My response 99% of the time:
Hmmmm.....I don't really know......let me check with the wife is my first answer.
My second answer - let me check with the wife.
But this weekend is a bit different.
As indicated in the title of my blog - I am trying to "make the most" out of every one of my days.
Today, I am on my own. I am having what I call a Viking Day. It's that special day when you as a man are left alone by your significant other to fend for yourself. It's a day for us to use that cunning instinct of survival that we all have to get us through the day on our own.
My wife has gone outlet mall shopping in the greater Chicago / Aurora area with her mother, her sister and her sister-in-law. I can only imagine the fun that car trip was this morning. The best thing - she called asking me what size Chicago Bears Crocks I needed. Again, I do not know how I survive without her. I am sincere when I say this. Only a special woman would care to think to pick up the phone knowing my man would adore these ridiculous, what an eight-year old should be wearing, orange and blue plastic shoes. She's right. I can't wait till she gets home with them. I am wearing them EVERYWHERE. They will become a part of my Walmart ritualistic weekend wardrobe.
So today - it came to me....man have I always wanted three tattoos or maybe just one. What better time than when the wife is away to make it happen? I know right?
After a nice cinnamon dulce latte with my wife at 6:30 at the drop-off/meeting point for her to meet the other girls to get on the road - I was off on my "Viking Day." Ahhhh......the freedom....the autonomy of it all. After a brisk workout at my YMCA, I made my way to have my hair (as the ladies would say) did. Andrew was my barber at the local Super Cuts today and the man can do a nice fade - if I do say so myself.
Only one more place to visit. So off to the tattoo shop I went. Atomic Tattoo. It was my first time in a tattoo parlor. Correction. Second time. The first time was when one of my best friends allowed me to pick out his tat. Allowing me to pick his tat while I was all hopped up on pain killers after a bone marrow probably wasn't the smartest move on his behalf. None-the-less he headed into the air force to boot-camp the next week with Scooby Doo on his right bicep.
I felt as if I had entered Miami Ink the television show. Poker and all his tat'd sleeves walked me through the process. Kind of like when you walk into Lowes not knowing what the tool is exactly named but knowing what it looks like and the Lowes guy can read your mind. Poker kindly laid out pricing and what he could do in designing what I needed. He also educated me on the care that would be needed once the ink was on. Remember that whole "surviving" because of my wife thing. Well...Poker let me know that someone would need to bandage and clean between my shoulder blades for at least two weeks. If anybody knows me...I really can't reach the middle of my back. None-the-less. Call it mid-life crisis, call it childish, call it even reaching....I have always wanted and known that I was going to be getting one to three tattoos in my lifetime.
What better time than now? Did I get the tat's today? No. But I will within the next few weeks. A guarantee. Hell, one of them is going to have serious meaning to my wife...there is no way she can say no. And I really need her help to reach the middle of my back.
As for Poker....I will see you soon my friend. Although a weekend Saturday....it still feels like another weekday. Just another day of being unemployed, but another day in which I took the first step in doing something I've always wanted to do. A smart step? Maybe not. But definitely a meaningful one.
I give a big "Bless This" to Poker and all the guys down at Atomic Tattoo.
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