The Nicest (and Meanest) Man She Ever Married

This morning, I asked my wife if she wanted a coffee refill. When she said yes, I pointed to the carafe, paused just long enough to enjoy myself, and then grabbed her cup and filled it.

“You spoil me,” she said with total sincerity. “You are the nicest.”

I knew better. “Yes,” I replied, “but I’m also the meanest man you ever married.”

She didn’t miss a beat. In that sweet tone of hers, she said, “I feel like I take advantage of you when you always fill my cup for me. I genuinely thank you for that.”

Since the caffeine hadn’t hit yet and I didn’t feel worthy of the praise, I had to do some soul searching. How does this woman continue to love a snarky, often cranky man who is constantly trying to deposit enough “I care for you’s” into the emotional bank before noon — before the day’s inevitable influences take hold?

In just over two weeks, we start our 36th year of marriage. As I look at the calendar, I realize I need to up my game just to keep pace with her. She is genuinely excited about everything on the horizon. Our future daughter-in-law’s wedding shower? She’s hosting it and is actually looking forward to entertaining. Her new job has come with more Day One problems than expected, yet she’s ready for the challenge. Our Europe trip this summer? Every excursion is planned, and she is anxious to spend two weeks straight with me. Based on that last point alone, she should probably be committed to an institution.

I am well aware of my flaws. I snap when my schedule gets turned upside down. I am prone to funking — my shorthand for being in a funk — where I become either disagreeable or retreat into stony silence for no apparent reason. When I’m tired, I’m nitpicky. I’m often someone I wouldn’t want to spend time with.

Yet somehow I’m a better person than the man who stood at the altar all those years ago.

Judy’s ability to look long has either rewarded her or cursed her — I’m genuinely not sure which. I believe I’ve incrementally improved, but it didn’t happen in the first five years. It may have only happened in the last five. In the chaos of shared life, a slightly nicer version of me has slowly taken possession of my faculties more often than the other guy. Maybe my tone is a bit softer. Maybe watching my kids live their lives and spending a few hours a week with my granddaughter has acted as a lubricant for the nasties, letting the good ideas flow while keeping the barely tolerable ones from doing too much damage.

She tells me every time we travel: “I like you more when we travel than when we are around the house.” I get it. At home, I’m weighed down by all the life things I feel responsible for. When we’re cruising, she handles the plan, and I just show up.

I travel well.

Maybe that’s why she puts up with me the other 50 weeks of the year.

Things My Wife Won’t Buy (Until She Decides They Were Her Idea)

We recently got a new coffee maker, which is something I’ve only been asking for since, roughly, the Bush administration. My working theory was simple: “Why does our coffee taste like flavored water?” Apparently that wasn’t a compelling argument. What worked was my wife getting a new job, which unlocked the “gift to myself” justification, which is the phrase people use when they have a little more money than they want to admit.

The new machine does make better coffee. It has a Bold button, which I respect. The Bold button charges you for the improvement in time — double the brew, double the wait — but the coffee tastes like actual coffee, so I’ll take it. She has full creative control over the settings. My only request is that every used coffee ground gets dumped on my roses for the next few weeks. My front roses have never looked better, which means at least someone in this house is consistently benefiting from my persistence.

My wife has also appointed herself Veto Queen of household ideas — specifically mine. The lamp situation is Exhibit A. We have a shared recliner, and there used to be a lamp right between our two seats until the recliner ate the cord. Poor planning or spousal plotting — jury’s still out. Since then I’ve been campaigning: “Can we get this lamp?” “What about this one?” My questions are never ignored, exactly. They’re just not acted on, which starts to feel like the same thing. Her explanation is always that she just hasn’t found one she likes.

This from a woman who can summon TEMU packages like she’s running a small import operation. The wedding shower boxes arrive daily. She knows how to search, scroll, and buy things she wants to find. I’m not saying she’s uninterested in my lamp. I’m just saying it smells a lot like she is.

The blackout curtain situation is a separate grievance. Our bedroom windows face east. This is wonderful for cool evenings on the back patio and terrible for a man who cannot go back to sleep once he knows the sun has clocked in and a hot day is waiting. All last spring and into summer I was awake before seven with no alarm and no plan to be awake before seven.

The blinds help. They don’t cancel the sun. I could wear a sleep mask, but I already wear earplugs to mute the night’s musical selections. Shutting down two of five senses before bed every night feels excessive. In tornado country, it could also be fatal. When my wife says it’s a shame I don’t sleep better, I smile and nod, confident in my own theories about why.

