Last Night I Went to Sleep Happy

Last night I went to sleep happy. I had been severely chastised by my wife, and though it may sound a bit strange, I was able to go to sleep happy.

No I’m not a wimp or a Casper Milquetoast who can’t stand up for himself or feeds into a relationship where the male part is only content when the female counterpart is in total control. I just accept the fact that, putting PC’ism on the shelf where it oft times belongs, men and women are different. They see things differently, and there is no getting around it. That’s what prompted the little disagreement between the little woman and myself last night. We just saw things differently; she went just a little ballistic at something I had done. We “had it out” as it were. I lost, in a manner of speaking, and went to sleep happy.
To help anyone reading this to understand the situation, there does exist a story that I might offer to give a little clarification. In fact, there are two stories that I could offer. The first story contains the events leading up to the butt chewing I received. The second story explains how I, a man among men so to speak, could be the recipient of such a butt chewing from a cohabiting female and still go to sleep happy, and totally secure in his manhood.
You see, as of late, I, admittedly, have been spreading my “man wings” just a bit too much. Now being a “real” man, I believe a guy in co-comittant relationship has the right and even obligation to spread his “man wings” now and then. Now and then - therein lies the crux of this story. To put it in easier to understand terms, I have recently been buying hunting paraphernalia (you may read that as shotguns if you like). Yes, I have been buying shotguns. Plural. As in “how many can one man shoot at one time?” It all started innocently enough. I was going to shoot with some friends in an informal clay pigeon league. Now as every sporting man knows there’s never a bad reason to buy a new gun, and the old pump Winchester just wasn’t up to clay pigeon league standards. Plus, I had never shot too well with it anyway. So a new (not previously owned by me) shotgun was in order, preferably something in the auto-loading fashion. The first one I bought was a good gun, but I realized later that it was not well suited to the type of shooting I was going to do so another one was in order. Let is suffice to say that I had been bitten by the bug. A collection of shotguns was started (all having a very good reason for holding a place in my arsenal) and didn’t stop until I had purchased a total of four. I will not tell you how much the last one cost, but it truly is a beauty.
So that’s where the first story rests. The female, though raising an eyebrow more than once, handled all of this surprisingly well. Not well enough that I thought I could eek out a fifth shotgun, however. So on to the second story.
The mate and I were at a restaurant recently with friends from her work environment. She works in the computer network field. Now most outsiders think that people, who have anything to do with computers other then being astute at hitting the “any” key, are complete and total geeks. I am here to tell you that is not necessarily true, or at least I didn’t think so until this dinner. Though these people are work companions of my wife, I have somehow been accepted into their company on certain occasions (I make them laugh). As we sat through the meal, subjects of golf, family, movies, and any number of other things were bantered about. Everything seemed quite normal, and we were having fun, but something wasn’t quite right. Every once in a while the “geek alert” hairs on the back of my neck would bristle. One such bristling was when one of the guys that I thought was rather regular talked about staying up all night rebuilding his computer. The reasoning behind this all nighter was he had come to realize that his was not the “fastest machine in the valley” anymore. Well, actually it was, but there were other contenders nipping at his heals. The only solution was an all night session to eek and tweak and geek out every last bit of performance from an already screamin’ machine. Now remember we are talking about a computer, here.
The second such bristling caught me off guard when a couple of the males at the table started talking about an all night weekend game at someone’s house. It sounded intriguing. The wife would be gone along with the kids. There would be food and freedom to play through the night and into the next day. I considered trying to score an invitation to this game. Maybe the funny guy would be a good addition to the festivities. It was only then that I realized they were talking about computer games. They were going to gather at one guy’s house and network their computers together and “game” to the proverbial death. My balloon deflated,
The dinner continued, but the third and final bristling was to come just as sure as the Ghost of Christmas Future came to visit Scrooge. Now, keep in mind here, that this dinner came on the heels of the shotgun-collecting spree. It wouldn’t be long before I overheard the spouses of the other men talking about their husbands spending unauthorized money (men, of course, never have any authorized money to spend unless it’s on eating out with the woman or buying her specific gifts). My spirits began to rise as I once again felt that I might, in some way, be among kindred spirits. Yes, these might be real men after all. They too spent unauthorized money. They too snuck out to those “men stores” and dropped cash on “men things”, and came home with the logoed shopping bags that they would unsuccessfully try to conceal from the woman. They too would be confronted and chastised concerning their unacceptable behavior, but find a way to proudly take it like a man. Yes sir, I was in the company of real men after all. “Wait a minute. What did you say they bought? Computer equipment? Chips, boards, cards, disks? Excuse me, but that’s not man stuff!”
