how can I miss you when you won’t go away?

My wife is going on a long trip today. I am not.
She is very excited. I am not.
She has been bouncing off the walls in anticipation. I have not.
She has spent the last week preparing. I have not.

Believe it or not, I am less than thrilled at the whole idea of long trips. I know it’s hard to understand that I feel this way but stick with me for the time being.

I am also not thrilled at my temporary bachelor status. I have long believed in the concept of a Vice Wife. The president, if unable to fulfill his duties, has the vice president to step in. As such, I would have a vice wife to step in because the wife is unable to fulfill her wifely duties. Of course it has been suggested that this would result in two women not giving me sex, but I won’t go there right now.

Strange as it may seem, my wife is not entirely thrilled with this concept. I think it’s perfectly reasonable but I guess I’m running into that whole Mars/Venus thing.

That aside, my wife must be feeling the wrath of some vengeful component of the universe, as the morning hasn’t gone according to plans. Well, if you count the fact that she has spent some time in the car already, you can say that part of the plan has gone ok. Unfortunately that’s about the only thing that has.

Wife tells Friend that no, they can’t leave at 2pm - 10:30am would be better. At 10:30am, Friend is picked up and `discovers’ twenty or so small errands and rituals she had forgotten about. Wife calmly follows friend. Wife calls to say goodbye again and give me a progress report.

At noon, wife calls again to say goodbye and let me know how things are on the long trip. It depends, I suspect, on how you define trip

. They’re not technically any further along the road because there were more errands. They exited a store to discover a nice police lady ticketing the car. Wife asks Friend what that is about.

“Oh, you’re not supposed to park here for longer than fifteen minutes. I get tickets all the time.”

Wife allows that it might have been nice if she had mentioned that before she parked.

Wife didn’t have much time to think of a way out so once again, a component of the universe stepped in to handle things for her. This Component came in the form of one of the denizens of Friend’s house, who happened by at that moment. He told the cop that they were not simply parked there, they have been out looking for his grandma, who has Alzheimers and no one has seen since 7:30am. Nice police lady voids ticket.

Tremendous excuse, too. Unfortunately he was not making it up. They had been calling around, trying to figure out if she was out with someone; she doesn’t generally make a point of disappearing. So the entire hamlet’s police force will be out looking for her. I certainly hope someone succeeds in short order. Grandma is a nice lady.

I certainly hope the road trippers get on with their trip too. It has been over three hours and they’re no farther than when they started.

Meanwhile, will somebody please send the dancing girls by the house to keep me company?