In a small act of rebellion, I ordered a chicken shredder. We grill a few pounds of chicken every week, and I have long believed our enchiladas would be better with shredded chicken instead of chunks. The device is simple — toss in the cooked chicken, twist a few times, done. Before I ordered, I made one strategic decision: orange. My color, unmistakably. Every household member would see that shredder and know whose idea it was. It was cheap, and I was prepared to absorb any guilt that came my way.

It arrived the next morning. She asked what it was with genuine enthusiasm. I explained — chicken shredder, better enchiladas, game changer. Without looking up, she said she’d had one on her list for a while and just hadn’t gotten around to ordering it yet.

Sure you did, dear.

The coffee is better. The roses are thriving. The enchiladas are improving. The lamp, I assume, is still under review.

I Love You More Before 8 P.M

I had a busy day.

Not “storming the beaches of Normandy” busy, but “Oklahoma suburban dad with three doctors, a land rush anniversary, and a fajita deadline” busy. By the time it was over, my social skills had clocked out at 5 p.m. and left the rest of me to freelance the damage.

Fun fact: this particular Tuesday in Oklahoma is the anniversary of the Land Run of 1889. It’s the day people lined up, waited for the cannon, and sprinted for free dirt. The nickname “Sooners” came from the folks who slipped out before the start time. They didn’t cheat; they just identified as “time-flexible.” Meanwhile, I wasn’t cheating anything. I was just trying to survive my schedule.

The day started with me putting the final touches on a project I lovingly call “Bleeding the Benefits Dry” at my wife’s employer. The schedule was aggressive. Some men are made for times like this. I am not one of those men — I am, however, just enough of one to say yes and then regret it in stages.

First stop: the dentist. Routine cleaning, plus a cavity that earned me a bonus visit the next day. On Day One, I wore a bright turquoise shirt. On Day Two, I wore red. I could have worn the same pants, but I cannot let the dental staff know I am capable of a multi-day streak with the same shirt. There are mysteries I prefer to keep between me and my laundry basket. The cavity fill itself was painless. The drill fired up right as Huey Lewis and the News started singing “Heart and Soul,” which felt like my molar’s last request.

From there, the GPS announced I’d arrive at the dermatologist in NW OKC with less than ten minutes to spare. I did what was necessary to buy a little more time and arrived in reasonable shape. Once inside, they weighed me and generously shared my BMI while I was still fully dressed, shoes and all. I’m fairly certain Mr. Body Mass Index never intended his invention to be used in “winter coat plus wallet” mode, but here we are.

The doctor came in apologizing about thin walls and how they talk to reduce stress. What I learned next was that Integris has decided dermatology is now a luxury, and they’re dropping coverage. My earlier-in-the-week appointment turned out to be a minor miracle of timing. The doc, however, was locked and loaded with his cryotherapy gun and not afraid to use it. He addressed a couple of spots on my back and one in my eyebrow — an old acquaintance, originally treated twelve and a half years ago after a trip to China. Most spots barely registered on the “Did you do something, Doc?” scale. The eyebrow one probably wasn’t cancerous, he said; it was just growing with more enthusiasm than I wanted on my face. He double-tapped it and sent it to keratosis jail. If anyone wants to post bail, they’re welcome to it. I don’t need that barnacle of aging marring the wrinkles and other disfigurements already collecting on my face.

Parting instructions: a blister may form. Don’t pop it. It’s nature’s band-aid. Use Vaseline.

I am a man who now has Vaseline on his mental checklist.

The GPS said I could make it home before Ellie woke up. The gas gauge disagreed. The next driver is also my wife, so I filled the tank and accepted I’d be a few minutes late. Marriages are built on these small surrenders.

She was still sleeping when I arrived, which gave me a short breather. When she woke at noon, I was on duty until 3:15. She got her bottle and then spent forty-five minutes making faces and drooling all over her peanut butter toast. She’s operating on gum-and-slobber settings right now, but the volume of drool and the frequency of bib changes suggest teeth are on the way. The afternoon was mostly play and exploration, followed by the subtle art of convincing her it was nap time. Grandpa has his methods. None are scientifically validated, but they eventually work.

