Monday, September 18, 2006

Personal disaster averted

The lovely Mrs. Jib and I have not seen much of each other lately. She's been working a lot of OT, and I've been keeping somewhat busy in my downtime. Occasionally when we have a stretch like this and when I get a little free time, I become a rudderless ship. Today, I had the entire night free.

I knew I was in trouble tonight at 9 pm. That's when I became aware that I had just finished watching two hours of Deal or No Deal? Without the aid of Willie Nelson, I couldn't remember a damn thing from that two hours of TV, but I can now immitate every incarnation of "deeeaaaallll...ornodeal?" uttered by Howie Mandel. After that, some new crappy show with Matthew Perry came on. I knew about a minute into it that I didn't really like it. The problem was the remote control was a good six or seven feet from me, and I was nice and comfy on my recliner. I watched the whole thing.

Finally, around ten o'clock, I realized in my man-slovenliness that my lips were very chapped. I decided this was a job for my good friend mentholatum. I went upstairs in a stupor from three hours of the most mind numbing television I've watched in a long time. I got to the medicine cabinet, grabbed the jar, dipped my finger in, and got about an inch from my lips when I realized that I was about to slather Icy Hot all over my lips. Icy Hot is a wonderful product, but there are two places you should probably never use it. The first is in your jock strap (someone else's jock is fair game). The second is your lips. I jerked my head back before my lips were greeted with that soothingly cool yet fires-of-hell hot muscle balm. I managed to look at my finger accusingly, as if the finger was trying to sabotage me.

I've learned a lesson from tonight for the next time I have an evening like this: Next time, I'll opt for the intellectual stimulation of professional wrestling over any programing on NBC. And I'll keep my beer close but my remote control closer.

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