"Well, I simply observed, sir, that I'm felicitous since during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorization of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue." – Blackadder the Third
I wish there had been a sequel to "Lord of the Rings" starring Alan Rickman as an elderly Frodo. It could have been titled "Old Hobbits Die Hard".
First note: If The Mrs. is feeling well enough, her idea was that we should do our podcast on the eve of 2023. I'm thinking 9pm Eastern. I'll post a note here before the show to remind everyone – and you can get that delivered straight to your email inbox if you subscribe. Like the vaxx or putting river water in your socks, it's easy and free. Unlike the vaxx, 100% proven to not cause a heart attack, unless from laughter.
Penultimate Day. This is a particular institution of the Wilder family. It started over a decade or so ago. The Mrs. was having problems with her Blackberry® phone (the one with the cool trackball) and wanted a new one. I wasn't working, and the closest place that sold phones with our carrier was 90 miles away.
So, we popped the kids in the car, and headed south to buy a phone. We went to Best Buy®. We ended up not buying the phone (the deal was awful) and decided to eat at Olive Garden
. As I drove home, I decided to have fun with the kids, and told them that this was the Wilder holiday – one that no one else observed.
The next year, we remembered, and did the exact same thing.
What are the rules of Penultimate Day?
- Drive 90 miles south,
- Look at cell phones,
- Under no circumstances whatsoever, buy a cell phone, and,
- Have some Italian food a casual-dining chain.
That's not a tough holiday. I can testify that (with the COVID exceptions) the Wilder family has kept the spirit of Penultimate Day and have purchased exactly zero cell phones on December 30 of any year.
Our waiter this year spoke Spanish. He asked, "¿Que past?"
This year, we had a different observation of Penultimate Day. The Boy decided to go back to see some friends. So, he headed back and specifically told us he'd be celebrating Penultimate Day with his friends.
That left The Mrs., Pugsley, and me. The Mrs. has been feeling a bit down after her most recent bout with Ebola. She said that Pugsley and I "should go". Now, if you have been married, you will recognize that there are exactly two ways a wife says that – the first is a deadly trap, indicating that "should go" is the last thing you should consider doing and that there will be much grumpiness.
But she meant it in the second way, the "I'm not feeling well and you boys should go and have a good time" sort of way.
So we did.
Pugsley drove. The first Penultimate Day, he was a backseater, and now he was driving. We ended up talking about various things on the trip, since he was far more interesting than he was a decade ago. We talked about fatherhood, and what my goal had been with him. It has long been my theory that if you can get a boy to 16, that's the character they'll take with them for life. But getting them through the minefield of puberty to that character is the difficult part.
We talked about that.
The Mrs. and I are skilled at making the tough choices.
We made it to Best Buy©. I can happily report we didn't buy a cell phone. I might have bought a cell phone case, but Pugsley immediately called me a heretic, noting that the provision for cell phone purchases should obviously be considered to be prohibited based on the emanations and penumbras of rule three.
Just kidding. My phone is so old that it needs a pull-start and two-cycle oil, so they didn't have it in stock. Samsung has released at least ten versions since I purchased my phone, several versions of which have been nearly explosion-free. So I bought a phone case on Amazon when we got home. After midnight.
Just in case.
I found an old Nokia® and hooked it into a charger. The power company ended up paying me that month.
An observation about Best Buy© itself – it was dead. A decade ago, there were shelves of DVDs and CDs and video games. There were a few dozen of each of those, but they were like the lingering holdouts. Why would you buy a piece of physical media when you can just download it over the Internet? That war is over, except for weird titles that are either typed up in legal limbo or aren't popular enough to stream.
The televisions were amazing, and also not so much. When I was a kid, watching the world on a 24" analog set, the idea of having a television that was five feet across was saved for the main screen on the Enterprise® in re-runs. Now? They're cheap. The coolest one there was a Samsung that, when turned off, looked like a painting.
That was cool. As were the refrigerators. They were (oddly) plugged in and running. One of them was the current version of the fridge we bought seven or so years ago – and was $2,000 more than I paid for it. You could also (oddly) get one with a streaming television in the door.
That confused Pugsley and I, since I didn't think talking to my fridge would get my beer any colder. Best Buy looked more like a visit from Penultimate Days' past rather than a store that had anything we were much interested in.
I bumped into our fridge once, but it was cool with it.
Olive Garden (Motto: when you're here, you're here) was pretty good. I had the chicken and shrimp carbonera, and it was quite tasty. We grabbed some to-go food for The Mrs., and headed home. The Mrs. had hers, and then went to bed, since she was still not feeling good.
Although it was the most sparsely-attended Penultimate Day ever, I was mostly happy. The one down note is that The Mrs. is still feeling a bit puny. The up notes, though, were many.
Change is a part of life. By slicing it up to review one single day a year, over the course of years, change becomes so much more observable. The first change is in my sons. Both have grown up, and both are past the danger zone of 16. I'm proud of both of them.
The second change is in The Mrs. and I. We're growing older, too. I accept that. That is not a bad thing. There is a sense of completion in that. That's not bad.
I know purists will say that Olive Garden® isn't real Italian food, but I'm not Italian. It's tasty. That's been good over the years, though you can certainly see the prices going up over time, but still with unlimited stick.
And I'd give customers a penne for their thoughts.
In a few years, when Pugsley goes off to college, and The Boy is deeply involved in his own life, it will likely be down to just The Mrs. and I enjoying our family Penultimate Day together.
Well, and all of you. Hope we all have a happy and wonderful 2023!
No comments:
Post a Comment