Before she was up again, I slipped out to the eye doctor. I paid the small fee for the retinal camera instead of the dilation drops — quick, easy, no blurry afternoon to manage. I aced the vision test. My prescription hasn’t changed. The doctor couldn’t find the floaters or the Fuchs’ Iris Crypts. Boring is good. I awarded this the Best Doctor Appointment of the Day, an honor it earned simply by not finding anything worth worrying about.

One grocery run for guacamole fixings later, and I was home for dinner. My daughter had already sliced the peppers and onions and put them in the oven to roast. There was marinated chicken to grill and Ellie to entertain. When we sat down, we could have won a regional Mexican condiment award: homemade guac, cilantro salsa, and street corn dip, with strawberry shortcake queued up for dessert. It was a good dinner. The kind of good that tricks you into thinking you still have gas left in the tank.

After dinner, my son and I took a walk. He filled me in on honeymoon plans and some work challenges. Good conversation. But when we got back, I was already sliding toward wind-down mode, and I retreated to the den hoping my wife and I could salvage some TV time together.

That was the plan.

That was not what happened.

His fiancée came over for strawberry shortcake and, more dangerously, conversation. I sat in the den watching the clock, wondering at what point a household should put a “Closed” sign on dessert service. My daughter, who had been at the house most of the day working her online job while we babysat, wrapped up her final call around 9:20.

That was my moment.

I walked out of the den and announced: “Everybody needs to leave so I can get ready for bed. I had a busy day and I am tired.”

That line doesn’t invite much counter-dialogue. They shut down their conversations and headed for the door. My son walked his fiancée home. He probably apologized on my behalf and explained it wasn’t personal — just one of his dad’s quirks. That is, unfortunately, a very accurate assessment.

Here’s what I know about myself after all these years: I’m usually a happy, snarky guy. But when the tank is empty and the façade runs out, I become a less pleasant version of myself. He is not the one you want at game night or in a room full of people who are still wide awake and full of things to say. The den is supposed to be where I go to keep him contained. Sometimes it’s just where he simmers until he needs to vent. I am responsible for all of it. I’m just not always able to steer it in the moment.

So to the people who had to deal with that side of me — I’m sorry.

If you’re scheduling time with me, mornings are good, afternoons are fine, and evenings are a gamble. After 8 p.m., you’re probably working with about 75% of my usual civility, and that’s on a calm night. Consider this your operating manual: Andy is at his best — and yes, it’s a narrow best — until about dinner time.

I love you all. I just love you more before 8 p.m.

The Cost of Rent

When our son temporarily moved back into our spare bedroom before his wedding, I made the standard dad joke about charging rent. The kind that isn’t really a joke.

He countered with lattes and espressos. Which sounded generous until I did the math and realized we’d need to consume coffee at levels typically reserved for medical residents and long-haul truckers to break even.

So he sweetened the deal with two tickets to a Thunder playoff game.

As a landlord, I found this reasonable.

There was one small wrinkle. The game fell on the same weekend he’d committed to being in a friend’s wedding. Poor planning, really — if you’re going to have friends, they should at least consult the NBA schedule. Through some workplace point system I don’t fully understand — something between airline miles and a Vegas loyalty program — he’d been saving up for exactly this kind of game. Once he committed to giving us the tickets, he dumped every point into the opening home playoff game. His coworkers, apparently uninterested in burning points on a boring first-round matchup, offered no resistance.

He did, for the record, manage to score tickets to Wednesday’s game. Nobody else wanted those either. First-round games are very boring.

Getting the tickets transferred to my phone was described as seamless. This is a word technology people use when they are being optimistic. Eventually, after some button pressing and what I can only assume was divine intervention, they appeared. Victory.

April 19th is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, which means downtown sees street closures and the city feels different. There’s the upcoming Art Festival setup, the Marathon connections, and the memorial events marking 31 years. It added a layer of reflection to what was otherwise a “let’s not get a parking ticket” mission.

We parked on the west side of Jeff’s old apartment building — his recommendation — which translated loosely to: park far enough away to question your choices, but save ten dollars. The walk took us past art show booths and through the Botanical Garden, and we eventually merged into the crowd moving toward the arena with the slow determination of migrating animals. We crossed the final street in police-approved mob fashion and successfully ignored a street preacher, hoping he’s able to plant some seeds.

My wife walked through the entrance carrying a Sonic drink like a seasoned contrabandist. No one stopped her. Whether this was arena policy or a lapse in attention, I have chosen not to investigate.

Every seat had a t-shirt and a clapper noisemaker. The shirts were extra-large, which felt simultaneously optimistic and judgmental. We were fine with extra-large.

