Today was a wonderful day

Well, parts of it at least.

It started badly, with the fambly heading to the Outlet Mall in Loverlyland to hit some sale at OshKosh where they had everything like more than 50% off. MaxieC, of course, got incredibly bored very shortly after discovering that despite the clothes being for him, only Mommy was allowed to pick anything out. So went and sat in the winivan where he watched Brother Bear and ate Slim Jims.

Then we had to go to the Carter's Outlet, where they had a Lego table. He played nicely with another kid about his age. So that went smoothly.

The Outlet Mall is right next to Sportsman's Warehouse, but I decided not to mention it. The Mrs. was already piling up millions of places we had to go, MaxieC was worn out, and we were instructed that none of us could eat lunch until everything was complete. This is something I call "planning ahead." I am the only person in the fambly with that skill when it comes to things like lunch.

Why did I want to go to Sportsman's? Well, because The Mrs. is getting me a stainless 4" S&W 686+ .357 magnum for Valentine's Day because she loves me so much.

Oh wait, that right, Valentine's Day is what we call The Day of Disappointment around here. I imagine I will not be getting that, or really anything at all, other than the standard, "I wasn't disappointed. I've learned to have absolutely zero expectations, and that way I'm not always disappointed."

That's a direct quote. You can ask her. She uses it on her birthday and Valentines Day, which on most year fall within a couple of days of one another.

On Christmas, she uses, "It wasn't worse than I expected." I'm not sure if that's better or not.

No, I wanted to go to Sportsman's to see if they carried CamelBak parts. In particular, I'm looking for the tube and bite valve. See, I got one of those beer hats for Christmas. The kind that hold two beers, and then there's hose to your mouth. This was given to me by someone who really cares about my happiness and wants me to maximize my joy when riding my lawn tractor. Namely, Fat Moother, from whose loins The Mrs. sprung lo those many years ago. The Mrs. tells me she was a little disappointed in the birth. It didn't really make her feel special. It seemed like there was a lot of focus on her mother through most of it, and not so much on her until the very end.

So, the thing about the beer hat - and I'm not trying to criticize here as I love the gift very much, and it was one of the most personally touching gifts I got this year - is that I don't think the Chinese have lawn tractors. See, if they did, they would have realized that having a very difficult to operate ratchet clamp to start and stop the flow of beer would mean time driving along with no hands on the wheel, since the left hand is, of course, fully occupied with a fine Partagas cigar.

Now, the hiking and mountain biking crowd figured this out a long time ago. The CamelBak guys invented this fancy thing they call a "bite valve" that is a big round silicone thing that fits in your mouth, and it has a slit in the front of it that opens up when you bits this. Actually, I'm guessing it was one of the girls at CamelBak that thought of this. That, or I feel really sorry for one of the guys there.

It's like prom night all over again, as they say.

So the nice thing about the bite valve is that it requires no hands to operate. You hear that? It requires no hands to operate correctly.

I know they sell replacement ones, as do a couple other companies that make knock-offs, including Nalgene that makes one to convert their bottles into suck things. I also know they're available at REI, I but, like Fred Thompson, don't like to be near hippies.

But we skipped that little outing.

We hit Office Max cuz they were having one of those "15% off anything you can fit in this bag" sales, and The Mrs. has been hounding me to get a can of compressed air to clean out all the smoke detectors. I don't have any idea why.

The great thing about Office Max is that right in the same parking lot there is a store called "Liquor Max Warehouse". And they have great prices. The first three things I picked up were all about $10 less per bottle than at the regular place. And they had sales! Wow. I got a bottle of Tanqueray on sale! I haven't gotten liquor on sale since leaving Kalifornia.

Funny thing - they had Crown Royal in 1.75L bottles, something I've never seen. Crown Royal bottles come in boxes, so I grabbed a box and put it in the cart. Then, shortly thereafter,

HannahC: "Da?"

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah?"

HannahC: "Do you think that bottle still comes in a purple bag like the smaller one does?"

Me, CherkyB: "That's a very good question. (look in box) Yup. It's just a bigger bag."

HannahC: "OK. Good."

I could sense The Mrs. looking at me with one of those "Why does my 7-year old daughter know Crown Royal is packaged" looks that we've all experienced. Sheesh. Womens.

Then, The Mrs. declared that we had to stop at the Safeway that was in the town on the opposite side of our house from where we were, and if we were good, she'd let us get drive through from a place that MaxieC hates and that has like a 20 minute wait at the drive through. So, despite being right across the street from Lowe's, I forsook the spa chemicals (we can go another day without water clarifier, and we're not technically out of defoamer yet). Mostly cuz I was hungry as hell at this point, what with it being 12:15.

I managed to get a "Gut Buster Coney with onions and cheddar". The Gut Buster is a 1/2 lbs. hot dog. The Coney adds chili. Wow, was it good.

The rest of the day I was assigned to keep MaxieC calm. He's got a bad cold, so he needs rest. I role modeled for him by lying on the couch under a blanket with him and watching TV all day.

That was the best.