Insert Automated Title Here

I think the automated checkout lady at our grocery store hates me.  Then again, I think she might hate everyone.

It seems like automated checkout lines are getting more popular.  I see them at most grocery stores, Wal-Marts, etc.  When they first set them up in our grocery store, the automated voice lady seemed pleasant enough, and it was a nice change of pace from using the human-operated lines.  Our local humans are often unpleasant or generally miserable people, so I don't mind scanning items myself.

But a few months ago they changed the voice behind the automated lane, and I think she sounds a bit cranky.  She has this pompous-sounding inflection in her voice, like she's so smart just because she's invisible and everything.

Not only that, it seems like she makes a point of loudly announcing every item as I'm buying it, which can be a bit annoying.  ("Please re-scan your box of EXTRA SMALL CONDOMS... Please put your box of EXTRA SMALL CONDOMS onto the conveyor belt... Please put your box of EXTRA SMALL CONDOMS into a bag...")

My GPS doesn't talk, thank goodness, but I have always found those voices to be a little unpleasant, too, for the most part.  I think it would be great to be the voice behind those units.  I'd make a point of getting really annoyed with people who miss turns and so forth ("Hey MORON!  You missed the turn.  Now I have to RECALCULATE the route.  Are you HAPPY NOW?")

I'd have a lot of fun as the GPS voice.  I'd also probably try to intentionally steer people into oncoming traffic or lakes, too.  And I'd program it to say things like, "You let that old guy pass you?  Perhaps you should stop and buy a box of EXTRA SMALL CONDOMS!"

Come Sail Away!

I had the opportunity to go sailing last weekend, but I still don't understand the whole thing.

I have cousins who have a sailboat up at Lake Chautauqua in New York, and I had the opportunity to join them for a ride last weekend.  My brother also went along, and he shares my vast knowledge of how to operate a sailboat (not a shred of knowledge, in any form whatsoever).

I love being out on the water, and we even owned a powerboat for well over a decade.  But sailing is a whole different experience.  For one thing, it clearly defies several laws of physics.  The wind pretty much just blows in one direction, yet sailors manage to trick it into allowing them to travel in whatever direction they want.

One would think that you could put up the sail and the wind would take you whichever way it was blowing, and then you'd have to call a buddy to come pick you up in a truck at whatever shore you drifted to.  That's pretty much how it goes with hot air balloons, right?

I have no idea how they accomplish it, but my cousins were able to do some wacky maneuvers to get the boat to go where they wanted.  Sometimes this involved having my brother and me yank on various ropes.  And my cousins knew all of the technical terms for all of these things; they were always mizzening their ballasts through their daggerboards on the port side, or some such thing.

I'm not sure if we were even accomplishing anything by pulling the ropes, or whether our cousins just wanted to make us feel like we were contributing.  Maybe they were having us pull the ropes so we'd stop being inquisitive about stuff ("Hey!  What does THIS thing do?!").  Whatever the case, here it is, four days later, and my right arm still hurts from pulling on one of the ropes.

While out on a boat I generally like to relax and take in the scenery, but you don't get to do a whole lot of that while sailing.  Mostly I spent my time worrying about whether this gigantic mast was going to swing over and knock me out of the boat, which turned out to be a pretty valid concern.

At one point, one of the Andys (everyone on the boat except for me and my brother was named Andy) decided to turn around, which meant swinging the giant mast thing around.  And when they swing that thing around, you have to duck under it and move to the other side of the boat.

Or you can do like I did.  You can sit there and contemplate a route to the other side, and at the very last nanosecond duck under the mast and get stuck in a very awkward yet hilarious position while all of the Andys and my brother howl with laughter.

We did somehow make it back to the dock in one piece, and I honestly did enjoy and appreciate the experience.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go take a dinghy.

Socks of Doom

I had a harrowing experience with a pair of socks the other day.  It was so bad that I felt it was worthy of a blog entry.  That, and I haven't had anything better to blog about for a couple weeks, apparently.