Section 114 put us close enough to see everything without the monitors, which I appreciated. My varicose veins don’t prevent walking, but standing in place for extended periods is another matter entirely. When the crowd rose, and we did not, I used the monitors to catch whatever I was apparently missing by remaining seated like a reasonable person.

Blessing Offor sang the national anthem and performed at halftime. He wore sunglasses indoors, and I briefly wondered if he was trying to channel Stevie Wonder. Turns out, he actually has a story worth knowing. That one’s on me.

The camera work featured a lot of hip-level shots of dancers and performers and whoever else was on the floor. I’m told this is a stylistic choice. It is also, apparently, a young person’s broadcast world, and I’m just living in it.

The Thunder started slow, then remembered they were defending champions. By the third quarter, the outcome was about as uncertain as a Hallmark movie, and I found my attention drifting. At one point, I thought: if I were home watching this, I’d already be doing something else.

Final score: 119-84. Great seats, great outcome, questionable engagement on my part.

During the third quarter, the season-ticket holder next to Judy mentioned that the six seats in front of us belonged to out-of-town fans who never showed. We waited until the result was genuinely not in doubt, then quietly liberated two extra shirts — one for Jeff, one for his fiancée. Consider it a finder’s fee.

We left two minutes early. This is our standard “outcome is clear” protocol, and it almost never actually helps. We still ended up shuffling fifteen minutes behind a crowd moving at the speed of thoughtful contemplation.

I usually operate in about five walking gears. Judy has two, maybe three on a good day. Normally, I’d be quietly restless about the pace. But somewhere between the arena and the parking lot, it occurred to me that my best friend was right there, enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon with a man who complains about camera angles and caffeine-to-rent ratios.

When she’s happy to be there, the least I can do is find a higher gear of gratitude. Dial back the sarcasm. Pay attention to the win that’s actually happening.

More than three decades in, and she still wants to spend a Sunday afternoon with me. The least I can do is show up for it.

Saturday Was Going to Be the Day

After three or four orders, a couple of borderline-needy phone calls to make sure I still got the sale price on things I forgot to add to my cart, and a few middle-of-the-night “what if I moved the flower bed?” brain spirals, this past week was supposed to be the week: all the new plants in the ground, finally.

The tracking number swore they’d be here mid-day Thursday. Then mid-day Friday. Then late Friday afternoon, like a teenager rolling in after curfew. So Saturday became Planting Day by default.

Armed with two cups of coffee and the kind of optimism that only caffeine can buy, I started sorting through the new “friends” I’d be spending the day with. Not required, technically, but I’ve learned it’s wise to get everything laid out before the shovel hits dirt. Inside each box, the plants were grouped in threes — because when I landscaped in my younger years, everyone got brainwashed by the same doctrine: plant in odd numbers. Three, five, seven. Apparently plants are as awkward in even numbers as middle-schoolers at a dance.

I didn’t honor that maxim with every purchase, but when I broke the rule, I did it on purpose. By the end of phase one, every plant was grouped with its brothers and sisters. I had two types of echinacea, which required some label archaeology to make sure no cousins were accidentally bunking together.

I rewarded myself with a break inside. My son is “camping” at our house until after his wedding, and he brought his Starbucks-style coffee maker with him. He made me a latte, mostly because I tried to look like the kind of person who appreciates a latte. About twenty minutes later, the caffeine had opinions about me sitting still, and I was back outside.

First up: three phlox around the roses in the front yard. The roses were thriving, but the rest of those beds were living in a depressing mix of clay, brick chunks, and sand — way more of all three than anyone needed. I shoveled out the junk, mixed the reusable pieces with new soil, and tried not to judge Past Me for cutting corners.

One of the phlox and a couple of the coreopsis in the backyard looked rough — parched, almost shriveled. Those coconut-husk plantable pots are great in theory, but when the pot is bone dry, the plants don’t have enough tears left to cry. If they don’t perk up by Monday, I’ll contact the nursery. Based on their email yesterday, they seem like reasonable people.

After watering, wrapping up the hose, and then unwrapping it again to spray off mud I’d allegedly missed — my wife’s request, and she was right — I moved to the backyard.

The backyard still required some jockeying. I kept hearing a voice in the back of my head: if you get too creative, you’re going to be cutting a lot of new holes in that weed mat. Not using a weed mat would be more flexible, but this is Oklahoma. Bermuda grass does not accept “no” as an answer. One year in and it’s already burrowing through like it’s just another minor inconvenience. Clay and sand out, fresh soil in — same drill everywhere.

