A Birthday Gift, Part 2 [This is a continuation of a post that I started a few days ago. Stat with Part 1 here, then come back]
Some backstory is needed before we launch into the rest of the tale:
I was born into a Calvinist family, and then taken into increasingly conservative churches with increasingly antagonistic view towards--well, anything fun, pretty much. My father was a Calvinist, my grandfather was a Calvinist and my great-grandfather was a Swedish Lutheran before he converted to Calvinism because the Lutherans weren't repressed enough for him. So, just going through with the plan to go to the lingerie store represents a certain victory over psychological baggage.
Anyway, here's the story.
Monday, I e-mailed my wife to tell her that I was going to a demo at a nearby Apple retailer, thus I wouldn't be home until 7:30 or so, which was about as late as I could credibly be out until. This was definitely cart-before-the-horse, since when I went to Mapquest.com later, I discovered that Bryan, OH is nearly an hour and half away. Since I planned to leave work at 4:30, even a fortuitous expedition is going to leave me with some unexplained minutes. I hope that Mapquest is conservative about estimating drive time,or maybe Mapquest isn't aware of how desolate the Ohio turnpike is between Toledo and the Indiana border. I refined my route, power walked the three blocks to my car, and hit the road in a very optimistic mood.
BAM! I hit a traffic jam before I even reach the top of the on-ramp to I-75. But, the tie-up was short-lived, and I soon crossed the Maumee River at speed. I exited onto the turnpike and made great time crossing Lucas County.
I did the math each time I passed a mile-marker. If I shop for 20 minutes, I can make it. No snow, no ice, and only a light mist, what could slow me down?
Fog. Thick fog. Fog that got thicker the farther west that I went. If you drove through fog like this, the next day you tell your buddies that it was like driving with cotton balls taped over your eyes.Yes, you would be exaggerating, but not by a lot. Still, I was on the turnpike, and the Ohio Turnpike is notoriously well-signed and poorly-patrolled, so I was able to keep up a good pace to my exit.
Bryan lies twenty minutes south of the turnpike, down a two lane country road. It is the road that you dream of driving on a crisp, sunny fall day in an English green Mazda Miata. Of course, I am driving in the winter, after dark and through the atmospheric equivalent of cotton candy. I am also afraid of getting lost, getting a ticket (tough to explain to the wife) or getting into an accident. Also, every so often, I become convinced that I am driving north when I should be driving south and I have to talk myself out of turning around. And, my mind still has room for a strange mixture of fear, guilt, anxiety, and excitement at the idea of walking into a store dedicated to imperfectly concealing the female form. I also need to pee.
Twenty minutes after exiting the turnpike, I am overjoyed to see a pleasant green sign declaring the city limits of Bryan. I am not so overjoyed to see a similar sign five minutes later as I drive out of Bryan. Turn around, backtrack, find the right street, find the store, look for parking, fail to find parking, turn around, find parking, cross the street, enter the store.
And, I am disappointed. To be fair, the store was just what I should have expected. Small, slightly worn around the edges, kind of ordinary. I had feared that I would find a BDSM dungeon, full of scary goth people. I had hoped I would find a boundless erotic landscape, an elegant Greek temple dedicated to the triune goddess of lace, silk and imagination. I found a nice, unpretentious lingerie store completely in sync with its small-town, Middle America, early twentieth-century granite building location.
It took me nearly thirty seconds to figure out that I have no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what went with what, I didn't know what colors were tacky, and which were alluring, and, frankly, I was having trouble finding the really sexy stuff. I was just standing in the middle of the store, looking stupid, when the clerk came out of a back room. She looked exactly like everyones favorite aunt. This was good, because if a statuesque blonde had come out of the stock room, I would have bolted like my pants were on fire.
Fortunately, my desire to see my wife in lace is overcame my embarrassment at telling a matronly stranger that I wanted to see my wife in lace. With a minimum of awkward questions, "did you want something sexy, or stylish?" (yeah, men often drive an hour and half for stylish sleepware) "do you like the red outfits?" (apparently she noticed I couldn't take my eyes off of them) "did you want a garter belt with that?" (I've managed to get this far, why stop now?). Because I'm not a total cad, and because I don't want my wife to feel like a Vegas show girl, I bought a nice (expensive) silk camisole, that was both classy and skimpy. The sales woman was so good, that by the time I had to make stocking selections, I was acting like an old lingerie hand, asking about material and comfort. Even the discovery that stockings with seams down the back have a hypnotic affect on me doesn't doesn't throw me.
I spent too much money, she gift-wrapped my items (a Visigoth warrior would wrap presents better than I do) and I left the store, highly pleased with myself. It's 6:40. I know I'll be lucky to make it home before 8:30, so I had accept that my carefully contrived alibi wouldn't hold up.
Driving out of Bryan, the fog was getting thicker. It became difficult to tell where the fog ended and the snow-covered ground began. Every so often, confused by the seemingly motionless scene outside the windows and the movement of the broken center line and vibration of the car, some ancient, lizard-level of my brain would decide that I was not moving. Other times I became convinced that I was driving west instead of north. Definitely, I should have slowed down, but I was on a schedule. I would have to answer fewer questions if I died on this country road than if I were come home after 8:30. Also, since I now had a box of lingerie in my wife's size on the passenger, I wouldn't be the victim of any posthumous suspicions.
Eventually, the sign for the turnpike entrance appeared through the fog. I had been ready to turn around, thinking that I had driven right past the turnpike and was heading into the wilds of Michigan. I followed as the road arced off to the right, and soon I was speeding (well, "poking along at 45 mph" is more accurate) towards home.
3:39:33 PM 
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