So I went on a weekend excursion which involved a lot of Geocaching.  If you're not familiar with Geocaching, it's basically a sport in which we use billions of dollars of government-owned equipment to help us find tupperware containers in the woods, some of which contain valuable toys from McDonald's.  It can also involve a great deal of hiking.

I spent most of the day on Friday finding caches up around St. Marys, PA, and I wasn't going to let the fact that it was pouring down rain stop me from finding my tupperware. At the end of the day, I was rather extremely moist, and in retrospect I should have simply abandoned my clothing -- especially my drenched socks -- in the woods, or set fire to all of it, or something.  As a side note, as I was hiking through the woods, on two separate occasions I found pairs of underwear in the middle of nowhere.  I'm not sure what goes on in those woods.

Anyway, instead of burning those clothes, I stuck them in a secret compartment in the back of my Prius.  There's a little "cubbyhole" kind of thing in the hatch, convenient for keeping bug spray, windshield cleaner, illegal aliens, WD-40, etc.  This is where I tossed the Socks of Doom for the weekend.

I came home on Monday night after spending a couple days in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, and it was pretty warm for most of that time.  When it came time to extract the socks from the car, I was concerned that they might stink a little since I could already smell them a bit while I was driving.  But nothing prepared me for the amazing stench I was about to endure.

Remember the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the Nazi dudes were standing there around the ark, and with great anticipation they opened it up and these demons came bursting out, all honked off?  And the faces of the Nazis melted right off as the demons roared into the sky?  I think my socks were actually a little worse than the demons.  I managed to hold my breath as I held them away from my body as I literally ran them to the basement to toss them into the washing machine.  And now they're clean again.

Beyond that, there really isn't a real point or moral to the story.  But then again, I rarely have a point, do I?

Extreme Mediocrity

I don't mean to brag here, but once upon a time I was extremely mediocre at playing tennis.  Nowadays it kinda stinks because I can rarely find anyone to play with.  So I am making it my mission to train Little Smoot to be my new competition.

At the pace we're going, she'll be getting really good right around the same time that I will be dead, but that's not going to deter me.  Actually, she has made some decent progress in these past few days, so I am rather encouraged.  She does have the world's worst teacher, after all.

I tried to teach Mrs. Smoot how to play tennis a number of years ago, and it ended up being one of those famous instances where we almost drove straight to the divorce lawyer afterward.  I am not a patient teacher when it comes to anything, let alone tennis.  I just expect that people should be able to pick up a racket and automatically know how to hit a ball over a net.  But that just doesn't seem to be the case.

Mrs. Smoot will also be more than happy to tell you about the time I attempted to teach her how to drive a manual transmission car, but that's an entirely different near-divorce attorney story.  And the heck of that story is that we were already in the car, and I'm sure she would have driven us straight to the attorney's office if she had any idea how to get the car out of first gear.

Anyway, I finally got a chance to play tennis this morning against my brother.  The two of us used to spend our entire summers on the court (the tennis court, not divorce court).  We'd ride our bikes all the way into town, play tennis for a few hours, and then go grab a bite to eat at a place that served food so greasy that it would easily counteract all of the exercise we had gotten.

I am happy to say that I was still able to play in a seriously mediocre fashion, judging from our matches this morning.  Unfortunately, my brother was able to play a level or two above mediocre, and he handed my butt to me on a platter.  Things went quickly downhill after I dove for a ball and did a very impressive face plant right into the net.

During this beautiful play I did manage to get the ball over the net, and with my nose still pressed on the ground I was still able to ask my brother whether I had scored.  Of course it turns out he was able to return the ball into my side of the court, in bounds, even while laughing himself silly.

At least I can still beat Little Smoot.  For now.

It's in One of the Conditions

I have been known to do some odd things in my sleep.  When I was little I fell asleep on the toilet one time, which is really kinda convenient if you think about it.

I have also awakened myself with the loudness of my own snoring.  Come to think of it, there was one time when my brother threw a pillow at me while we were staying at a hotel, and then he yelled at me for snoring.  As serious as could be, I answered him by saying, "How could I be snoring if I'm sitting here talking to you?"  It made sense at the time.

But I would like to point out that I'm not the only one who has weird nocturnal issues.  One time, shortly after we got married, I was trying to find a pair of scissors in our apartment late at night, and I went in to wake Mrs. Smoot to ask her where where I could find them.  She appeared to be perfectly awake when I asked her about the scissors, but she responded by saying, "They're in there."

"Uh, where?" I responded.  "They're in there!" she replied again.  "WHERE?!" I asked impatiently, apparently because I really needed to cut something.  "They're in one of the conditions."  Finally, I knew where to find the scissors.  They were in one of the conditions.  I gave up on cutting anything that night.

But my favorite sleepy Mrs. Smoot story was the night when she sat bolt upright all of a sudden in the middle of the night.  She calmly looked around for a moment and then said, "H-o-l-y $%#&!"  And then her head fell back to the pillow and she was sound asleep again.  Of course I was up for quite a while wondering exactly what had just happened.

Mrs. Smoot will be glad to tell you that I am much more annoying and bizarre late at night, and I've done much weirder things while being asleep.  To her I offer these words:  Get your own blog!  It's in one of the conditions.

The Mucus Permeates the Cavern

We were at church last Sunday morning, and a few minutes before the service started, one of our church leaders approached me in the narthex and quietly said, "If you see Grant, please tell him 'the monkey is up front.'"

Naturally when I heard this, I was pretty excited.  Judging from the tone of his voice, facial expressions, etc., I could tell that this was a very top secret communique, and that I should treat this message very seriously.  I excitedly and immediately began to search for Grant, who is a member of our youth group.

Sure enough, I found Grant in the back of the church, and I pulled him aside so I could deliver the message.  As quietly and carefully as I had received the message, I passed it along to Grant in the same way:  "The monkey is up front," I told him.  Grant nodded, and began to walk way.

I didn't want to pester him, or risk breaching national security or anything, but of course I really wanted to know the meaning of all of this.  So I just came right out and asked him whether this was some sort of secret code phrase, like the type of thing they may have used back in the old days to warn troops that an enemy force was approaching, or how they might communicate the timing of an attack or something.

Stone faced, Grant looked and me and said, "No, it's literal."  Turns out there was indeed a literal monkey (in the form of a puppet), and it was in the front of the church.  Grant was in charge of shoving his arm up the monkey's personal region and providing it with a voice during the service as a means of promoting our Vacation Bible School week to the kids.

Nonetheless, my enthusiasm for the whole spy communication thing was piqued, and I knew Little Smoot would join me in turning it into something really annoying for anyone around us.  So for the rest of the day, including a long drive to take her to summer camp, we were saying stupid things to each other like, "The crow flies at dawn."  And, "The cashew rests upon the mantle."  And, "The sloth has crawled upon the carpet."  Oh, and let's not forget Little Smoot's favorite one: "The stain is in the underwear."  Of course we both giggle ourselves silly each time we come up with one of these things.

While she was at camp, we were able to send her e-mail messages that would be printed out and delivered to her at the dining hall.  In one of my messages, I concluded by telling her, "The platypus barks in the shadows."  And that was the first thing she said to me when I picked her up from camp yesterday.  I like to think that the camp staff reads these things before giving them to the kids, and they were really wondering what was going on.  Little do they know that I was being literal about the platypus.

Weechers and Bocks

When Little Smoot was a little girl, around age 3, she came up with this song that she would sing when it was raining.  I have no idea where she got the idea for these lyrics, but her song went like this:

"The rain came down... the Weechers had a Bock!"

The tune was pretty catchy -- and short and to the point -- and we really did enjoy listening to her sing it from time to time, but it left us with just a few burning questions.  For one, who are the Weechers?  And what the hell is a Bock?  And why do the Weechers only have Bocks when it's raining?  Can the sun destroy a Bock?  Do the Weechers enjoy the Bocks, or are they bad things?

It goes without saying that I have spent many sleepless nights worrying about the state of affairs with the Weechers, and whether or not they had enough Bocks.  Could there be a Bock shortage?  I have no idea.

She wouldn't tell us much of anything when we quizzed her about these things.  We'd ask her all the time what these things were, and she'd just giggle and refuse to tell us what it meant.  It's like it was some sort of deep secret, and the magnitude of revealing these things could destroy the common fabric of toddlers everywhere.  It was clearly serious stuff.

So I asked her about this again recently.  I figure now that she's 11, surely we have earned her trust to the point where she could tell us the meaning of this song so we can finally get a solid night of sleep around here.  When I asked her about it, she remembered the song just fine, and sang it just like she did seven or eight years ago.

But she claims she has no recollection whatsoever of what a Weecher or a Bock might be.  And I doubt that she would even know who to ask about such a thing.

So I am reaching out to my vast reading audience (both of you) to see if you could please do a little research amongst your three-year-old friends to see if they could shed some light on this subject.  If they won't talk, I am going to have to condone torture in this particular instance.

Summer "Camp"

So we dropped Little Smoot off at summer "camp" this weekend.  I have to keep putting "camp" in quotes, because her version of "camp" this summer is a drastically different-looking experience than what she has done in past years.  And it's a whole HECK of a lot different than when I was a camper, back in the Paleolithic era.

We dropped Little Smoot off on Sunday, expecting that she would be staying in the same sort of cabins where she spent her time the last few years at the same place.  But this time she was assigned to a building that hardly seems like a "camping" experience to me.  In the future, if we visit a fancy Hilton Hotel, she is going to feel let down, compared to her "camping" arrangement this week.

She has a room that she'll share with one other camper and two counselors.  It's modern, nicely furnished and carpeted, has its own private bathroom and shower, and it even has air conditioning for heaven's sake.  Air conditioning!

Let me tell you about the accommodations I had at camp when I was little.  Note that I didn't use quotes around the word camp this time.  We had these musty, cinderblock cabins which were mostly held together by dust and spider webs.  In fact, we often took showers with spiders that were the size of soccer balls.

Our rooms were lit by a few light bulbs that hung down from the rafters, and most of the time only a couple of them actually illuminated when they were turned on.  (Being young adolescent boys, we were always illuminated and turned on, but that's another story entirely.)  And if you were creative, you could actually trap a fellow camper in his sleeping bag and tie him up to the rafters, not that any of us ever did such a thing, of course.

Camp food was another issue entirely.  It was always consistently horrible, and we used to drink "bug juice" with it, which I do believe was made from actual bugs.  Not Little Smoot's camp, though!  I have had the opportunity to be a counselor at her camp for a couple summers, and the food at this camp is not only edible, it's actually GOOD!  They have a fancy little salad bar and everything.

Last summer when I was a counselor there, we stayed in a typical cabin.  It was much fancier than what I had grown accustomed to while growing up, but it was still something I would call camping, without the quotes.  We immediately discovered that something had apparently died in our bathroom, either somewhere in the ceiling, or in the floorboards, and it smelled putrid for the entire week.  But that is camping!

Frankly, when I go back as a counselor next month I am hoping that we'll get the typical old-style cabins that I'm used to... if only because I really think of that as being a big part of the whole summer camp experience.  I have a feeling that when Little Smoot gets home this weekend, we're going to have to put little mints on her pillow for a week or so, just to ease her back into life at home.  Yeesh.

Maker of Labels

I like labeling things.  Always have.

I can remember having one of those old label makers when I was a kid.  Remember the ones where you had to twirl that round thing around to each individual letter, and then squeeze the trigger with all of your might to emboss the letter into the tape?  And then when you screw up a single letter you have to start all over again?  I can attribute my amazing wrist strength to all of the exercise I used to get with that thing.

