Bits of Real Panther

After two Saturdays of mere unpacking and staying at home, this past Saturday was an exciting, action packed foray back out into the world.

The day started off with, actually, some more unpacking. It was the penultimate load: the garage. Look at it this way: moving is war. And just as in a war there are pockets of resistance that take time to pacify long after the official end of hostilities (the Sunni Triangle, Forsyth County, the Japanese guy in the cave on Gilligan's Island), there are parts of moving that still need to be completed even after the official Moving Day.

In our case, our moving day was 3 Wednesdays ago. With the gracious help of family and friends (thanks again guys!) we got all of the large furniture out of the house that day. What remained were select pieces in my office, the dining room, and the kitchen.

Plus the entire garage and shed.

The office was moved that Thursday, the dining room and kitchen the following Wednesday, the shed Thursday, some of the garage that Friday, and the remainder of the garage that Saturday morning.

One week later, the stuff from the old garage was still sitting in my new garage, which meant that my car was, 3 weeks on, still sitting in our driveway. The driveway is not where my wife believes cars should go. So while she went out shopping, I got to move the last of the stuff (my own personal Japanese guy in the cave on Gilligan's Island) from the new, slightly smaller garage to the new, much larger shed.

My wife gave me three hours to do it. I did it in one. Because there were cockroaches. Granted, they were dead, but they still creeped me out (occasionally they would twitch), but I wanted that job done, and to get back to my nice, cockroach-free, air conditioned office.

Later that day, chores done, we were going to go out to run some errands (or, as Sam says, "Run to Aaron's?") Out for the day! Oh joy!

There weren't really a lot of specifics: my wife had to return something to Macy's, we had to deposit some checks, I had to go to James Avery to . . . garble mumble garble .

So we, huh? What's that? Fine. I had to go to James Avery to get a new wedding band. Mine had gotten "too small," as we tell the kids when they've outgrown their clothes. Sure, some people in my position just stop wearing their rings, but I felt naked for the couple of weeks I went without. And little old ladies at Publix would give me pitying looks when I went out during the day or with the kids. Other people get theirs stretched, but I like my old wedding band, and I didn't want to change it. So I spent my birthday money on a new one. I feel whole again.

Anyhow, before we left, I realized that I was smelling a little "manly" from all the morning's moving work and that I didn't have time to take another shower. During the move, my wife had discovered all of my colognes (okay, both of them) and put them in my medicine cabinet. So I thought it best to "musk up" before we went. ("London Gentleman, or wait. No, no, no. Hold on. Blackbeard's Delight.") Actually, it was Escape, of which I still had 27/28ths of the bottle left after 11 years.

When I got in the car to leave, Jonah, Mr. Observant, yells out, "Ew!" Sam, of course, repeats even louder, "EW!" Jonah then says, "What's that smell? I smell somebody's throwup!"

Goodbye Escape.