I must tell you right here and now, that when you are in the presence of a group of people and your geek alert bristles thrice in one sitting, there is a good chance that you are, in fact, in the company of geeks. That is why God gave you that survival sense in the first place. And when that survival sense bristles, do as the wild animals do. Don’t hesitate, don’t investigate, - don’t even look back, just run. Run in the opposite direction, and run fast!
Being there with my wife, I couldn’t run, so I did the only thing I could think of. I stood up. And no, I didn’t “flip over the table, whip out the shotgun that I had recently sawed off and cleverly concealed in my boot, and treat the geeks to a little head pudding “ for desert, as my friend Ed Jones* and possibly others might expect of me. I merely stood up to speak.
“I must be in the wrong crowd,” I began. “I don’t understand you guys. When I stay up all night to squeeze the last bit of performance and speed out of something, it had better have four wheels, eight cylinders and at least one huge-assed carburetor. And if I stay up all weekend with a bunch of guys to play a game, it had better involve beer, cigars, cards and cheap greasy chips. And finally, if I ever take a thrashing from the wife for spending unauthorized money on something, I had better damn well be able to hunt or fish with it!”
There, I said it. I threw down the gauntlet. I drew the line. One this side are the men. On your side are the geeks. Well, so much for making them laugh. They just sat there with a blank sort of stare on their collective faces. I had obviously just spoken a foreign language to them. An ancient language of far removed times and places, and the faint hint of natural instinct that may have been peaked by these utterances was so deeply buried in cold ashes that not even a tiny ember glowed any more. They turned away from me, the grotesque alien creature, and continued to make plans for their “gaming” weekend. I, on the other hand, got the waitress’ attention and ordered some 12-year-old single malt Scotch straight and savored every drop of it.
Now back to the butt chewing I received and the part about going to bed happy. I did not receive the butt chewing for speaking up in the midst of a group of my wife’s co-workers. That remained a non-issue between us. The butt chewing came days later. The said chewing came when I admitted to her that I had just ordered a hunting bow off of that great on-line shopping Mecca in the sky on the web, Ebay.
Since I earlier used the term “spreading my ‘man wings’”, I will add a little color commentary here. We have a beautiful back yard, which is a natural habitat for birds. To enhance the natural habitat, we have added feeders and houses for our little feathered friends. We along with our cat enjoy watching the winged creatures as they go through their lives in our full view. I personally enjoy observing their physical behavior in relation to each other. Dances I call them. There are territorial dances. There are mating dances. There are relational dances of all types that can be observed.
Upon my conveying the news of my recent purchase, my mate and I entered into one of the very common relational dances that humans do. The male had spread his wings a bit too wide for the female’s comfort, and her posture was conveying that notion. The male, on the other hand, believed that this particular spreading of his wings was justified (read that, “a deal too good to pass up”). With her foot stamping, and wing flapping, accompanied by her high, shrill aggressive vocalizations the female let the male know that the “gun-buying spree” had not yet fully cleared her craw. The male responded with his own stamping and flapping as well as vocalizations, followed by what could only be recognized as capitulative behavior. He took his trouncing, head hanging low, and as is the custom of this species, vowed never to do it again. Then the male went to bed as happy as any male of any species could be.
No, he did not go to bed happy because he and his mate’s dance progressed into a mating dance. He/I went to bed happy because I had taken my lumps for something that mattered. I had not taken such a thumping for some pitiable piece of processed silicone arranged in a specific microscopic configuration. I had neither taken this pasting for some miserable magnetic media-recording device, nor for some elusive fraction of a gig, whatever that is. I had taken these lumps for something that was truly worthy of a man. I had willingly taken this beating for something that would bring home game . . .. Meat . . .. Flesh . . .. Wild and dripping with blood! Yes!
So, last night I went to sleep happy in the knowledge that I was not a geek. I was, in fact a man! I had splendidly spread my wings. I had faithfully performed the dance. I had once again paid that awesome price – the dues to the fraternity of manhood.
The female of this relationship may not realize what transpired last night, and I may not tell her of the part she played, or that she played that part so beautifully (no sense in letting her get too uppity). But as I began to drift off, I smiled and whispered under my breath a loving “thank you”. And went to sleep happy.