Thirty plants by afternoon. My body was filing complaints. I’d been kneeling on a mulch bag all day, and my legs are no longer amused by repeated ups and downs. By evening my fingers were cramping from jamming soil into gaps around each plant. Those cramps were just the physical footnote on one simple fact: planting in my seventh decade hits different. My work gloves would have helped, but I couldn’t find them — my son had probably borrowed them, and I chose not to pursue it.

After a breather, Judy suggested a trip to Home Depot to fill a few gaps. We picked up marigolds and a pink hydrangea she loved. It rang up higher than expected, but we shrugged and paid. Beauty doesn’t come cheap.

Unless you go to Costco next.

A bigger version of the same hydrangea, cheaper by double digits. A very enthusiastic employee — Costco’s unofficial hydrangea whisperer — informed us that hydrangeas are basically the mood rings of the garden: shift the soil acidity and the blooms go from blue to pink. She also mentioned morning sun only. I mentally scheduled the return before we left the store.

With two slices of Costco pizza on Judy’s lap, we swung back by Home Depot to return the overpriced original, and headed home.

Post-pizza, I finished the job. Butterfly bush in the open spot, the hydrangea tucked into the covered corner near the gas line, marigolds up front in the clay-heavy soil where they’ll either surprise me or confirm my concerns. I still need to get those roses at Costco this week. It’ll sting at checkout, but every one of these plants is out there for Judy.

The outdoors is my lane. Judy’s lane is the indoors — laundry, dishes, cooking — and she does it well and loves the color these plants bring into our lives. She goes out of her way to compliment my efforts even when she’s being generous with the grade. Despite my many flaws, she keeps nudging me toward better, quietly and consistently, without making it a speech. I’m grateful to have a woman with that much patience in my corner.

The sore muscles are the tax. The joy is shared.

Bleeding the Benefits Dry

The car-buying detail is good information but it’s landing in the wrong spot — tucked after what should be the emotional pivot toward the closing line, it reads like a footnote. It also slightly undercuts the “we’re done, we used the benefits” finality you’ve built.

Better placement is right after the billing reveal, before the wrap-up paragraph. Something like:

“Since we do need cars going forward, we were able to buy both of them — well-maintained, low mileage, good price. Toyota took care of them for three years so we didn’t have to.”

That way it feels like the last piece of the benefits puzzle clicking into place, not an afterthought.

Here’s the full draft with that adjustment:

Bleeding the Benefits Dry

My wife is about to “retire” from Toyota — and I use that word the way HR uses “restructuring.” She’s quitting. They’ll survive. We’re mostly just trying to make sure we don’t pay for anything on the way out the door.

Since we don’t know if the new insurance will be awesome, terrible, or a scavenger hunt where every doctor is mysteriously out of network, all my dental and eye appointments got yanked forward on the calendar. Prescriptions maxed out. The HSA accounts are running on fumes, which is exactly how Judy wants them. If there’s a responsible adult in this story, it is not me.

The last frontier is the vehicles.

At her level, Toyota Corporate expected the family to have at least one Toyota in the driveway — strongly suggested in the way where people notice what’s in the parking lot when you’re not allowed to work remote. Since we didn’t go for the biggest option available, we ended up with two. Both on leases Toyota paid for entirely. Lease payment, insurance, all maintenance. We don’t put many miles on either one. Most of what we do is within ten miles of the house, so after nearly three years, “maintenance” has mostly meant tire rotations and oil changes. I’ve spent a couple of mornings in the last two weeks taking care of exactly that.

This morning should have been the easy one. I made the appointment myself — last week Judy made it, which created a small hiccup I had to talk my way out of — and I showed up on time. They told me an hour and a half. The dealership sits right next to a park I’ve been walking regularly, so I put my earbuds in and set out to knock out four miles while I waited.

Somewhere past mile three, my phone buzzed. A video from the dealership — a technician walking around the car, narrating that everything looked fine. Maybe the cabin filter was a little dirty. Otherwise, good to go. If everything’s fine, why isn’t my car done?

I called the dealership number and worked through the menu until a perky AI picked up. She was more useful than I expected. She offered to forward a note to my service advisor. The note was expletive-free, so I let her.