Nowadays things are much more convenient when it comes to making labels.  I have had a "Brother P-touch" label maker for several years, and it's just awesome.  It has a regular keyboard, so I can just type what I want, and *poof*, out comes a very professional-looking label.

Since it's so easy now, I label everything.  If you look closely in our house, you'll find that there are labels all over the place.  Any time we buy a new appliance or electronic gadget (which I tend to do almost weekly) I always label the date on it, along with where we bought it.  This way, I can see how long our stuff lasts without having to guess when we bought it.

I have even labeled some of our new, allegedly energy efficient lights to see how long they last.  They claim that they're supposed to be good for many years, but my labels will reveal the truth!  Take that, light manufacturers!

I also labeled the cat the other day.  He didn't seem too enthusiastic about it, but for an hour or so he ran around the house with a label on his tail that said, "CAT."  That way, I knew exactly what type of pet I was looking at, as he ran around in circles in an attempt to remove the label.

I thought I'd share all of this with you in case you ever wanted a reliable way to see how long your various appliances last, or if you want to keep track of what types of pets you have.

A Cat-spiracy

What is it with cats?  I like cats, I really do.  I'm not one of these manly people who won't admit to liking cats because they're more "feminine" sorts of animals.  I like them just fine.  But they really seem to have it in for me.

When I was little we had a cat named Pumpkin.  I don't know what I ever did to honk this cat off, but it was always retaliating against me for some reason.  We had a bean bag chair at my parents' house, and I always enjoyed using it as I watched TV.  And this was one of those vinyl types of beanbag chairs, one that would not simply absorb liquids, if you catch my drift.

It seemed like once a week or so, the damn cat would drink as much water as a feline can handle from its bowl, and she'd take a giant whiz on that beanbag chair.  I know this wasn't a coincidence.  I am absolutely positive that Pumpkin knew precisely when I was heading home from school, and that Three's Company was going to be on soon, and that's where I was going to plop myself.

I can remember one time I watched an entire show before I realized that I had cat whiz covering my body from my armpit down to my knee.  Damn cat.

Nowadays we have a cat, too.  Murray, or "Furry Murray" as we like to call him, is really a great cat.  He is Little Smoot's best buddy.  Little Smoot will go upstairs to go to bed, and if Murray is downstairs, he'll look at the stairs for a second, then he'll leap into action to follow her up to bed.  In the mornings he'll sit there in the bathroom while she gets ready for school.

And he's out to get me.

The other day he decided to barf all over the floor -- a floor he knows I walk on -- just before I was getting Little Smoot off to school.  I am certain that he calculated this, knowing that I had to get the kid off to school, and I didn't have time at that moment to clean this mess up.  And he knew that by the time I got home from dropping her off, I would have forgotten all about it.

And I know that he knew that I was going to be walking around in my bare feet for a bit, and that he had positioned his work in just the right spot so that I'd step directly in it.  And he was right.  I don't know what it sounds like when cats laugh, but I am positive that I heard him chuckling at the same instant I stepped in that treat.  Thanks, Bud.

And the Father of the Year Award Goes to...

I like to think of myself as being a pretty good dad.  Really I do.  But it seems like there are a lot of times when I'm trying extra hard to be a good dad, and that's when I wind up doing the most damage.

Of course we can go back to the summer of 2005 when I took Little Smoot on a super-fun camping trip and she wound up getting run over by a pickup truck, breaking three bones in her foot.  Let's just not go there... but suffice it to say, there's a fine example of trying to be a good dad but ultimately winding up at a hospital.

The other night Little Smoot had softball practice, and she asked me if I'd stay late and do a little more practicing with her.  So my "let's be a great dad" instinct kicked in, and we stuck around and tossed the ball around a bit.  She practiced some batting, and I got it in my head that I should do some batting, too.  You never know when the team might have too few players, and they'll call upon my services to pose as an 11-year-old girl on the team.

