Furniture, Vomit and Records

Greetings from Christmas vacation!

Twas a year in which my wife and I bought less for each other, and I call that progress. Neither one of us wanted the pressure and stress of "wow-ing" the other with some oh-so-perfect gift - paid for, of course, by a joint bank account.

She got permission to order the new dining room table and side board. Something we had tip-toed up to purchasing a while back, before I went all "harumph" on the idea, and basically threw it back into "committee" for nearly 18 months.

Furniture is such a scam, don't get me started.

Yeah, yeah. Handcrafted. Quality materials. Unique styles and pieces. Blah, blah, blah.

They can now make a 82" DLP flat screen TV - with 3D! - for the absurd price of just $1999.

Eighty-two-f'ing-inches, bubba! Suck on that.

And for just under 2K, you almost don't even worry if it breaks. Just throw it out by the curb in a few years, and by then, they'll have a 110 inch 4D model for $1499!

A glorious, complicated, technological marvel such as that can invented, engineered, manufactured, shipped and sold - with a nice slice of retail mark up - for under 2 large, and yet, and YET, a mahogany stained slab of wood with legs and some chairs for that price is deemed unacceptable crap by my lovely bride.

Ezekiel and the settlers were making these dining room tables back in the day. This is not rocket science.

This is a scam.

One would think I could just throw a similar amount of family fundage at the missus and say "Knock yourself out! I'm sure that princely sum of money will bring home the most elegant of dining room tables, replete with comfortable chairs and a side board for our assortment of meats and cheeses!"

No. Not even close.

Ah, but ultimately I conceded that the undersized dining room table from our old residence did look puny and pathetic in our new house. So like most things in married life, you just succumb. She's happy. I'm happy. You can't take it all with you, right?

I balanced that off with a pair of Ryobi cordless tools for my arsenal. A variable speed orbital jig saw, and a 5 and 1/2 inch circular saw - with lazer!

Do I know when I will use these? No.
Do I know how I will use these? No.
Did I need these?

Listen. "Need," had nothing to do with it. I am a man. Me like tools.

At under $50 per, I brought 'em home with the outdoor lights from Home Depot (Ding! Steve Czaban Show sponsor!) and wrapped them myself.

Win-win.

Then just as the Christmas weekend set in, the dreaded fast-moving, highly contagious, nobody-is-getting-out-of-here-alive stomach virus arrived.

It took out, in neat progression, my 9 year old, my wife, my 12 year old, and then of course, me.

It was uncanny. Each one of us was flat on our back for a day, puking our guts out. Then about 36 hours later, back up and running. The virus would wait a day (how polite) before choosing it's next victim.

So there I was, like the last sorority girl standing in a slasher movie, just WAITING for it to come get me. It was awful. I think the knowing/not knowing suspense was worse than the day in bed feeling like two goons had beaten me with pillowcases full of oranges.

Finally, after holding off the vomit monster for a good 12 hours, my will had been broken.

To say it was like Stewie puking in The Family Guy would be an exaggeration. An exaggeration in that I was PUKING WAY HARDER THAN THAT!



The force. The creepy sounding "roar" it produced. The volume. My God.

I never cease to be in wonder of how our bodies were designed to process life sustaining food and water in ONE DIRECTION with our gastro-intestinal tract 99.999% of the time, yet still able to hit REVERSE THRUST when emergency illness dictates.

All of that soft tissue machinery, miraculously geared to allow for a violent and quick exit at a moment's notice.

A Christmas Miracle, I say.

After that, I felt about 200% better, and was able to watch Drew Brees set the single season passing mark on Monday Night Football. A great moment to witness, for an NFL player whose story is, really, too good to be true.

And please don't start selling me on how it was "much harder" in Marino's day, because of the rules, etc. etc. As Tirico and company pointed out with a graphic, Brees' passing yardage average above the league mean, is actually GREATER than Marino's when he set the record.

So how, exactly, is it "easier" now?

If the NFL is just "Full Sized Arena Football" now, as some cranks will say, then why doesn't every team just throw for 5,000 plus yards per year? I mean, doesn't everybody have a QB who completes 70% of his passes?

Geez, it's so easy to do right now. I mean, gosh. I hear all the time from fans: "You know, having a great QB just isn't that important. Anyone can throw for 350 yards a game."

I then went to sleep and woke up to read on Twitter that Jon Gruden appears headed back to the sideline. Oh, joy. No more "THIS guy" and the fake perma-snarl lecturing me on how great everybody is on MNF.

May the Christmas Miracles continue!