7.22.2008

Rain, Rain, Go Away

James' 20 days of leave are coming to an end. On Thursday we will all travel to Corpus Christi to sit through a boring four hour ceremony instead of spending that time with our soldier. And I have to take my two kids. Grrr.
We had made plans to take the kids to the beach and take a lot of good scrap booking photos and build sandcastles and stuff, but then stinking Dolly showed up. I even found the PERFECT bathing suit for this trip, even though it is from the maternity section... who cares, right? At least in the maternity section I'm only a L, instead of the customary XXL. Woo hoo! Anyway, Dolly is supposed to bring 15 inches of rain and I'm hoping that James' unit will just tell him to wait it out and come next week. I can hope, right?
This 20 days with James has been very good. Lots of family time and eating out. When James is on active duty we tend to make more money, and when we make more money we tend to spend more money, and James decided he needed a knife.
Not just any knife.
An $85, stainless steel, grip handle, cuts through sheet metal, has a "skull crushing handle" and has a leg strap knife, because "I met this guy who had just come back from Iraq and he had one and he said it was good to have one on you just in case, you know, you get into hand-to-hand combat and have to use it, or say an IED hits your vehicle and you have to bust out a window and...."
"Okay, that's enough."
So he starts looking online for a knife. I mean staying up into the wee hours of the morning looking, not just Ebay and buy. For three days he looked, and finally settled on this particular one, I can't even remember the name of it.
"Babe look, it has blah blah blah, and blah blah, oh and look! A blah BLAH blah!!"
"That's GREAT dear."
"Can I get it? Please please please?"
So I agreed that he needed a knife and let him buy it. I mostly wanted to shut him up. Then it came to shipping.
"Hey babe, I called the company and they're based in Tennessee and said it would take four days to ship here. That means it would get here next Tuesday."
"Yup."
"Well, we're leaving on Thursday and what if it doesn't get here by then? I mean what if we leave and RIGHT THEN they deliver it and it has to sit on the porch for three days before you get back?"
"Oh, horror!"
"Seriously!"
"Seriously, you shouldn't have taken three days to decide on what knife you wanted. It will be fine."
--ponder, ponder--
"Okay."
"Thank you."
"What about insurance?"
"Oh good grief!"
"But what if it like, falls and breaks and gets all smashed?"
"It's a freaking stainless steel KNIFE for crying out loud!! It won't get broken!"
"What if it gets... LOST?!"
--shaking my head--
"Then we call the company and ask them to send a new one."
"Or get our money back from UPS."
"Whatever. Do what you want to do."
So he orders his knife and the world starts revolving again. Later on we're lying in bed, I'm trying to go to sleep, and James pops off
"I should have gotten that insurance."
"Go sleep on the couch."
The next four days were the LONGEST four days OF MY LIFE.
Today on our way home from swimming, James turns the corner and lo and behold, there's the UPS truck sitting in front of our house.
"Oh no! Wait WAIT!!!"
He yells and floors it, not even slowing down going over the speed bump, and you can just see the UPS guy's eyes get wider as James flies towards him. By the time we get to the driveway the UPS guy has torpedoed himself inside his truck and starts to pull away and James is yelling, inside the car, "Thank you! Thanks!" and waving frantically.
The knife was fine. I don't think the kids were, though.

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