-tioning Home Improvement

With our sons grown and out of the house, my wife and I have completed our legally-mandated term of active service as parents. We find ourselves sliding giddily into the category of empty-nesters. We have the freedom to do what we want, when we want. Travel planning no longer requires us to consider school schedules, after school events and the quantity of fast-food restaurants along our intended travel route. We can be crazy and spontaneous.

So, how did we choose to explore our new independence? Last Sunday I found myself jammed under a kitchen cabinet, wrench in hand, installing a stainless steel sink.

Really.

Where the Wild Things Work

Who doesn’t love a trip to the zoo?

Well, probably the animals for whom it is a one-way trip, but that’s not really the point. The point is that you get to spend a happy, lazy day eating junk food and wandering past neat rows of tiny cages containing permanently trapped animals. As you stare at their cute faces, you just know that — if they could talk — they’d beg you to rescue them.

If you can’t afford the zoo, you can get much the same experience with a bag of vending-machine pretzels and a visit to the cubicle farm of any corporation in America. Except, as you walk past the cubicles and stare at the occupants’ cute little faces, they can talk and they will beg you to rescue them. If you’re feeling kind, you might toss a pretzel or two their way. Don’t encourage them too much, though, or they’ll break out and follow you home. It’s not that hard to escape a cubicle — unless all you have is a liberal arts degree.

Not Right in the Head

After an extensive examination, the doctor concluded that my wife wasn’t right in the head.

Aside: my wife is glaring at me with a look that could blister the paint on a battleship. In the interest of avoiding incineration, let me provide a some context.

The doctor in question is my wife’s oh-toe-lair-in …. auto-lauren … octo-linen … ear, nose and throat guy. He decided that she was having trouble with her sinuses, but he said he had a fix for that.

I looked up sinuses on-line to see what he might be talking about. Guess what? Sinuses are just holes in your skull. Sort of like damp, gooey caves hidden behind the bones of your face. So, in essence, the doctor was saying that my wife had holes in her head and that was the problem.

Things that go “POOF!”

In this age of heightened security, I’ve heard that the authorities might be monitoring the telephone conversations of ordinary citizens like me. If they are listening in on my cell calls to my wife, I have two words for them.

Good. Luck.

Really.

Our conversations are non-linear in the same way that tires are non-square, fish are non-mammals, and beefsteak tomatoes are non-meat. For example, imagine that I wanted to tell my wife I’d set up an appointment to have the lawn-chemical warfare guys spray the foundation for bugs.

I pay them to do this every Fall even though I’m not convinced it actually works. For all I know the big hose on their truck is actually connected to a tank filled with leftover cologne that stores couldn’t unload on Father’s Day. If I got down close and sniffed, my house might smell of off-brand aftershave like Old Splice, Tommy Hilfinger, or Huge Old Boss. It might repel the bugs for the same reason these scents repel anyone over the age of eight. Or maybe there never were any bugs to begin with. Or there might be a huge army of bugs massed on the far side of the fence just waiting for the year that I forget to tell my wife the be ready to let the lawn-chemical warfare guys into the backyard. That’s why it’s vitally important for me to call her and tell her to expect them promptly between nine and three tomorrow.

Feeling My Age

My lawnmower is gone. He moved away to college. With his departure, my wife and I took off the business casual clothing of active parents and slid into the comfortable shorts and Hawaiian shirts of empty-nesters. And you know what? It’s weird.

Really.

In the evenings, we no longer have to make sure that everyone has finished their math or packed their lunch or remembered to tell us about the forty-page book report about War and Peace that’s due first thing in the morning even though they have yet to technically read any actual part of the book including the title. My wife and I can enjoy meals which include sophisticated adult foods like broccoli, fish, and cheese that didn’t come from the inside of an aerosol can. We don’t have to worry about our television-viewing choices corrupting our children so we are fee to watch the evening news once more. In a lot of ways, it’s like being newlyweds all over-again; except we’re newlyweds with decades of experience.