Have you ever...

Photo from gbaku on Flickr

Have you ever tried to watch a movie, only to be interrupted at some critical juncture? I mean, you're sitting there just as a devious, terribly important plot device is about to be revealed, say, the evil villain is about to cut off someone's finger, or there's a intricately choreographed series of pyrotechnics where the hero won't even get his hair mussed, when your significant other walks in to "have a talk."

This happens to me all the time. She-Who-etc wants to have a heart-to-heart just when there's gratuitous violence commanding my attention. If I were to do this to her, she'd say, "Shhhhh! Wait until the commercial. My story is on!" It's hopeless.

In one form or another, this has been going on for years. Back in the early years of our marriage, we seldom watched a movie all the way through as, well, one thing lead to another. One of the 'nother things was children. Once they arrived, my chances of reading a newspaper article in one sitting was nearly impossible. And movies - don't make me laugh! There are movies I watched in pieces scattered over 3 or 4 years.

So I was reminded of this again over the weekend. She who etc insisted on a chat right before the end of a movie I'd planned to watch maybe 4 years ago. I missed most of the ending, but to add insult to injury, just as Mary left and I thought I could catch the last 5 minutes in peace, the network squeezed the picture down to a narrow band across the bottom of the screen, and covered up the audio with a commercial! Arrgh!

OK, so that was yesterday. Things have to improve, right? Not in my house.

Before getting to that, however, we need to rewind to Saturday. I was running errands that morning when the ancient and venerable Ford decided it was time to go to the big parking lot in the sky. It stopped dead in the water. I've had a multitude of problems with it, but this time it's not going to the garage. It's going away on the hook of a wrecker.

We are down to one vehicle, Lyndsay's Blazer. She needed it for work today, so that meant I would be forced to ride my bike, sore toe be damned. I got my things together last night, knowing that I'm not well focused in the morning. I set out my work clothes and the cycling stuff I'd need, making sure that I found my helmet this time before needing it in the morning. The work clothes went into my pannier, and I switched the laptop over to the small messenger bag because it's so much lighter. A big bag with more space just seems to attract more 'stuff' and it gets heavy very quickly.

The alarm clicked on and I did my best to lunge across the room before it woke Mary. I went through the morning rituals, loaded the bike, and started to roll it out of the garage. That's when I discovered the flat tire on the front wheel. No time to fix it, so I borrowed a wheel out from the Centurion, and this time I checked that the brake actually worked before setting off. ABC Quick check, right?

About a mile from home, I thought, "Gee, this sure feels nice without the big messenger bag!" Duh. I'd left the small messenger bag laying on the floor in the garage!

A quick glance downward confirmed that, yes, I was wearing a pair of shorts. Sometimes it's good to be certain.