Who Am I?

I'm having a bit of an identity crisis over something that happened to me earlier today. As it stands, I'm just going to explain what went down and you all can judge for yourselves.

The Circuit City near work is going out of business. Well, all Circuit City's are going out of business, obviously, but the one on the way to work is the only one I notice on a day-to-day basis. Over the last couple of weeks I've watched as the numbers on the signs visible from the highway showing "up to XX% off!" have gradually risen. I was vaguely offended by 30 -- you're going out of business, and the best you can offer me is 30% off? Seriously? -- gained some interest when it changed to 50, and as I drove by today and saw it was now 60, decided to stop in just to see if there were any deals. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but as you're probably aware if you're reading this blog, I'm a man who likes his DVDs and video games, so why not take a look, right? So at lunchtime I headed over, anticipating that by now, most of the store would already have been picked over. And it was, but still, there were a few lonely video games, a pretty random smattering of CDs, and a whole bunch of DVDs left, including quite a few TV season sets, all of them at 50% off the normal price.

And here's where it gets weird, because as I browsed among the shelves, it gradually dawned on me that I didn't want anything. You have to understand, TV box sets have traditionally been my crack. I need them. When I get into a show, I have to watch ALL of that show, not whatever haphazard smattering of episodes the networks care to show in syndication that week. So you can imagine my surprise, almost bordering on horror, that I simply couldn't be bothered to bring any of them up to the register and shell out. Granted, the economy sucks, but I wasn't thinking (at least not consciously) of the unnecessary expense factor. Nor is it that there weren't any good ones... I like Seinfeld quite a bit, and they had both seasons 1+2 and 4. And I loved Ren & Stimpy as a kid, but even when confronted with the chance to own seasons 1 and 2 for $15, I just couldn't get worked up. This is a DVD that, four years ago, I had been absolutely positive I would need to own someday. Who could resist all that Powdered Toast Man goodness? And surely when Molly gets older, I'll want a visual aid to warn her against the dangers of whizzing on the electric fence. And yet, when confronted with a prime opportunity to own the set at half price, my mind just could not have been less interested. I know there are still some things that, if they'd had them, I would have snatched up... if there'd been any copies left of Guitar Hero World Tour for 40% off, that bad boy would be sitting in my family room right now. But honestly, at present I'm focused more on the things I know I should have wanted, but just... didn't.

So there's my story, gentle readers. I don't know if it was a subconscious acknowledgement of the shitty financial situation in this country that triggered my apathy, or just the gloomy weather reflected in my mood, but I'm still having a hard time believing I didn't buy a single thing. I mean, good on me, I guess, but it's so out of character. And before you hasten to reply with, "Well, Drew, perhaps you're just maturing"... no, that's not it. Remember, I'm the guy who couldn't help snickering recently when one of his clients' middle and last names were "Gaye Gay." Your witness.

"Leapfrog"

This one's a little different than the norm, but it's too weird not to share. Ann and I worked from home today, and she finished her work before I was done with mine, so she started watching TV. When I finally wrapped things up, I wandered into the living room and found the TV tuned to the ABC Family channel while Ann surfed the internet. I couldn't tell you what show it was, beyond that it had Amanda Bynes, but clearly a teen sitcom type of deal. Anyway, at the time I walked in there were two adult characters lamenting the fact that the woman had had to cancel their planned date from the night before, no doubt due to the shenanigans of those wacky kids. But she planned to make it up to the dude tonight, and had even created a little handmade invitation requesting his presence at a date tonight for just the two of them. At that point the guy looks at the invitation and says, "Is that drawing of us? Why are we playing leapfrog?" To which the woman replies, "Uh, that's not leapfrog."

As you might expect, my reaction was hilarity tempered with amazement. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty funny, and props to fictional dude for getting some, but that's the kind of joke I wouldn't have expected to air on regular ABC in primetime. This was ABC Family in the middle of the afternoon, for crying out loud. It doesn't bother me any, but I'll admit to being pretty damn surprised. Who knew family channels had it in 'em?

Important lessons

While I certainly won't claim to be an expert, I do feel like I'm starting to get slightly more of a handle on being a parent. A lot of that comes down to trial-and-error, of course, making your mistakes and learning from them. For instance, if I could do it over again, I would refrain from buying the model of car seat with the invisible knives and razor wire that apparently pop out at the passenger every time the car slows down or comes to a complete stop. Damn inconvenient, that, and Molly's not shy about sharing her distaste for it either. I also would have invested in a nice gas mask for when she entered day care, as well as a flamethrower to incinerate her clothes at the end of every day. As is, we neglected to take these precautions and she picked up a lovely cold that she managed to pass on to her mother and me, making our trip to Boston last weekend a sniffly, coughing experience for all three of us. Personally, I blame those chubby twins in the infant room. It's always the fat kid's fault. It also helps explain why I haven't updated recently, so apologies for the delay. And finally, I've learned that with my new work schedule and still occasionally having to get up before the alarm rings to feed the little monster, I'm just not able to fight off sleep and stay awake late at night the way I utdssdafffasdfasdasklasdjfasodfkaljfdslslakjnsdafjja.