I often times wondered what my mom did all the time that kept her so busy and made her routinely late. Had I been technologically savvy I would have put a tracking device on her vehicle to determine what the heck she was doing. With her passing almost two years ago, I have spent little to no time wondering where people are or how they are occupying their time, that is up until the Saturday after Thanksgiving I hadn’t. Typically on Saturdays when the weather has turned for the worse I play basketball at 8am and then head home and expect to find everyone dip shitting around when I arrive back there. However, for the past three Saturdays Shirley has been gone when I get home. This past Saturday was an exception to my normal routine, I ended up going to Byron Center to clean my dad’s room at Railside assisted living center, I was unable to get enough commits for a hoop run and my sister had just visited my dad and complained that his room smelled like piss, it must have been real bad because my sister has five kids 7 and under and if anyone should be use to the smell of urine it would be her. When I returned home around noon my two kids were there as well as a friend of theirs, but Shirley was no where to be found. Turns out she was keeping her Lou Gehrig streak of Saturdays spent shopping in tact. One of my brother in laws is a loser and has no friends, well not just one, but one in particular has turned running errands into his one and only hobby besides the hobby of being a loser. I refer to Shirley as that brother in law when she spends hours out running errands. “What did you do today (insert brother-in-law’s name)?” The first Saturday after Thanksgiving she descended on Target and bought a bunch of Christmas shit, we already had too much Christmas shit. The next Saturday she spent going to various stores and returning a lot of the stuff she bought the prior Saturday. This past Saturday she spent most of the day putting together a gift basket for a co-worker who retired (was shit canned). She was incredibly proud of herself and indicated to me when I arrived home just after her around 5pm that she could easily turn creating gift baskets into a vocation. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn’t be quite as lucrative as her current job due to the fact she spent 7 hours running all over West Michigan acquiring shit for the gift basket and her net profit was roughly $3 had she charged the market rate for a gift basket. (I didn’t even factor in gas and wear and tear on her vehicle)

Some of you may ask why did I get home at 5pm? Well, Parker had his friend Cooper over and it was determined that they wanted to go to Launch. Launch is a trampoline park, but way better than Skyzone. Shirley had texted me earlier asking/telling me that I was taking the kids to Launch. I wanted to text back and ask why she couldn’t do it but I was still in my refractory period from earlier that morning and wasn’t as sharp or irritable as normal. One other thing that is different at Launch as opposed to Skyzone besides it being better is that they made me wear a wrist band even though I was not participating in any of the activities. (fortunately they didn’t make me buy their stupid socks, what a racket that is) The bracelet I wore was different from the one given to my kids, which made me wonder do they have another bracelet for men who come by themselves and just sit and watch the kids, one with a GPS monitor in it perhaps? Lately, and this may have happened at Launch, I have been getting “Go Blue” when I am wearing Michigan gear. Now, when I am at a rally and wearing appropriate attire, I know how to respond when someone says “White Power!” I say “White Power!” emphatically right back. But “Go Blue!’ how do you respond to that? With a return “Go Blue!? I find myself saying yes, or just mumbling something indecipherable. It’s become so awkward that I am tempted to cease wearing Michigan gear all together. The alternative would be to become a State fan, I know they never have to hear “Go State!” when they are out and about wearing their gear.

Another place where I have had awkward interactions with strangers is the mall (some of them have actually been because I am wearing Michigan others have not). A week ago my kids demanded that I take them to the mall so they could go Christmas shopping for their cousins. It was all subterfuge as a way to get me to bring them to the mall so they could point out all the shit they wanted to buy me for Christmas. Long gone are the days where a kid would look through a JC penny Catalogue and put together a list with specific page number and item on it in the hopes that the powers that be would actually get them what they wanted and not wing it. As I walked through the mall with my kids I thought to myself “this is awful”. I wouldn’t have thought that pre internet, but knowing that I could just sit at a computer and search for shit and click a button and it would magically appear at my house with the only real consequence being the possibility of my garage filling up with empty card board boxes (why does it take three separate card board boxes to ship one item?) made my trip to the mall unbearable. Another thing that made it tough to swallow was the fact that Torrid and Layne Bryant have decided that humongous posters of fat chicks in lingerie are perfectly acceptable as window displays in their stores. It’s bad enough that I am now suppose to feel bad for fat shaming (I don’t) now I have to see land monsters in lingerie when I go to the mall?

Quickly back to last Saturday, we had a holiday party to attend in the evening and the kids decided that they were ok staying home alone. They are at the perfect age for this, totally enamored by their devices and too young to have girls come over with the hopes of some finger banging. What made us (Shirley) more comfortable with the idea is that we have ring cameras and were able to monitor the kids while at the party. They didn’t really move from the time we left to the time we arrived back home. Electronics are great and eventually if you have them long enough, are way cheaper than a baby sitter. I mentioned earlier in the blog I was in my refractory period, I sent a text to one of my buddies about my fortunate encounter on Saturday morning and indicated that the allusion of sex that I hold onto all day is what keeps me motivated, with that gone I had no reason to try and accomplish anything. He indicated that I would be sure to replicate my amazing accomplishment after the Christmas party. I told him there was no way. Possibly on vacation that could happen, but it’s become all too clear that I am getting old. Yesterday when I stopped at Meijer I grabbed some beer along with things that I didn’t actually need and went through the U scan. I don’t remember when they changed this, but the button on the U scan use to be “Over 40” but now it is “Over 50”. The attendant didn’t even pretend like he was in need of my ID, instead he went straight for the over 50 button. I’m 48 if anyone cares.