song finishes and one boy asks the kid standing behind him if he wants to play. This kid shakes his head so the kid turns back to the game and chooses "Message in a bottle" again. I ask if one of them is going to let JE have a turn. Now suddenly neither kid wants to give up his guitar and they start arguing among themselves but finally the first kid relents and hands his guitar over to JE and he starts playing.
Then my cell phone rings and it's Liz is telling me to come outside to help. I tell her I'm not helping because I'm not lifting the TV, not even with help from a clerk. Liz tells me she needs help getting the doo-hicky thingamajiggy off from the back parcel area. It's kind of a retractable privacy thingy you can pull out to cover stuff in the back so people can't see what's in there and be tempted to break into your car, unless they're a bastard and they want to break in to see what's under the cover. Now the privacy thingy pops in and out of its fitted sockets like a toilet roll holder but Liz doesn't know this and the TV won't fit into the back of our SUV with the privacy cover still in place. We have a little discussion over the phone with her telling me to come out and me telling her I'm not coming out because JE just got a turn on the game and I'm not leaving him by himself and I'm not pulling him off the game because he just got on so someone needs to come in to the store to relieve me. Finally Liz and the MIL arrive so I go out and here is the TV in the back of our SUV. The FIL worked out how to remove the privacy cover thingy on his own and he and the clerk loaded the TV, so I go off and park and we go back into the store only to meet Liz, JE & the MIL coming out.
On the way home Liz tells me the MIL wanted to buy Guitar Hero for JE, until Liz told her that she'd need to buy a PS2 as well. I'd totally do it although you really need a second guitar (only one comes with the game) so you're looking at around $250 all up just to play Guitar Hero. But then I'd also have a PS2 ;)
At the in-laws the MIL wheels out this dolly and we slide the TV onto it and wheel it into their house with little hassle, except for JE getting upset when he tried to help us get the TV in the front door and we asked him to move, loudly, because we panicked and didn't want him to get squished by a TV three times his size. So he ran and threw himself facedown on their sofa and cried far onger than I thought was necessary so he was probably just milking it because we're at the in-laws and they let him get away with that crap, but it doesn't happen in my house. Ok, so it does, it just doesn't go on anywhere near as long as it does at the in-laws.
We left the kids with the in-laws and Liz and I stopped for lunch at a local steakhouse/sportsbar and despite it being high noon the place was almost empty. It got a little busier but not much, unlike the Best Buy which had people all over the place. I figure everyone was too busy shopping to stop and eat. After lunch Liz tried to talk me into going shopping (again) but I had to put my foot down. I told her if she wanted to go shopping she could drop me at home then go out by herself. Liz said if we went home she wouldn't want to come back out. Then the cunning woman tried a different strategy. "Let's do something together," she said. "Like what," I said, giving her a suspicious look. Yep, I could see it in her eyes. Her "something together" is almost inevitably shopping, which involves me following her around her stores at a mall until she tells me to stop following her, so then I sit down and wait for her to finish at that store and off we go to another store where I sit down and watch her and the other women shop, most of whom also have a miserable looking guy in tow who you can tell really doesn't want to be there but he also fell for the old "Let's do something together" idea. If we stop at my stores (video games of course ;) it takes barely a minute before Liz gets bored and wants to leave to continue shopping at her stores.
Women think we don't get it. Oh we get it, alright. You love shopping. But it's not just shopping, it's browsing through an endless supply of clothes which you pick out and carry around then either try on but leave with the changing room clerk, or you don't try them on and just leave them on a nearby clothes rack, or you just buy them. Then you visit the next store and the cycle repeats. And when you get home you leave everything you bought in the bag with the receipt, and next week when you go shopping the first thing you do is visit these same stores and return everything you bought last week!!! Then once more you wander around the stores, picking out several items which you either try on and discard, or just discard, or buy but not wear and return the following week. And the cycle continues.
Oh yeah, we get it alright. We may not understand why you do it, but we still get this thing you call "shopping".
What we don't get is why you don't get that not only don't we want to be there, but we don't have to be there. This is not quality time we're spending here. This is not dinner and a movie. This is not watching a live sports game (which, by the way, if you told us you didn't want to go, we wouldn't make you). This is shopping. And it's not even shopping, it's Shopping According to Woman ®. And while you may ask our opinion while we're participating in this thing you call Shopping, you don't really want or even accept our opinion; you'll still buy (or not buy) whatever you've picked out, and then you'll come back next week and return it.
See what we really don't get is when we ask you to come to the ballgame with us and you say ok, even though you hate baseball and really don't want to be there. Then you ask us to go shopping and unlike you, we let you know that we don't want to be there, but we're still expected to go along because you went to the ballgame even though you didn't want to, so now we're expected to return the favor.
Newflash! If you don't want to go to the ballgame, just say No! We're not going to hold it against you! We'll still go, unless you ask us not to (and we will hold that against you), but if you don't want to go to the ballgame just say so. Now maybe you do want to go, and that's great, but that still doesn't mean we want to go or have to go shopping with you...even though most of us still do, but we don't enjoy it (and you can't make us!) and instead we could be home reading the paper or watching the TV or on the computer or hanging out with our guy friends.
So you don't want to go the ballgame with us, but you go anyway, and we don't want to go shopping with you, but we go anyway, so we're both doing things with each other that we both don't enjoy, and we just suffer through them, and we call that Quality Time.
I think Jerry Seinfeld said it best, "What's up with that?"
Quality time is time spent doing something both parties enjoy doing. If the woman doesn't enjoy going to the ballgame, that's not quality time even if she's there with her guy because she's not enjoying herself. Quality time is not time spent shopping with the wife because now the guy is not enjoying himself. If the woman wants to go shopping why is the guy forced to come along? Oh, you don't force us, no, you just get all pouty and mope around until we give in. If you want to go shopping then just go already! Knock yourself out. You'll probably enjoy yourself more without us tagging along. But don't think we don't get it. Don't think we don't know the real reason you want us there. You just need someone to carry around the stuff you've bought. We get it alright.
On the way home my cellphone buzzed to tell me I'd missed a call from the in-laws but they hadn't left a message. When I got home they'd left a message on our machine asking for Liz's help but she was still sleeping so JE and I played video games for a while.
The in-laws called again around 10am and Liz took the call; their TV had died and they wanted our help buying a new one. I had to violate a personal rule of mine not to set foot in a shopping center between Thanksgiving and New Years just to help the in-laws get a new TV. I did insist that I couldn't carry it (my left arm is still f'd up, torn muscles take a looooong time to heal) and that they'd have to get the TV delivered. I was angling for an online purchase but it wasn't going to happen; the in-laws wanted to visit a brick & stone store and they wanted me along for my "expert" advice, which consisted of me looking at TVs and picking out the cheapest one with the clearest picture. They got a 27" Sony Flatscreen (not Flat Panel, old style bulky CRT but in a Flat Screen) with an insanely sharp picture for just $300. Next to our old Toshiba (newer model of our old TV) it looked amazing. I'm jealous. Liz found a big screen TV online last night for cheap (for a big screen) but we resisted...I think...I wonder if she still went ahead and bought it. I did tell her to :D
The FIL asked how much for delivery and was told $50. That's too much for him and we have the SUV with us (why didn't we drive my Focus?!?!) so he says we'll take it. I repeat to Liz that there's no way I can carry the TV, or even help carry the TV, not into their house nor upstairs where they'll want it. My arm will heal on its own, slowly, but it will heal; if I attempt to pick up something as heavy as a TV I'm gonna need surgery to repair a badly torn muscle. Liz assures me it's ok and the in-laws say they'll take care of it, but I'm still skeptical.
At this point JE is begging to play some video games like we'd promised him, so I give my Credit Card to Liz and take him over to the video game section. Only a couple of systems are hooked up and of course they've all got people playing them or waiting for them, and none of the games are what JE would enjoy playing. We get to the big screen TV with the PS2 and Guitar Hero II (it's a guitar playing equivalent of Dance Dance Revolution) and there's two young boys, maybe 10 or so, jamming away to Police's "Message in a bottle". The song finishes and the boys choose another song and jam away some more. Then that song finishes and one boy asks the kid standing behind him if he wants to play. This kid shakes his head so the kid turns back to the game and chooses "Message in a bottle" again. I ask if one of them is going to let JE have a turn. Now suddenly neither kid wants to give up his guitar and they start arguing among themselves but finally the first kid relents and hands his guitar over to JE and he starts playing.
Then my cell phone rings and it's Liz is telling me to come outside to help. I tell her I'm not helping because I'm not lifting the TV, not even with help from a clerk. Liz tells me she needs help getting the doo-hicky thingamajiggy off from the back parcel area. It's kind of a retractable privacy thingy you can pull out to cover stuff in the back so people can't see what's in there and be tempted to break into your car, unless they're a bastard and they want to break in to see what's under the cover. Now the privacy thingy pops in and out of its fitted sockets like a toilet roll holder but Liz doesn't know this and the TV won't fit into the back of our SUV with the privacy cover still in place. We have a little discussion over the phone with her telling me to come out and me telling her I'm not coming out because JE just got a turn on the game and I'm not leaving him by himself and I'm not pulling him off the game because he just got on so someone needs to come in to the store to relieve me. Finally Liz and the MIL arrive so I go out and here is the TV in the back of our SUV. The FIL worked out how to remove the privacy cover thingy on his own and he and the clerk loaded the TV, so I go off and park and we go back into the store only to meet Liz, JE & the MIL coming out.
On the way home Liz tells me the MIL wanted to buy Guitar Hero for JE, until Liz told her that she'd need to buy a PS2 as well. I'd totally do it although you really need a second guitar (only one comes with the game) so you're looking at around $250 all up just to play Guitar Hero. But then I'd also have a PS2 ;)
At the in-laws the MIL wheels out this dolly and we slide the TV onto it and wheel it into their house with little hassle, except for JE getting upset when he tried to help us get the TV in the front door and we asked him to move, loudly, because we panicked and didn't want him to get squished by a TV three times his size. So he ran and threw himself facedown on their sofa and cried far onger than I thought was necessary so he was probably just milking it because we're at the in-laws and they let him get away with that crap, but it doesn't happen in my house. Ok, so it does, it just doesn't go on anywhere near as long as it does at the in-laws.