Little Smoot headed into the outfield, and I amused myself with my manly ability to smack the ball consistently to the outfield fence with just about every hit.  And Little Smoot would field the ball and throw it back in to me.

Well, you can probably guess where this story is going.  It was just starting to get a little dark, and I was heaving the ball into the outfield in a manly fashion, and one of the balls hit a little rut in the field and took an odd bounce... directly into the path of Little Smoot's nose.

I sprinted into the field as soon as I saw it bonk her in the face, and she looked like a human version of Old Faithful, only instead of spouting water and steam into the air, she was a blood geyser.  I bounced into First Aid mode, trying to figure out how to simultaneously get her to stop bleeding, and figure out how to keep her from ruining the shirt she was wearing since we bought it in Maui and it was one of her new favorites.

It was interesting to try to get her to walk from the outfield all the way to my car with her head tilted backwards and with blood literally dripping from her arms.  Nice job, Dad!

Father's Day is just a couple weeks away.  I'm just hoping that I won't get a lump of coal on this special occasion.

Let the Anxiety Begin

I have a dentist appointment on Thursday.  The folks at my dentist office are actually very nice people, but I still cringe every time I think of them.

Of course I'll attempt to trick them into thinking that I'm an avid flossing fanatic; I'll floss a few times a day between now and then in order to make them think that I've been doing this religiously the last six months.  But they'll see right through that, and she'll whack away at my teeth with that pointy little spear thing of hers.

Mrs. Smoot often wonders what would happen to me if I ever faced an actual, serious medical situation.  I'd probably explode in flames out of pure fear, that's what would happen.  When we watch TV shows that feature blood and stuff, I always ask Mrs. Smoot to add things to the list of stuff I don't want to have done to me.

For example, we love to watch House, but I really get antsy about the stuff that happens under the care of their doctors.  Like the season finale where House had to amputate a woman's leg while she was pinned in a building.  I have had bad dreams about that one for a month or so now.

There was an article in the newspaper a few weeks ago about this great new surgery that allowed doctors to remove brain tumors by going in behind the eye socket.  They were ecstatic about how non-invasive the surgery was, because they could go back there, suck the tumor out, and never have to go through the scalp to get to it.  Cosmetically, it's supposed to be just wonderful, and the healing time is supposed to improve dramatically.

Sounds great, until you realize that they have to pop your eyeball out of your freakin' head, and drill a hole back there, and then say a little prayer that you'll actually be able to regain your vision when they stick your eye back in place.  No thank you.

I know a guy who had to have some sort of horrible, horrible surgery where they had to pop his eyeball out WHILE HE WAS AWAKE.  Just imagine that your vision is being controlled by someone who is pointing your eyeball in different directions for you, and you can't do a thing about it.  And maybe while they're working, they leave your eyeball dangling there and you have no choice but to stare at your own nostril while they do whatever it is they're doing.

And now I have to be even more worried, now that I know that I am apparently the only person who operates my knife and fork with the wrong hands.  Clearly I am lucky to have gone this long without major spleen damage.

All Forked Up

Please help me settle a dispute with Mrs. Smoot.  Hey, that rhymes!

Anyway...

We seem to have a serious difference in opinions about how to use a fork and knife, and as a result, we're probably screwing up Little Smoot's meat carving abilities for life.

First, I should point out that I write left handed, but I do everything else right handed, which instantly makes me a freak of nature to begin with.  I don't dispute that.  I know I'm screwy that way.  Nonetheless, I think Mrs. Smoot's method of cutting and eating food is wrong, counterproductive, and potentially fatal.

Under normal circumstances, I always use my right hand to work my fork.  My method of cutting meat and eating it is pretty simple.  I use my right hand to operate my fork, and my left hand to operate a knife.  So if I cut a piece of steak, I use my left hand to slice it, and my right hand is still in charge of elevating the food from the plate up to my mouth.

