It's OK Now - I'm Here

As I age, I get more philosophical. I believe this is something called "wisdom." I never really played that much Dungeons and Dragons, but with all this Wisdom, I think I should be learning some spells presently. After all these years gaining wisdom, you know what I've figured out?

The biggest inconvenience of being married is having a wife.

Especially if, like me, you have a wife who considers you some kind of superhero Mr. Fix-it. And a wife who is completely unfazed about volunteering you to help all kinds of other wives' husbands.

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On an unrelated note, today I held my first clinic on how to build a Pinewood Derby racer for three other boys in MaxieC's Tiger Cub pack. Now, you might be asking yourself:

You: "Self, now why would CherkyB being holding a clinic on how to make a Pinewood Derby Racer? He's never made one before. He's gotten through the first two steps of the 8 or 9 required to make a racer, and he's never even read the direction book all the way to the end. It seems odd."

Now, the fact that you are sitting there asking yourself that (and slowly forming the words with your mouth as you think) is a pretty good indication that you are not my wife. No, when my wife attends a pack function and hears the other moms kvetching about how their husbands don't know how to make a pinewood derby car and may, in fact, not even own any tools, well, her thought go more like this:

The Mrs. "Self, my husband is very busy, but being that he is some kind of a god, he always has time to help out others, even on things he doesn't know anything about. He's a sooper-genius, and he can figure it out. I'll just volunteer him, and then I'll paint him into a corner so that he can't back out of the task without looking like a total ass. That's worked for 25 years. If he really didn't like it, he would have left me by now."

The Mrs. [to others]: "My husband can teach your husbands what to do tomorrow. I'll ask him what time when he gets home tonight, and I'll email it to you."

Later.

The Mrs.: "Remember how when you opened the pinewood derby box, you didn't know what to do cuz it was just a block of wood?"

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah."

The Mrs.: "Well, a lot of the other dads are having the same problem. I told them they could come over tomorrow morning, and you could teach them. You think about 9am?"

Me, CherkyB: "...Uhhhh...What?"

The Mrs.: "Should they all come over at 9 o'clock in the morning tomorrow?"

Me, CherkyB: "I'm not even out of bed at 9:00 on a Saturday. What's going on? Who's coming over?"

The Mrs. "OK, I'll tell the 10:00."

Me, CherkyB: "10:00 for what?"

The Mrs.: "For some of the other scouts to come over for you to show them how to build pinewood derby cars."

Me, CherkyB: "But I don't know how to build a pinewood derby car. I just bought a book at Michaels, and I'm following the instructions. Can't they just buy the same book?"

The Mrs.: "A lot of them don't even have tools."

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah, but I don't even know what I'm doing. And I'm supposed to spend all day helping MaxieC and HannahC work on their cars."

The Mrs.: "I already told them you'd do it. I suppose I could sent them an email saying that you don't want to help and you don't care about their kids and the pack cuz you're just too busy to help at all. But they'll think you're a dick."

Me, CherkyB: "[sigh]"

The Mrs.: "I could tell them how I forgot how busy you are. But their wives were so counting on your help. They'll be kind of upset with me, but that's OK because I don't really need any more friends, so if nobody in the cub scout pack likes me, I'll still be OK. It'll just make going to pack meetings a lot more uncomfortable."

Me, CherkyB: "OK . 10 o'clock."

We spent about 4 hours this morning getting them to the point where they could paint the racers and attach the wheels on their own. We cut, sanded, and added ballast to the bodies, and we polished the wheels and axles. It was a zoo. Four 7-yr-old boys running around getting into everything other than making their derby cars. But one of the dads bought us pizza and another ran out to Sportsmans Warehouse to load up on Pepper Jigs when we ran out.

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My new holster came last week (finally - almost 5 weeks). It's fan-f-ing-tastic. Here's a picture of it: