Trending
While my wife spends a week with her sister at a beachside resort in Florida, here I am, a husband left home alone.
"Daddy, what will you do all week by yourself?" asked my daughter Shark.
"Watch soaps and eat bonbons," I said, my usual evasive answer.
Just between you, me and the fence post, as my mother Ol' Food would say, I haven't decided how I'm going to spend my precious unsupervised week.
It's certain that I'll not be doing what Honey and her sister are doing, which is watching the Hallmark Channel and working jigsaw puzzles for seven days.
Neither will I be doing what I had planned to do for my annual Wife's Away Secret Major Project: demolish and rebuild the interior of the dormer in the loft. Honey already sniffed out that plan and nixed it.
"If you were thinking about starting on the drywall upstairs, please don't," she said. "It will be a horrible mess and I'm not ready for it."
I wanted to get started on the dormer because while it may be messy is the easiest place to start the big job of repairing and painting the ceiling of our dome house.
You could," my wife added helpfully, "clean off your table in the basement."
"Ummm. Maybe," I said, thinking to myself, "No! Not the table in the basement! I'll chew off my arm first."
You may ask yourself why I like to undertake major projects while my wife is on her annual Sister Southern Sabbatical. Well, I like to work, and I like to surprise my wife. She hates surprises.
Instead of starting a big project, I suppose I could watch endless political commentary and a multi-part history on World War I. I could play Leon Russell and Steely Dan CDs all day at full volume, eat ice cream from the carton and wear the same clothes all week.
I would be doing those things anyhow.
I could invite my old buddies over at night to drink beer and watch "The Godfather." The problem is my old buddies are actually that: old. Those who aren't recuperating from bypass surgery or a hip replacement aren't allowed to drive after dark. I'm not in great shape myself.
I think that deep down my wife appreciates the Secret Major Projects I accomplish while she's away, like when I rebuilt the deck. The project can't be something she suggests. Cleaning off my table in the basement would please her but just suck the joy out of my week.
Honey called on their first morning at Daytona Beach.
"It's 70 degrees here," she said. "Out our front window I can see waves crashing on the beach."
"The temperature here is 20 degrees, 8 with the wind chill," I replied. "Out our front window I see 14 turkey vultures on a deer carcass."
Maybe I shouldn't even try to do a Secret Major Project this time. Hey, where can a guy get some bonbons?