Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Why He's Not Allowed To Hold The Checkbook

My husband is a sucker for anything sold on TV. We have a whole collection of dusty boxes in the basement: Six Second Ab-Machine, Buns of Steel Video Tapes, That Wheel-Thing With A Handle On Each End That You're Supposed To Hold In Both Hands While Kneeling On The Ground And Let It Roll Forward Leading To Cries Of "Help, I Can't Get Up!", etc. etc. The Ab Machine never left it's box, and although the plastic seal on the videos has been broken, a quick glimpse at either of our buns will tell you how often we've used them (steel? try souffle). Last I saw of the Wheel-Thing it was rolling around behind the closet door in the bedroom. I'd assume it's still there, except that I swept behind that door a few weeks ago and didn't see it. Then again, that was a awfully big dust bunny, even for my house...

It's not just excercise equipment. Jehovah's Witnesses leave my house thinking Hubby has not only converted, but will be bringing a noodle casserole to the next pot-luck night. A guy came by selling 10-dinner packages for a local restaurant, and he had Hubby out on the porch for a good fifteen minutes, nodding away, before I intervened with a polite "No Thank You" (ok, ok maybe polite is not the correct word, but hey, I didn't invite the guy to come here). Seriously, I like dinner out as much as the next person, but since Hubby & I have gone out to eat together, I don't know, maybe twice in the last three years, it didn't seem like the best purchase to me.

One night last month I woke up sometime in the wee hours to hear Hubby talking on the phone. Not just talking, but clearly ordering something. I didn't get up to investigate, but I'm pretty sure my dreams for the rest of the night involved being chased by a large Wheel-Thing while juggling Buns Of Steel videos. In the morning I asked him about it, and all he would tell me is "I got something for you." I was home when the box came in the mail, and it was a relatively small box, which I though was maybe a good sign. Then again, Buns Of Steel probably comes in DVD format now, so it was with some trepidation that I opened the gift Christmas morning. Fortunately for Hubby, it was not excercise DVDs (which I would not have handled gracefully). Instead he bought me a thirteen CD set of soul music, which suprised me, because it actually isn't a bad gift. I don't usually listen to soul music, but I don't mind it. I doubt I would have ever bought thirteen CDs of it, but I'm sure we'll listen to them all eventually.

So along with the CD set, I've started to get magazines in the mail. Apparently they offered Hubby free 3-month subscriptions. You didn't think he'd refuse, did you? So now we get Entertainment Weekly, Us, and Time. If we don't call to cancel them by the middle of February, they'll bill his credit card for an annual subscription for each magazine. You did notice he chose all weekly magazines, right? Why choose a 12-issue subscription, when you can have 52-issues for five times the price! For Entertainment Weekly and Us, I'll probably cancel early, so I don't risk missing the cut-off date. I might keep Time, though. I like Newsweek better, but Time isn't bad. The 12/26 issue has a really good article on the last page, called "The Year We Questioned Authority," about how we're not blindly following the government's every whim quite so often these days. Hey, it's a start.

But please don't come to my house and try to sell my husband anything. There's (intentionally) a very small credit limit on his Visa, and I'm not giving him the checkbook.

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 1:57 PM :: 0 Comments:

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