Mrs. Smoot does something entirely different.  Like me, she normally uses her right hand to manipulate her fork.  But when it comes time to cut meat, she actually switches her fork to her left hand so she can use her right hand to control her knife.  This seems crazy to me.  It seems to me that even a professionally trained juggler would risk stabbing him or herself in the heart while maneuvering utensils all over the place like that.

Yet this is what Mrs. Smoot is trying to teach Little Smoot to do.

When we die, most of us hope that our obituaries will say that we finished our lives doing something heroic, like saving a young child from drowning in a river, or tossing someone out of the way of a runaway train or whatever.  You don't want it to say "Mrs. Smoot, 40, of Smootville, died in an unnecessary accident involving her spleen and a very sharp knife."

So here's what I am asking you to do.  Go have something for lunch today that involves a knife.  A slice of ham, for example.  Midway through your meal, look down at your hands and see what utensils they're holding, and report back to me.  If you find your knife in your right hand, report back to me quickly before you stab yourself in your heart and/or spleen.

The Fashion Family

It's not just me.

Most people who know me will fondly remember the Easter Sunday when I went to church, greeted numerous people, and then realized that I was inexplicably wearing two ties.  As odd as that was, I am happy to say that I am not the only member of the Smoot clan to have issues with fashion anomalies.

Last night was Little Smoot's band concert, which featured students from three elementary schools, the high school jazz ensemble, and an auditorium that had no air conditioning.

Moments before we were about to head out the door, Mrs. Smoot looked down and realized that she was wearing two different shoes.  This wasn't a case where she had two extremely similar shoes that were technically different, like having a black shoe and a really dark blue shoe.  She has done that before, and even after hearing her say "these shoes don't match," I couldn't tell the difference.

No, these shoes were quite extremely different, almost like wearing a boot on one foot, and a flip-flop on the other.  So she fixed that problem before we left.

And then Little Smoot came down the stairs, all dressed up for her big night of trumpet playing.  But Mrs. Smoot happened to notice that Little Smoot was unknowingly wearing her dress backwards.  Yes, backwards.

Of course neither Mrs. Smoot nor Little Smoot managed to actually go into public with their own wardrobe malfunctions in place, but perhaps that will happen soon.  I just thought it was rather ironic that I was the only person in the house who managed to dress correctly for once.  At least as far as I am aware...

Thank You for Thanking Me!

I think I may have started something that could spiral into a never-ending chain reaction.  I'm a little concerned.

See, when we went to Hawaii, one of the highlights of our trip was an awesome luau on Maui.  We had reserved the luau several months in advance, and we were seated right up front and center as a result of booking so early.  We had the pleasure of sitting with a very nice couple from Wisconsin for the dinner and show.

While we were there, I had taken a photo of this couple, and they asked if I would mind sending them a copy, and I told them I would.  I'm sure they never in a million years expected me to actually send them a print, but I was born with this stupid conscience that would have kept me up at night had I decided to simply blow this off.

So a week or so after we got back from our trip, I mailed them a 5x7 print and a nice note letting them know how much we enjoyed visiting with them that night.

Here it is, a couple weeks later, and I got this mysterious package in today's mail.  Inside was a nice note from them, along with a block of Wisconsin cheese and some locally-made sausage!  Very cool.  I enjoy snacks like that, especially when they come directly from an area that's famous for particular kinds of food like that.  I'd probably be in my glory if someone sent me a fresh potato directly from Idaho, or a fresh bowl of chowder from Boston... or a fry from France.

Now I feel compelled to drop them another note to thank them for their kind gesture.  But what if that prompts them to send me another note, thanking me for thanking them?  Obviously I'd have to send them yet another note, thanking them for thanking me for thanking them, and so it would go on and on.  I just don't envision any possible scenario that involves a peaceful ending.

When I posted this dilemma on Facebook, one of my friends suggested that this is just the kind of gesture that can progress to the point where we exchange cards on holidays forever, and eventually we'll vacation together and ultimately we'll all move into the same retirement village.  I would not be at all surprised.