A real person called back shortly after — not my service advisor, but a human nonetheless. She explained the holdup: the cabin filter. Did I want to approve replacing it?

I pointed out the obvious. Toyota pays for maintenance on this leased fleet vehicle. I don’t own it. I’m not paying for anything today. Am I really the right person to authorize a repair on a car that isn’t mine, for a bill I won’t see? She stayed on script but acknowledged the logic didn’t quite hold. She’d pass it along.

While that got sorted out, I finished my walk through a very active disc golf course. The trees and wind were keeping things interesting, and several signs reminded me the park accepted no responsibility for errant discs and the body modifications they might cause. It seemed like a reasonable time to head back.

My service advisor never did call. When I found him at his desk, he offered something in the mumble-mumble range that functioned as an explanation. I’ve had to defend the indefensible myself often enough to recognize the form. It bought him another fifteen minutes.

Before I left, he mentioned one thing worth the whole morning: if I’d been paying out of pocket today, the bill would have been about half of what Toyota was being charged.

Since we do need cars going forward, we were able to buy both of them — well-maintained, low mileage, good price. Toyota took care of them for three years so we didn’t have to.

We’re down to the last few things we can legitimately wring out before Judy’s final day. I’m not proud enough to say we got everything we could out of them — but benefits are there to be used, and we used them.

The new job is almost entirely remote. When she can work 95% from home, that beats a daily commute in a free car every single time. The real perk isn’t leather seats or free oil changes.

It’s not having to leave the driveway.

The Art of the Squeeze: Another Donor Day

My new “Sticks on Route 66” shirt.

My double red eligibility opened up earlier this week — right on schedule, every sixteen weeks, whether the world needs me or not. I didn’t want to look like the guy who watches the schedule too closely, so I waited two days before heading in. Judging by the mood I walked in with, the staff probably wished I’d waited a couple more.

Before I left for OBI in Norman, I had to give our final hockey boy his end-of-season pep talk. I snapped a picture of him before I left so I could pretend I was still there when he actually walked out the door. The picture was taken a half hour too early. I am a scoundrel with no photographic ethics.

The older couple ahead of me at the front desk had arrived early. Fortunately, the staff member recognized my impatience and quickly got me into the screening room. I had a couple of lines I was proud of. When they asked if I’d ever donated under a different name, I said I usually go by Andrew, but sometimes Andy. When they asked if anything had changed since I completed the survey four hours earlier, I said I’d been briefly pregnant but wasn’t anymore. My slap-happiness does not always have good taste.

The screener, it turned out, works at the hockey rink. She has brothers who played out of state and were billeted at houses just like ours. Except the homemade pizza probably wasn’t as good.

Three people got involved once I was set up at the apheresis machine — the vampire machine, as I think of it, since it gives back what it doesn’t need.

The first got me settled in. Heating pad, arm pillow, squeezey toy. She handled the light work so the next person could focus on the vampire-specific functions.

The second was Hannah. I didn’t say Montana, but I thought it. She walked me through a recent FDA rule change: you now squeeze the toy the entire time, not just when blood is leaving your body. Apparently, the change was made to keep things straightforward for everyone. It does more than tickle when the flow reverses, by the way.

The TV had replaced the Power Rangers with American Ninja Warriors. One contestant was clearly training full-time for this at age 52. I thought about thinking something more critical, then remembered I was the guy who drove across town to lie in a chair and squeeze a toy. With the TV failing me, I studied the donor-recipient chart on the wall. My O+ can go to any blood type with a plus sign. I’m basically the Costco of blood.

The third had a paramecium tattoo on her left upper arm and a light blue bandanna. I’m not explaining it further. After the needle came out, she reached for the stretchy wrap and opened a drawer full of colors that would have had me deliberating for several minutes. She chose beige. It was the end of the roll, so I can respect that. But couldn’t I be special just once?

I settled in at the snack table with my Chex Mix and Gatorade, Nutter Butters tucked away to go. With my daughters out of the house now, setting them on the kitchen counter still brings back some fond memories — something to look forward to on their next visit.

So why do I throw two hours away watching things I don’t care about while surrounded by tattoos and piercings? It’s not the T-shirts, though “Get Your Sticks on Route 66” is genuinely good. It might be a little bit of my dad, who donated regularly — except he had hepatitis, which probably disqualifies the hereditary angle. Since he’s not around to ask, it still makes a good story.

