I told you I'd get it finished!
I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.
Will Rogers
Maybe it’s just me, but my wife does not like taking me with her when she goes shopping, regardless of whether it’s the mall or Wal-Mart. If given the choice between taking me with her to the stores, or fighting with a half-crazed bobcat, she’ll likely take the bobcat. (At least it’s a cat.) Most of the time, she’d rather leave me at home to do guy stuff, such as pretending to work on the car with my friends, (which is nothing more than an excuse to drink beer), pretending to work on the yard, (which is nothing more than an excuse to drink beer), or pretending to do some repair work that’s desperately needed in our bathrooms, (which is nothing more than an excuse to drink beer.)
I like beer.
Still, those moments come when it’s unavoidable. She needs to drag my sorry backside with her to the store, and we need to actually spend money to pick up something we seem to need, such as food, clothing, liquids of varying composition, or even material required for me to pretend I’m doing the foregoing, even as I’m drinking my beer.
I like beer.
Now, part of the problem, of course, is that women simply don’t understand men. Those of the feminine persuasion say, “I am woman, hear me roar.”
Those of the masculine persuasion say, “I am man, pull my finger.”
Doubt me on this?
Peggy and I were doing Christmas shopping one year, dropping in at our local Wal-Mart in Antelope, CA. Normally, she tries to avoid taking me, as I’ve said, but this was one of those instances where she was stuck dragging me along. We had no sooner gotten to the front door before she warned me, “Don’t do anything.”
“What do you mean, ‘Don’t do anything’?” I countered. “I mean, what could I possibly do?”
“You said that the last time. You started putting the blow-up Santas on display into weird positions,” she noted.
“What weird positions?”
She stopped me in front of the store and glowered. “I never should have let you read the Kama Sutra.”
“That wasn’t the Kama Sutra. That was The Joy Of Sex.”
“Don’t do it again!” I was ordered.
I sighed and followed my wife into the store. I suppose I could have mentioned that my son, Chris, and his friend, Nate, had done something similar with the artists models, the little wooden ones, they were selling at IKEA, which prompted my daughter-in-law Kasey to hide out in the café, but that would only have compounded matters. I am Man. Pull my Finger.
It’s really no different from what my older son did this year with his wife and my grandson. At one point, James found large blue plastic ornaments on display in one section. In the middle of the store, after he’d been carrying them around with them, he announced loudly to my daughter-in-law, Madison, “Look, honey! I’ve got BLUE BALLS!”
Maddie snagged the ornaments from him and told him to shut up and behave himself. (See? It’s genetic.)
We managed to pick up gifts for most of our family. Aside from my tinkering with the alarm clocks on display, (as suggested in a bit of spam we got in our e-mail box), things went pretty well. We even managed to have enough scratch left over for lunch at McDonald’s. All we had left to do was get through the checkout line.
Now, this isn’t as simple as it seems. Normally, since we wind up parking out in the wilds of “Siberia,” we wind up checking out through the garden section of the store. This, if you’re not familiar with it, is where they put all the nifty stuff for Christmas which gets me into trouble. Stacked on one shelf, for example, was a selection of poseable plastic Santas and snowmen. I started to walk towards the shelf, only to feel a hard pull on my right sleeve.
“Don’t even think about it,” Peggy ordered.
I am Man. Pull my Finger.
She stepped into the line and we began to edge our way to the register. Behind us, people began to queue up, and believe me, NO ONE was happy. Sorry, folks, but at Christmas time, no one is ever happy while they wait in line to learn that they’re over the limit on their credit cards. Certainly not the dude with the Harley Davidson head scarf, nor the elderly woman with the purse large enough to contain half the cosmetics department. In fact, everyone was looking miserable.
I got a little further forward, and noticed the white box with multicolored products of plastic sticking out of it. Yes, they were plastic Candy Canes, the sort with LEDs in them, which work for the first couple of minutes you have them staked out in your lawn, but die before daybreak. The next year, you discover your kids have used them for tent posts when they decided to camp out in the backyard with their friends. You wind up going back to Wal-Mart, buying more of the damned things, and Wal-Mart makes another thirty cents on the sale. A few million of those, and you understand why they’re cleaning up.
I let Peggy drift ahead of me, and stepped to the side, picking up one of the red ones, giving it a practice swish in the air, making a couple of jabs at nothing…
A green candy cane was gently settled atop my red one.
He was wearing a three piece suit, dark gray, red silk tie, black wing tips. His hair was cut just so, and sitting next to him was a black leather attaché case. He looked at me and shook his head.
I brought my own cane up, and over, starting to swing it again, when with a resonant click, the green one came down again. He shook his head again, a stern look of disapproval on his clean-shaven face.
So that was the challenge I faced. I stepped back, determined that this suit was not going to deter me in my quest for Truth, Justice, and the American Way!
I am MAN. Pull my FINGER!
We addressed each other, and the duel was on…
Indeed, we crossed canes and began to interweave our way amongst our fellow shoppers. Ah, truly, he was a wily one, no doubt a member of the fencing team as he slogged his way through Law School. He parried, he riposted, he was truly an excellent canesman, even as we ducked around Mr. Hog, who raised his arms, then pushed the Suit back into battle, snarling about “them damn smartasses,” even as his lady clutched in shock and horror her bag of all natural granola.
Yes, the Suit had violated a basic tenet of canesmanship; he had dragged the innocent into our conflict. Truly, while he was skilled, he was also unscrupulous, and a cheat.
But I had something he didn’t have.
I had passion.
I had courage.
I had Red Wing steel toed boots.
A moment later, he was hopping on one foot, his weapon in one hand, the scuffed and mashed toe of his black wingtip in the other, scowling at me as he renewed his attack. He slashed at me, then thrust, catching the lining of my Carhartt, tearing it slightly. I slashed at him, then charged him, avoiding another thrust from my opponent, even as he ducked behind the elderly woman with the massive handbag.
It was a critical tactical error.
The elderly grandmotherly type wheeled around and smacked the Suit behind the head, sending him flying towards me. I stepped forward, and the tip of my cane caught him just above the top button of his vest. A moment later, he toppled over into another display of poseable Santas, snowmen, reindeer, and elves. (Woah. The fun I could have had if I’d just seen THEM!)
I saluted my opponent, even as people began to applaud, even Mr. Hog and his lady, Ms. Natural. The Grandmotherly lady with the purse gave me a thumbs up as I replaced my cane…
Peggy reached out and grabbed my arm as soon as I got to the register, glomming onto it with a vise-like grip, dragging me out of the store. Behind me, a feminine voice declared loudly, “I can’t take you ANYWHERE!”
Yes, Christmas shopping was done for another year. Yet, in my own humble, selfless manner, I had once more affirmed the battle cry of Man, heard, no doubt, from our earliest forebears to the present day…
I AM MAN! PULL MY FINGER!