We left the kids with the in-laws and Liz and I stopped for lunch at a local steakhouse/sportsbar and despite it being high noon the place was almost empty. It got a little busier but not much, unlike the Best Buy which had people all over the place. I figure everyone was too busy shopping to stop and eat. After lunch Liz tried to talk me into going shopping (again) but I had to put my foot down. I told her if she wanted to go shopping she could drop me at home then go out by herself. Liz said if we went home she wouldn't want to come back out. Then the cunning woman tried a different strategy. "Let's do something together," she said. "Like what," I said, giving her a suspicious look. Yep, I could see it in her eyes. Her "something together" is almost inevitably shopping, which involves me following her around her stores at a mall until she tells me to stop following her, so then I sit down and wait for her to finish at that store and off we go to another store where I sit down and watch her and the other women shop, most of whom also have a miserable looking guy in tow who you can tell really doesn't want to be there but he also fell for the old "Let's do something together" idea. If we stop at my stores (video games of course ;) it takes barely a minute before Liz gets bored and wants to leave to continue shopping at her stores.
Women think we don't get it. Oh we get it, alright. You love shopping. But it's not just shopping, it's browsing through an endless supply of clothes which you pick out and carry around then either try on but leave with the changing room clerk, or you don't try them on and just leave them on a nearby clothes rack, or you just buy them. Then you visit the next store and the cycle repeats. And when you get home you leave everything you bought in the bag with the receipt, and next week when you go shopping the first thing you do is visit these same stores and return everything you bought last week!!! Then once more you wander around the stores, picking out several items which you either try on and discard, or just discard, or buy but not wear and return the following week. And the cycle continues.
Oh yeah, we get it alright. We may not understand why you do it, but we still get this thing you call "shopping".
What we don't get is why you don't get that not only don't we want to be there, but we don't have to be there. This is not quality time we're spending here. This is not dinner and a movie. This is not watching a live sports game (which, by the way, if you told us you didn't want to go, we wouldn't make you). This is shopping. And it's not even shopping, it's Shopping According to Woman ®. And while you may ask our opinion while we're participating in this thing you call Shopping, you don't really want or even accept our opinion; you'll still buy (or not buy) whatever you've picked out, and then you'll come back next week and return it.
See what we really don't get is when we ask you to come to the ballgame with us and you say ok, even though you hate baseball and really don't want to be there. Then you ask us to go shopping and unlike you, we let you know that we don't want to be there, but we're still expected to go along because you went to the ballgame even though you didn't want to, so now we're expected to return the favor.
Newflash! If you don't want to go to the ballgame, just say No! We're not going to hold it against you! We'll still go, unless you ask us not to (and we will hold that against you), but if you don't want to go to the ballgame just say so. Now maybe you do want to go, and that's great, but that still doesn't mean we want to go or have to go shopping with you...even though most of us still do, but we don't enjoy it (and you can't make us!) and instead we could be home reading the paper or watching the TV or on the computer or hanging out with our guy friends.
So you don't want to go the ballgame with us, but you go anyway, and we don't want to go shopping with you, but we go anyway, so we're both doing things with each other that we both don't enjoy, and we just suffer through them, and we call that Quality Time.
I think Jerry Seinfeld said it best, "What's up with that?"
Quality time is time spent doing something both parties enjoy doing. If the woman doesn't enjoy going to the ballgame, that's not quality time even if she's there with her guy because she's not enjoying herself. Quality time is not time spent shopping with the wife because now the guy is not enjoying himself. If the woman wants to go shopping why is the guy forced to come along? Oh, you don't force us, no, you just get all pouty and mope around until we give in. If you want to go shopping then just go already! Knock yourself out. You'll probably enjoy yourself more without us tagging along. But don't think we don't get it. Don't think we don't know the real reason you want us there. You just need someone to carry around the stuff you've bought. We get it alright.
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3 comments:
yeah yeah
from carrying amber around, when we went to travle town. up, down, up down to various trains. yeah, he is getting old *grin*
Yeah, I don't think I posted about that. It was a hot day and the old steam engines are made of iron which can get pretty hot. The first engine that I lifted Amber up into she knelt down touching her hands on the cabin floor and just started screaming. I touched the floor and it was bloody hot even for me. From then on I held her in my right arm and used my left arm to pull the two of us up into the cabin, and in doing so I managed to pull (tear) my left tricep.
It had slowly been getting better until last weekend at Liz's cousin's house when I had a turn on their PS2's I-Toy. I played the soccer game, which made me the goalie and I had to physically move around and use my arms to "block" the shots on goal. When I "blocked" one overhead shot my left arm said "You shouldn't have done that," and it was right, I shouldn't have. Now it's worse than before.
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