When all the other reasons fall away, I’m healthy and able to, and that’s enough. When the cholesterol results show up in the OBI app, I smile and pat myself on the back for something I had no control over

I must like people at least a little. I married one.

The Trade-Off

Last night, our final hockey boy took me, my son, and his fiancée out to dinner. Judy was off on her own adventure, which meant I was the oldest person at the table by a comfortable margin and absolutely fine with that arrangement.

He picked Meddy’s, a Mediterranean place we’d been watching open up for weeks without ever actually going. Hockey schedules. Baby logistics. The couch. You know how it goes. But when the offer came, Meddy’s was the unanimous answer, and within about ten minutes of eating, we were all quietly annoyed at ourselves for waiting. Our first visit the previous week demanded this encore.

I got the lamb. Not something I’ve historically sought out, but this version — seasoned vegetables, crispy potatoes, a cilantro salad that overperformed — made a strong case. The only problem was the banana bread I’d eaten around four o’clock, back when dinner was still scheduled for 6:30. By the time we actually sat down, my stomach had already filed its paperwork. I did what I could and left the rest in a to-go box, fully intending to eat it for lunch the next day.

That was the plan, anyway.

The next morning, my son — one month out from his wedding, freshly relocated from his apartment — was heading to work. The coffee hadn’t quite landed yet. I looked at the fridge and, without a single moment of reflection, said: “You want my leftovers from last night?”

I expected a polite no. What I got was “Well, if you’re sure!” delivered with genuine enthusiasm, and honestly, what was I going to do — take it back? The box was gone. My lunch was gone. I stood there with the refrigerator open, staring at my backup options, which were not the same.

To his credit, he’d already eaten the same lamb dish as me at the restaurant the night before, plus half of whatever the hockey boy ordered — some salmon situation that sounded improbable and apparently tasted great. My son can eat! My leftovers went to an appreciative home, which is about the best consolation available when you’ve done something entirely to yourself.

But that wasn’t the part of the night I kept thinking about.

As we were wrapping up, the hockey boy asked to get out of the booth. He slipped away for a minute, came back, and handed me a gift card. “Since Judy couldn’t be here, I wanted to make sure she doesn’t miss out. Make sure you bring her back once she gets home.”

I’ve said before that teenagers aren’t always known for this kind of thing, and the hockey boys who’ve come through our house have been good kids — but “emotionally intuitive” isn’t usually the headline. This one is different. He’s not perfect, but he notices things, and he acts on what he notices, and that’s rarer than it sounds.

Our other boy aged out this season, so he’s done and onto college near his home in Wisconsin. This one, if he can get through the injury-trade-coach lottery that determines everything in junior hockey, we’re hoping comes back. We’d take him again without a second thought.

So yes — I gave away a perfectly good lunch for no reason. But I also watched a teenager think of my wife before I did.

Some trades are worth it.

The End of Full-Time Grandpa (And Other Things I’m Not Supposed to Admit)

I’m going to confess something, and I need you to hear it with some grace.

When I found out Ellie’s babysitting hours were getting cut roughly in half this summer, I felt something I wasn’t entirely prepared for. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t dread. It was approximately 30% relief — and somewhere between “pleased about it” and “absolutely horrified that I’m pleased about it.”

Here’s the thing about spending the better part of eight months as a near-full-time caregiver to a tiny human: you become incredibly important. You control what she eats. What she plays with. When she sleeps. You are, functionally, the benevolent overlord of her entire world — which sounds like a power trip until you realize the overlord is also cleaning up after every snack and quietly celebrating when she naps on schedule. The point is, Ellie is my buddy, my partner in crime. My best one right now, honestly. And I’m not entirely sure I’ll find her caliber of companionship roaming around in the wild.

But she is also, for the record, almost entirely dependent on me. Which makes it a healthy grandpa relationship. Not a control thing. I want to be clear on that.

The Alibi is Gone

For the past eight months, Ellie has served a dual purpose in my life that I didn’t fully clock until just recently: she was both my greatest joy and my best excuse.

Can’t make that thing? Babysitting. Can’t get to that list? Babysitting. Skipping the world’s least urgent errand? The baby. Sorry.

It worked because it was true. My schedule wasn’t my own — it was a rolling remix of my son-in-law’s class schedule and music lesson calendar, with occasional guest appearances from “early drop-off day” and “can you just grab her a couple extra hours?” Neither of which I ever once actually minded. Love my girl. But now that the schedule is loosening, the alibi evaporates with it.

And here’s the uncomfortable thing that emerges when the alibi goes away: I have to look directly at what semi-retirement actually is. No more buffer. No more built-in structure. Just me, a calendar with some new blank space in it, and the gnawing suspicion that “semi” is becoming less defensible by the week.

The identity crisis, it turns out, keeps scheduling follow-up appointments.

So, What Now?

I have been running through the options with the seriousness they deserve, which is to say I’ve been loosely rattling them around in my head between walks and online chess games.

There’s the bucket list route — though I’ve always been a little suspicious of people who pursue bucket lists “blindly.” Life tends to edit your bucket list for you whether you ask nicely or not.

There’s the T-shirt brand idea, which sounds ridiculous until I remember I occasionally hit a genuinely funny idea in what I can only describe as an elusive zen-sarcastic state. Mugs, maybe. Something.

There’s volunteering — the classic semi-retiree move that buys you grace, purpose, and a totally legitimate reason to defer the bigger decisions until your wife retires and the two of you can figure it out together. I’m not above this plan. I’m almost in favor of it.

What I’m not doing: more crypto. More forex. More anything that requires me to hand my optimism over to an algorithm and hope for the best. I made it to semi-retirement with most of my wits intact, and I’d like to keep that streak going.

What I am doing — and this one feels right — is leaning harder into the semi-autobiographical writing I’ve been circling for a while. There’s something in there worth saying. There are stories I’ve been carrying around waiting for someone to sit down and actually write them, and lately that someone keeps making eye contact with me in the mirror.

The Part That’s Easy

Here’s what I already know, even before I figure out the rest:

I want to be the grandpa who’s down on the floor. The one who pretends to sleep and gets “rudely” awakened by a curious toddler who thinks this is the funniest game ever invented. The one who’s genuinely present — not physically in the house but mentally somewhere else drafting a passive income strategy.

I missed parts of my kids’ childhoods that I can’t go back and retrieve. That’s just honest. But I get a second pass at this — not to rewrite anything, but to actually feel what I apparently drove past too fast the first time around.

If every project I consider from here on out has to fit around that commitment — being available to my kids, being present for my grandkids, staying on the floor — then that’s not a constraint. That’s the whole architecture.

If I never find anything more valuable than that, I’ll consider it a life well-lived. Ellie didn’t know she was giving me an eight-month tutorial in how to be that grandpa. But she was. The “semi” might be fading. The purpose is getting clearer.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Vote

I had a freshly minted Oklahoma driver’s license and a new voter ID card sitting in my wallet, and they were starting to feel impatient.

I wasn’t about to run a stop sign just to manufacture a reason to flash them at law enforcement. An election seemed like the safer route for everyone involved.

Springtime in Oklahoma usually means there’s a primary or some hyper-local issue pulling citizens to the polls. Moore was holding one — a single item on the ballot: permission to raise the sales tax a full percentage point. Effectively, a quarter more every time someone off I-35 feeds their family at the Chick-fil-A. The city thought they made a compelling case. A tax is a tax, and I rarely play along with these schemes.

My polling place turned out to be a church connected to the walking track I use most mornings. Despite my brave outward appearance, I am a fragile creature held together by avoidance and minimum human exposure — which is why I walk the track instead of the neighborhoods, where barking dogs and leaf blowers would require constant earbud adjustments, and I’d arrive home worse than I left. But this felt elegant: leave the path mid-walk, vote, return home on foot. Zero carbon emissions. Maximum civic righteousness. Superior plan.

The church was a ghost town.

The only sign of life was a janitor with LED spelunking gear strapped to his forehead. Because Oklahomans are terminally friendly, he didn’t just tell me the poll workers hadn’t shown up — he shared his entire political manifesto. Didn’t see any signs when he came in, which told him everything. Votes absentee. Not a fan of tax increases. Voted against it himself. Since this was a City of Moore issue, he suggested I contact them directly.

Back home, I worked through the list of alternate polling locations. When clarity remained elusive, I called. The receptionist needed some convincing that an election was actually happening today. Once she accepted the premise, she reflected, “I did see a few extra people around.” A few questions later, I had my answer: my zip code says Moore, but my street address only piggybacks on it. I live in the county. Not a Moore resident.

My credentials never left my wallet.

New working theory: if I’m voting on anything state or national, the church on the walking track is my spot. If the ballot involves Moore taxing out-of-towners — well, the measure failed 56 to 44. They didn’t need me. The chicken sandwich survived.