Everything but the Kitchen Sink

For me, one of the more interesting mysteries in life is the difference in how men and women carry their necessities with them. Now, guys carry in their back pocket what is referred to as a wallet. It carries all of the essential items a man will ever need: money, credit cards, pictures, driver’s license, social security card, etc. If it won’t fit into the wallet it isn’t worth taking.

But with women it’s a whole other matter. My ex-wife, for instance, couldn’t go anywhere without carrying a bag bigger than the one Santa Clause uses when delivering toys.

I think it started when eldest child was born. How was I, a naïve kid of 21, supposed to know that having a child meant bringing a whole arsenal of equipment along where ever we’d go? Instead of a diaper bag we could have used a pirate’s chest big enough to hold a Shetland pony. Between the 10 million diapers, the 20 million diaper pins (yes, we used cloth diapers), the 5,000 baby bottles, and all of the play things from a Toys-R-Us store, we needed a U-Haul to carry it all just to visit my parents . . . and they lived just a block away!

Of course, you know who did all of the toting, me. Why, when eldest child was born I swear my feet and hands instantly turned into hooves. I started walking on all fours, and my ears grew long and pointed. When asked a question, instead of answering it in English, I’d answer it with, “Hee haw, hee haw.” My how I quickly gained a healthy respect for my distant four-legged cousin the pack mule.

Now, one would think that after the kids were out of diapers former Mrs. Bagley would’ve downsize her carrying bag to a pocket book or at least to an average sized purse. WRONG! She continued to carry with her a satchel that puts the duffle bag of any professional sports player to shame.

What all she carried in there I never did find out. I mean, she had so much stuff in there I could’ve rummaged through it for a week and not seen the same item twice—I once found a dead cockroach and enough change in there to fill a bank vault.

Funny thing was, she not only knew what she had in that satchel but she also knew where every item was located. If we were away from home and in need of some odd thing like say a tire patch kit, seemingly out of no where ex-wife would produce one.

Actually, it’s my belief that former Mrs. Bagley inherited this character flaw from her mother. Boy could that woman fill a handbag. Like they say, she stuffed everything in there but the kitchen sink.

One time when her parents were visiting I had bronchitis, and it was my job to take them around town to see the sites. Anytime I displayed an outward sign of my illness, SHAZAM! Like Florence Nightingale, ex-mother-in-law would dip a hand into “Nurse June’s” carry-all bag and produce the correct medicine to ease the symptom. Cough drops, Aspergum, throat spray, you name it, it went in me—thank goodness the one thing she didn’t have in that bag was Preparation-H.

But you know, though I get a chuckle over women and their carrying bags, there’s usually something in them that I need. Now that I think of it, I should’ve had former wife search her bag for that five-man-tent we misplaced when moving here. Who knows? It might have been in there.

Adulthood

When I was a child I couldn’t wait to become an adult. Adults were older, wiser, knew the answers to the complicated questions of life. After all, it was they who determined the age one had to be to acquire a driver’s license. It was they who decided the age at which someone was mature enough to have a say in government, via the vote. It was they who determined when to go to war or when to try other means of dealing with those whom they deemed our enemies.

But well into my adult years now, if nothing else I have learned one thing about life: the older I get the less I know.

You see, adult life is not that “cut and dried”. In fact, as a child, life was by far simpler than it is as an adult.

Shades of Gray, a song on The Monkees 1967 album Headquarters, nicely sums all of this up. I share that song with you now.

Shades of Gray
By Barry Man and Cynthia Weil

When the world and I were young just yesterday
Life was such a simple game a child could play
It was easy then to tell right from wrong
Easy then to tell weak from strong
When a man should stand and fight or just go along

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray

I remember when the answers seemed so clear
We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear
It was easy then to tell truth from lies
Selling out from compromise
Who to love and who to hate
The foolish from the wise

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray

It was easy then to know what was fair
When to keep and when to share
How much to protect your heart and how much to care

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
Only shades of gray

The Lesson of the Fountain (Skunky and I Get An Education)

Shortly after college graduation, I spent time with my childhood buddy and all around great American if there ever was one, Skunky Wilson and his wife Dawn, back home in Booger Hollow. While there, I leaned a great lesson concerning women and men—their thought processes operate in two different hemispheres.

One morning, Skunky asked if I would help him bring home a surprise for Dawn. We drove to the local home-and-garden store, where in a dark, musty back corner stood a large, ugly, puke-green garden fountain.

The look on Dawn’s face as we carried the fountain into the house was cold enough to put out the Statue of Liberty’s torch. And from that expression, I knew Skunky was sadly mistaken if he thought that ugly squirter of water would bring his wife many moments of immeasurable pleasure.

When the initial shock of the pure “pig-dog” ugliness of the thing wore off, Dawn hollered, “You’re not bringing that ugly thing into my living room!” But bring it in we did.

“There now, it’s not that ugly,” Skunky told her after he and I set it up in a corner.

“That thing is so ugly,” replied Dawn, “if I were a bird I wouldn’t take the time to poop on it!”

“That’s not a nice thing to say to someone who’s just tried to do something nice for you,” said Skunky.

“Nice for me? I wouldn’t have bought such an ugly thing let alone bring it into this house! Why would you say buying that butt-ugly fountain was doing something nice for me?"

"The other day, when we were at the store, you said you wanted it," was Skunky's answer.

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did, when I pointed it out to you."

"What?! All I said when you pointed it out to me was, 'yes, that's nice.'"

"Well, there you are," said Skunky. And the conversation deteriorated from there.

Needless to say, as the intensity of the battle over the fountain increased so did the temperature in the house. But when I heard Dawn say, “Ask Doug what he thinks [evidently, she saw the look on my face and read my mind],” the temperature increased ten fold. When she told Skunky she’d have me help her return the fountain to the store in the morning, I found a place to hide. Hey, as the saying goes, “My momma didn’t raise no fool.”

Later that night, Skunky and Dawn called a truce and the conversation was pleasant. Pleasant, that is, until Dawn said to Skunky, “Go ahead, ask Doug what he thinks of the fountain.” She and I discussed the issue when Skunky returned to work, after he and I had delivered and set up Dawn's surprise.

Let me tell you, I slumped so low in the recliner I was sitting in I could barely be seen over the armrest. But I was trapped and forced to give an answer.

So, I put it to Skunky as gently as I could. “Skunky," I said, "that’s the most gosh awful, ugliest, most hideous, gaudy looking thing I’ve ever seen. My [ex] wife has put up with a lot from me over the years, but I believe bringing that [I nodded to the fountain] home would be the thing that would do me in.”

“And there won’t be a wedding anniversary next month in this house if that thing doesn’t go back to where it came from,” Dawned chimed in.

Well, the fountain didn’t exactly go back to where it came from. You see, Skunky sold it to some naïve fellow who hadn’t yet discovered that men and women don’t always operate on the same plain of thought—boy, did Skunky’s brother catch heck when he brought his newly purchased fountain home to his wife.