The Magic Eraser

A few months ago Yegi had an accident in which her car, the VW Jetta (more affectionately known as the Jedi Knight) was totalled. A young girl was on her cell phone and pulled out into a four lane without looking and Yegi could not avoid the T-bone that ensued. Thankfully, Yegi was not hurt badly even though her car looked rough (see picture).

The next day I started scouring Craigslist & ebay for a used "new" vehicle. A month or so later I found a good looking VW Touareg in our price range. The vehicle was in Georgia so I took the day off and drove down with my cousin to check it out. After a little haggling we came back with the Treg. Yegi loved it and still does.

Yegi has never been the best driver, nor does she claim to be. She does promise me that she always pays attention to where she is going and limits distractions while driving (no texting, cell phone only in emergencies, eyes on the road). Unfortunately, Friday I found that this is not true...

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I came home after a rough day at work and Yegi had a guilty look on her face. After asking her whats wrong a few times she finally told me she had "messed up". Messing up was Yegi's way of saying, "I was pulling in the garage and the dogs came up to the fence so I hung my head out the window and was talking to them and not looking where I was going (while still moving) and scratched the passenger side of my car." -Oh, you mean the side of the car that every time I see you pull in you just barley miss the wall with and I cringe and when I start to tell you I get stopped by the, "Chris, I've been driving since I was 16, I think I know what I'm doing" excuse... Umm...Yeah, that side.

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I couldn't stay mad long when she looked at me with tears in her eyes and told me how she tried to open the door and push it out from the inside and when that wasn't possible she tried to use a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to "wipe" it off. It was at this time that I realized that we will never own a family run body shop. It wasn't a "scratch" so much as it was the carnage left from what looked like a garden tiller on the door. Nothing a "Magic Eraser" would fix. By the way, please don't ever use a Magic Eraser on your vehicles paint, they have bleach in them which is not good on car paint or the spots where it was gouged off.

For now we are just going to live with the damage because it does not hurt the functionality of the vehicle and hopefully will serve as a reminder to Yegs. Besides, after watching Yegi pull in the garage last night I'm sure it it won't be long until the house shakes again...

Mom, what are those old guys doing?

In an effort to stay (get back to being) physically fit I play tennis and run with a good friend of mine that happens to live in my neighborhood. Neither one of us are particularly good tennis players but we do know the rules and enjoy playing. We keep score (at the time of writing this I'm up by quite a few games) and many times make friendly wagers on the game.

Some examples of wagers might be: Win one set and you owe a cheese dip at El Charro, win two sets and its a whole dinner. Yes, I understand that betting high fat foods tends to counteract the reason for playing, but why else would two overweight twenty something guys get together to play tennis? (Other than being gay -- cough, Will)

Tuesday night we headed over to the courts we usually play on to find that they were full, so we headed down to campus only to find that these courts were even more full (evidently the freshmen class of 09 has a lot of tennis players). Last resort was the Tyson Park "Tennis Center" which ended up being a winner and after the set...so was I.


Sizemore, the trash talker that he is proclaimed after the match, "I wish there was somewhere we could run the forty." Why, I asked? "Because I would spank you!" Well, I've never been one to back down from a challenge so I suggested we put our tennis stuff up and head down to an open set of courts and race. After putting our stuff up we went down to the courts where I set a one minute timer on my phone and when the buzzer went off we sprinted to the last line on the three courts (about 60-70 yards). Right before the buzzer went off I started thinking about what the people on all the other courts would be thinking about the old fat guys stretching and looking like they might race. Much to their surprise (and enjoyment) we did, although from a distance it probably looked like we were walking briskly. After 60 yards of embarrassment I pulled out a slight lead over Sizemore and subsequently celebrated my win.

The most embarrassing part of this whole ordeal was the fact that my hamstrings were sore for a week after the race.

The most important part: I won and I'll be eating free cheese dip soon.

Lets play the name game

It's a boy! Those three words (actually 4 if you break down the contraction) have wreaked havoc in our house since they were said.

First of all, I lost, which is never fun. Especially if your wife is very good at not letting you forget those times that you loose...or more importantly, that she wins. Since we found out that Yegi was pregnant I have said "It's a girl". I think Yegi's favorite quote of mine from the past twenty weeks came when she asked me how I could be so sure that it was a girl. I replied, "Yegi, some people think things and some people KNOW things." I am a very strongly opinionated person and have mastered the art of making a decision and sticking with it until the end. If anyone is taking excuses I will say that I used somewhat of a "snow theory" when picking a gender. The "snow theory" started about 10 years ago when it quit snowing in Tennessee. I love snow, cold weather, etc., and every winter I hope for blizzards of the light fluffy. Since the last good snow we had was in 1993 I tell myself (and others) that "its not going to snow this year". It's a little bit of reverse psychology against mother nature. If she surprises me with snow, well, its a welcome surprise and if she does not then I don't get my feelings hurt. Yes I lost, point Yegi, but your name has an Asterisk next to it in the record book (if there was one).

We find out its a boy and I am super excited even though I had pretty much talked myself into wanting a girl the past 20 weeks with a diligent snow theory campaign (see above). It was also much easier for me to imagine what a little girl that came from Yegi and I would look like. I imagined (and really, really hoped) that she would look just like Yegi. I mean, can you imagine a little girl that looks like me or even worse...has my size (I can see the circus posters now). Its a boy so no worries about Barnum & Bailey calling. When the Sonar tech (I know its not sonar, but I can't remember the real name and Sonar sounds way cooler anyway...they use it on submarines) said in a very monotone way (probably normal vocal level but I was expecting some more emphasis, possibly some confetti, at least silly string), "Its a boy" Yegi was very ecstatic (mostly because she was right) and I was relieved because the wait was finally over. We know what it is and now we can just throw it on autopilot until he makes his appearance. BUZZER SOUND...Wrong! Lets play the name game...

I'm expecting to come home, sit on the couch, and maybe do some talking about how we are having a boy and the neat things about that. Nope, Yegi wanted to name the baby before the sun went down. She has carried a list of names that she started in high school up until about 3 weeks ago when Chaco ate it (literally...I think he was jealous, although he also ate a couple of covers off Yegi's books and as far as I know he didn't have anything against the authors?). So this day was the culmination of everything she has ever wanted and it was baby naming time! I'm more the procrastinate until the last possible moment, make a decision on the fly, and stick with it kind of guy. They say opposites attract but the only thing that was attracted to me after that conversation were things that were light enough to be thrown, but heavy enough to hurt. A couple days later when the threat level was down to Defcon 3 we started talking about names again and decided on one. I really didn't want to do this because I actually liked the name and I know Yegi will either talk herself out of it or over-analyze it until we cannot use it anymore, but if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! Baby name, check.

Yesterday we had the Young Life table host dinner so I came home early (...actually on time) so we could make it out to the dinner location. I walk in the door and no more than three minutes later Yegi starts asking me how I like these different names she is saying. I'm a little confused because I'm still looking at the imaginary list in my head that says...Baby name, check. Evidently she talked herself out of the decided upon name and now we were Baby name, unchecked. Me, not learning well from mistakes and past experiences did not get excited with this new development and soon I became a magnet for flying objects once again (pregnancy hormones are way overrated). Around 9 pm things finally got down to threat level orange with the help of a couple apologies about not being as "excited" about the new names.

I'm not really sure if the kid has a name or if we floated it down the River, but I do know one thing. Next time a certain someone wants to play the name game I'll be the first one in.