Possumblog

And yesterday?

Blessedly quiet, and we even got some rain!

Up early, church, lunch at the Chinese buffet, and a brief side-trip to the Hallmark store. Seems Boy had one more gift he wanted to get for me for my birthday last week.

Some time ago, while Pam the Liberal still worked here, we got an interdepartmental memo about proper work attire, which, as these things do, attempted to correct the bad behavior of one particular person by casting blame on everyone, rather than taking the more direct approach of reprimanding the guilty party. Whatever. I took it as an opportunity to make wild claims to Pam that one day I was going to show up for work wearing nothing but a kilt and bright yellow rubber garden clogs, and dare them to do anything about it.

As happens in these cases, the little martinet who promulgated the original memo went on to a much more lucrative position elsewhere, but somehow the idea of my wearing of bright yellow garden clogs never really died away. She still mentions it to me every once in a while, and sometimes I think it would be nice to have something like that when I'm doing yardwork and stuff. But it never has gone any further than that.

Until a couple of months ago, when Jonathan started wanting a pair of Crocs. As with most of his other cravings of this sort, he wanted to have what all the kids at school had--large ugly rubber footwear now having become de rigueur amongst the middle school set.

We looked around at Hallmark for some to fit him for his birthday, and somewhere in there I mentioned--only half-jokingly--that I wanted a pair in yellow. We didn't find any in his size, and wound up getting some moc-Crocs from Target for him. But he apparently didn't forget ol' Dad.

So, he got it in his mind he'd get me a pair of yellow Crocs for my birthday, and had finally talked Mom into taking him. Reba, not ever having been brought into the loop on the whole yellow shoe thing couldn't understand why he kept wanting to get me yellow shoes. Luckily for her, the Hallmark store didn't have yellow, so I wound up with a pair of black ones.

XXL, size 11-12.

::sigh::

She ought to know by now that ol' bit of vulgar information about the interrelationship of shoe size to other personal equipage is TRUE, and therefore I could have gotten by quite well with a size 9-10 shoe. But they got them anyway.

Got home, and Boy, bless his heart, said, "It's okay, Daddy--you'll grow into them." Not hardly. They looked like clown shoes. SO, off to the OTHER Hallmark store in town to see if they had something I could swap for them.

Nope. Nor did Academy, or Target, or even the hardware store.

But, let's face it--it's the thought that counts, and he was quite proud of his gift for Dad. And I am, too. Or I will be, once I find me some in yellow.

The rest of the time before church was spent swapping out little screws and bolts into a new set of storage bins I got--the old one was all wobbly and wouldn't work right, and I simply MUST have a place to put all of my bits of string too short to save.

On to church, coughed through all the songs, and then on to home again for supper. I had put on a Honeysuckle Farms turkey breast to cook in the oven while we were gone--little bit of cajun seasoning, salt and pepper. It was the best turkey I've ever had--I could have eaten the whole thing by myself.

Supper done, cleaned up, got the kids into their pajamas, and settled in with the Sunday paper. Which just pretty much ruined the whole day. I used to long for Sunday, just to get the big color comics. But, nowadays we can't just have comics, we have to Send a Message, and do so in the most self-absorbed and self-congratulatory way possible. Berke Breathed--let's face it, fellow--you aren't Walt Kelly. Get over yourself, and quit being so twee and clever. Or rather, trying to be. Anyway, I give up. The comics were the only reason I had for wading through week-old information trying to pass itself off as "news" (and commentary trying to pass as objective reporting), so if I'm no longer going to be allowed at least one nice good jolly bit of escapism in the funny papers to make up for all the other garbage, well then, I no longer see a need to buy the paper anymore.

So I won't.

I'll just sit here in my kilt and big yellow rubber shoes and entertain myself.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at July 17, 2006 11:19 AM