I’m a Stripper

July 1, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

We all have a past. The question is, do we have a future?

I’ve been telling my lovely wife that we needed to start thinking about how we were going to spend our future together once the children leave. We are getting dangerously close now that JB is almost 15. The last thing I want is to send her to college with no plan for us.

I don’t want to be one of those couples who sits down in the empty nest, looks at each other and has no idea what to say or do. The problem is, we are vastly different people. I like things athletic – not watching them, doing them. I like running, exercising, hiking, and all kinds of outdoorsy things. I love camping! The kind of stuff that makes you sweaty and smelly.

My wife? Not so much. She’s a girly-girl, not given to athletics. She won’t run unless someone in a hockey mask is chasing her. I suggested camping where I could go off and hike a day or two and she could sit and read. No dice, she likes the comfort of her own bed and a clean bathroom.

How did we end up together? She’s a really good girly-girl and I’m a smelly but lucky guy.

Okay, but none of that solves our problem.

We both love to read, but I have yet to figure out a way to make reading a team sport.

Then it happened, quite by accident. An epiphany…

I am an excellent stripper!

Let me share with you just how we figured it out. We bought a desk off of Craigslist a while back and she painted it for JB’s room. Soon after, a few more accessories joined the room including a chair. Unfortunately, all of the new pieces were white, not the freshly-painted ivory color of the desk. Something had to change.

I am reluctant to allow my wife to borrow my tools, because they are the only thing I outright own. They are mine. But she sweet-talked me into my sander which failed to take off the thirteen coats of poly she had applied to the desk.

We needed a stripper.

I prefer making furniture these days. But before I had a shop, I used to refinish old pieces. I hate to be prideful, but I really know how to strip. I even saved some of the really strong solvent from when it was still available. I wondered if it would still be toxic enough to work. I now see why the EPA banned it because even after fifteen years of storage it tore through that poly like a monkey on a cupcake.

* * * * * * * * * *

And so I stripped like nobody’s business. She watched me strip hoping to learn so we could strip together. We talked about all of the stripping we could do once the kids left. I did tell her that we would have to strip for other people because we don’t have room in our home for all of the stripping we plan to do. And now with all of this stripping to look forward to, I’m excited about our future without kids.

(Also, I’m hoping you read the whole post and not just the last paragraph.)

Playing Doctor

June 10, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

When you were a kid, did you ever play the doctor game? Just a few friends together in a quiet room. It is one of the few games boys and girls could play together. Before your mind goes a-wandering, I’m talking about the electric board game that buzzes when you touch the sides. Operation – “the whacky doctors game, batteries not included.” I used to love that game. I don’t think I ever owned it, but a neighborhood pal did.

We aren’t allowed to have it in this home. When she was little, the concept freaked one of my daughters out so badly that she wouldn’t have slept had it resided under the same roof as her.

Although I have no medical training whatsoever, I would like to operate someday. I wouldn’t bluff my way into an operating room ala Frankie in Catch Me if You Can. I’m thinking more like a right place, right time scenario where I have to do an emergency tracheotomy while being given instructions by a tense doctor over the phone. Or does that only happen on television?

Seventeen years ago, I thought my surgery had arrived. Labor came quickly for daughter # 2. I pushed our little mini-van to its limit getting to the hospital and barely made it. She was born eighteen minutes from the time I wheeled momma through the door. Rats! Well, maybe that would have been a poor choice of first operations. Those stakes were very high and that patient was pretty surly – made even angrier by the fact that an unnamed person didn’t get her to the hospital in time for an epidural.

I totally could have done it, though.

I now have an app on my phone from the Red Cross to guide me. It’s a decision tree that asks questions to diagnose basic maladies. If you answer “yes” to more than one it almost always tells you to call 911. When I read the questions to someone, I don’t panic and my voice remains very calm and assuring – which makes feel like I’m pretty much a doctor.

A second opportunity presented itself recently. My brother-in-law started having pain in his abdomen. Rather than come to me, he went the traditional medicine route and was told he needed his gallbladder removed. Disappointing. After scouring the internet for the actual location of the organ, I decided this was my chance.

He seemed very dismissive of my offer at first. In fact, he barely paid attention. I chalked this up to pain. He just couldn’t think clearly. When the date of the surgery came, the so-called “professionals” had a little trouble and couldn’t perform the operation arthroscopically. So they had to cut him open, which led to complications and a ten day stint in the hospital.

Serves him right. I could have done it. I even ordered a new Ginsu knife and everything. While a full recovery was not guaranteed, the billing rate was substantially less than the one he got and he would have been able to stay at home. Besides, just think of the joy he would have brought me.

So if healthcare costs have got you down and you are looking for a cheap, extremely dubious alternative, look me up. Unlike most docs, I will be waiting for you instead of making you wait.