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Plan A was to sit and watch Stargate reruns all evening. Plan A is always subject to change. Its very existence was threatened by the various chores that lay around the house waiting to be done, but then the wife introduced Plan B, which was to go to the store and buy some sheets. Plan A died and went to the Planet of Plan A, which is where all Plan A's go when they are not carried out. I sometimes imagine a huge plain on the Planet of Plan A where Plan A's roam about looking for something to do. It is a purgatory of sorts, from which Plan A's can sometimes be retrieved. My personal plan was sent there for a week's stay. My personal plan was on the purgatory plain on the Planet of Plan A.
So off to the store we went. There were two parts to Plan B. Part one was to buy the sheets. This we pulled off with incredible precision. Any male of the "hunt, kill, and return home" mindset would have been pleased, except that part two of Plan B was to return home immediately and put the sheets on the bed so that we don't have to wash the old ones. "We cannot live one more day without new sheets on the bed," my wife had said. I cannot blame anyone but myself for the failure of part two of Plan B. Part two of Plan B was predestined for failure, so that it would ultimately wind up in the province of purgatory on the Planet of Plan A's reserved for partially performed portions of Plan B. The rest of the evening was spent in direct avoidance of ever returning home where, we suspected, there was work lurking in every corner waiting to leap upon us and, possibly, devour us. Some of the work I had left undone in the yard was now, I believed, physically capable of doing this. As well as were some of the things we had left in the refrigerator. Impulse buying took over and we spent quite a bit of time and money in Borders Bookstore. We didn't have any money, but we try never to let that be a deterrent. Hungry after all of our spending, we went to the International House of Pancakes where you can have pancakes any time of day without being mocked by your waitress. This portion of our home avoidance technique was somewhat marred by the unpleasantness of the group in the next booth, two grandparents and their grandson. For all appearances, I would have guessed that they had been sitting in the booth for quite some time. They appeared to be stuck. "As long as we're trapped here," they may have said to each other (I am only surmising), "let's have some more pancakes." I doubt that I would have noticed them if it were not for their dinner table conversation, which consisted of the grandmother screeching the words "Don't kick me," at her grandson. I'm sure there must have been other words spoken, but those were the only words we could hear. It was timed at irregular intervals, like the drops in a session of Chinese water torture. Just when we had forgotten about it and begun to enjoy our meal, the words would come again, "Stop kicking me!" It was said in such a way that one wanted to directly disobey the person issuing the command. Maybe that's why it persisted. I offered to go over and kick the woman myself. My wife, in her wisdom, deflected my attention back towards my pancakes. We finished our meal and left IHOP. Had I not gotten the short stack, I fear that I would have been stuck there too. Fortunately, on the way home between us and the chores that awaited us, there is a movie theater. We found a movie that was rated "WA" (for Work Avoidance), which meant that it probably wouldn't be very good, but it would perfect for people who had papers to grade and weeds to pull. We got home late that evening, locked the garage, locked the downstairs door, shut off all the lights, turned on the alarm, went upstairs, looked at the bed, and remembered that the sheets were in the trunk of the car. We looked at each other and laughed. We said something like "Forget it" and went to sleep. A week later, I was watching Stargate and the crew of SG1 went through a wormhole to find a planet where unfinished plans go. They found my plan A and returned it to me where I sat. I leaned back and smiled. Things were as they should be. |
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