Saturday Plans

You only get 52 Saturdays a year.  Bill Gates himself doesn’t get any more than that.  You want to spend them wisely.  You want to do something worth bragging about on Monday morning.  You want to win, to have the best Saturday of everyone.  That might be just me.  I’m pretty competitive about Saturdays.

To win Saturday competition, you have to have plans.  If you don’t know what you’re doing, how do you know when you’re done?  Beyond espresso, Charlie rarely has much of a Saturday plan.  The skateboarder kid has one plan: skateboarding.  If he can’t skateboard, he sits around and whines.  That’s his only Plan B.

This particular Saturday, I planned a mildly competitive day.  I probably wouldn’t win for excitement, but I could brag all Monday and well into Tuesday about my productive day.

We’d start out riding bikes downtown to the chichi espresso place by the lake.  Not only does it sound envious to sit by the lake and drink hot beverages, but you can get an eyeful of all sorts of people and activities at the neighboring Saturday Market.  You can play the “Wonder why they bought THAT?” game when you peek into shopper’s bags.  Saturday Market sells everything, not just weird-looking vegetables.

We’d get home and get started on the house.  Charlie’s itching to start the kitchen and I’m itching to let him.  The skateboarder even offered to help, between ripping and shredding at the local park. 

I’m looking forward to painting the entry green, which will be the color of visitors’ faces when I’m done.  The more progress we do, the more I’ve noticed people telling their spouses, “Why can’t you do something like that?”  Who doesn’t enjoy seeing their perfect neighbors grumble?

Later on, after lots and lots of work happened, we’d head out to the sushi bar.  We’d see friends there and have plenty of opportunities to brag.  We might take the skateboarder and a friend to a movie, just to round out the perfect day.

Then we looked out the window.

 “It’s July,” Charlie said.  “Why does it look like it’s going to rain?”

“Why is it so cold?” I ask.

This is the conversation of two people who’ve run in snowstorms.  Riding bikes is different.  We sit back down.

Either the weather or not biking in it got us started on an X discussion.  I almost feel sorry for couples who don’t have X’s.  How do you know how good you have it?  How do you explain to your spouse how truly grateful you are to be with him?  Who do you make fun of when you’re waiting for the weather to clear up?

Charlie and I try to take people as they are.  Honestly we do.  We’re not perfect, though, and we know it.  Rather than mistakenly criticize someone and regret it later, we hold off and focus any negativity toward our X’s.  If you’re going to criticize someone, it might as well be someone you can criticize well.  We do it well.  They made it easy.

We kept rambling off-topic, as this was a pre-caffeine conversation.   Periodically we looked out the window, hoping the clouds would burn off or it’d get warmer than the refrigerator.  Rather than make a decision, I said things like, “You should see the way my X put up crown molding.  You’d think he’d run out of caulk.” 

Charlie said things like, “You’d think that dust was a furniture finish, and you could insulate your window blinds with it.”

We paid dearly for the right to talk like this.

The clouds were more stubborn than we were.  They even let go a little rain.  We’re Oregonians, and we rarely notice rain.  Not this time.  This was all it took for us to give up and get in the car.  We drove right past all the people better than us riding bikes and running.

Since we drove, we stayed a lot longer.  Why leave when you know you can get home within a few minutes?   We ended up returning from breakfast at lunchtime.  Even the skateboarder was awake and already into his Plan B.  You can’t skate when it rains.  A wet board isn’t a happy board.

I’m not happy either.  I’m doing the hallway’s job and becoming green, without the benefit of paint.  I thought either the weather or being reminded of my X was the reason for my queasy gut.  It’s definitely more than that.

Charlie looks at the kitchen in boxes and says, “I want an MP3 player.” 

“What?” I asked.  “We had a plan.”

“Do it later,” Charlie says.  “Let’s get your laptop fixed, since we’ll be at the same place.”

“It’s been in the shop five times.  I don’t know if it’s fixable,” I say.  I hate my laptop but I do the bills.  Fixing is cheaper than replacing.

“Do me a favor,” Charlie says.  “Buy a new one.”

“No!”

“Come on.  You spend more time fixing that thing than working on it.”

“No.  I do the bills.”

“If I can get an MP3 player, you can get a new laptop.”

“No,” I say.  “I’m fine.”

Charlie must have given up on me because then he turned to the lazy kid slouching on the couch.  “You’re coming,” he told the skateboarder, “so you can do my downloads.”

Charlie takes the keys out of the skateboarder’s hand.  “I’m driving your car until you learn how to use the brakes.”

The skateboarder doesn’t seem to mind.  I let him sit in the passenger seat so I can have the back seat to myself.  I must be pretty sick.

Charlie taught the skateboarder to drive.  When you teach someone to drive, you say comments like, “Put on your turn signal.”  Now that Charlie’s driving, the skateboarder sits in the passenger seat saying the same comments.

“Turn signal,” he says.  “Brakes.  Now.”

“Go!” he says the moment the light turns green.

At stop lights, one of them will do something to make the car beep.  Then the other one does something else, making the car beep in two ways.  They continue pressing buttons and unplugging their seatbelts, making irritating noise until I say, “Hey!  I’m in the car.”  

When we get to the computer store, Charlie says, “I’ll stay in line.  You look at laptops.”

“No,” I say, but I figure walking around might make me feel better.  Somehow I ended up at the laptop section right in front of a really good one on sale.  Somehow a salesperson said all the right things.  Somehow I visualized myself coming home with a new laptop.  I’m so dizzy I can hardly stand up.

Charlie comes by and says, “Your laptop is dead.  They can’t fix it anymore.”

The salesperson tells Charlie all about the laptop I’m definitely getting now.  “We’ve got a special deal on broadband, too.”

“We’ll take it,” Charlie says.  “You must be sick.  That’s the only time I can get you to buy anything.”

For the next seven hours, Charlie and Dylan drove to every computer and guy-like store in the Metro area, shopping.  They even stopped at Target and bought packages of white t-shirts, just for fun.  This wasn’t in the day’s plans but I couldn’t argue.  I could hardly sit up.

The skateboarder’s hungry so Charlie says, “You’re getting Burger King, you vegan.  I’m not wasting time waiting for you to decide where to eat.”

The skateboarder orders a veggie burger and Charlie pulls up to the window to pay.  Across the street he sees Chevy’s.  We never go to Chevy’s unless it’s for the skateboarder’s wild sister’s birthday.  Between her and her loud friends, we usually are within minutes of getting kicked out.  These aren’t relaxing memories.

“I want a beer and a burrito,” Charlie says.

“Really?” I say.

“No, I don’t.  Yes, I do.  No, I shouldn’t,” Charlie says.  “Okay, let’s go before I change my mind.”

He looks at the skateboarder, now eating his veggie burger.  “You can eat in the car then come in to watch us eat.”

I’m not feeling so good so I order a veggie burrito.  The skateboarder comes in, eats all our chips, then when my dinner comes, eats almost all of it, too.  This is the pickiest kid on the planet.  We’re at Chevy’s, not New Season’s.  I never would have planned for this.

“I need TUMS,” he says, getting in the car.  He sure does.  He’s smelling up the car with the effects of beans.

We get out of the car as fast as we can, and get him his TUMS.  I wait by the register, reading about Mary-Kate Olsen’s Anorexia in People magazine.  This is something I’ve never done before.  I like it.

<>When you have plans, it’s important to stick to them.  It’s also important to know when to let go.  Once you let go, it’s impractical to guess how the day will end.  Sometimes you end up at Chevy’s with a gas-passing skateboarder, an MP3 player, t-shirts, and a new laptop in the trunk.

A little help? [] 3:12:30 PM