Loss, helping me appreciate what I have.

Eaton Rapids Joe of the eponymous blog, had a link to, in effect, a video eulogy. The gentleman producing the video blog reported that, last weekend, he and his “Beautiful Wife” had gone to bed, just like a thousand other times, except that only he awakened.

In the course of his remembrances, he tears up, and APOLOGIZES! for doing so.

I commented: “Sir, please do NOT apologize for your tears. Be the genuine, grieving man that you are. And, thank you for the reminder of simply how important my own “Beautiful Wife” is, to me. The simple things are truly the most important.”

My own “Darling Wife-Mark II” (improved version!) did not change my life as dramatically as this gentleman credits his Beautiful Wife with doing, but she did teach me that I could love again, and that even my cynicism required some limits.

Presently she is toiling away, making decorations for my daughter’s wedding. She has devoted uncounted hours to this, creating place settings, hunting down this or that item, in an unstinting effort to make my daughter’s wedding beautiful.

And, to be plain, my daughter is my “step-daughter”. So, the woman she is losing sleep over, whose wedding she is working ever so hard to make just nice, is her step-step-daughter.

That is the sort of quality human being that has graced my life, has been my wife for ten years this autumn.

I will take the time, today, to try to be certain that she understands how she has affirmatively changed my life for the better.

An effort that, if I have a lick of sense, I will repeat daily until the end of time.

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Small Town Policing

So, once upon a time, my bad example led TDW-Mark II (The Darling Wife-Mark Two) to obtain her own concealed pistol license. She spent some time at the range with me, and eventually decided that she would carry a Springfield Armory XD pistol in 9 millimeter.

As these stories of mine develop, she was driving about our little town, and one observant police officer noted that she had a brake light out. He pulled her over to explain to her his observation.

Being a good doobie, she announced as part of her opening conversational gambit, “I am a CPL holder, and I have it here in my purse on the floor of the passenger side of the car!”

He acknowledged this tidbit, and invited her to carefully produce her license, registration, and CPL license itself.

She did so, and the officer walked back to his vehicle to run her plates and license.

He returned, and returned her cards to her. “So,” he asked, “What made you select the XD for your carry gun? My wife just took her CPL class, and is considering her own choice of pistol.”

TDW recounted her experience with my array of pistols, finding them overly large for her hands (Glock, Browning High Power), or not enough ammunition in the magazine for her preference (Revolver, Colt Government Model). “When I picked up the XD in the gunshop, it felt just right in my hand, and when I shot it, I did pretty good with it!”

They soon concluded their conversation, and she returned home, excited about her contact. “We simply had a nice conversation about concealed carry, and women’s choices in pistols, and why this or that pistol might be more or less suitable. It was kind of nice!”

Entry number 4,385 in my Catalog Of Why I Love Small Towns.

Small Town Clinics

TINS©, TIWFDASL© in Da Nawth. I was working my weekends off in a rural hospital’s walk in clinic, and, surprisingly, saw folks who walked (and limped!) in to obtain care for their particular maladies. One snowy weekend, a gentleman limped in, with a complaint of bruising and knee pain after rolling his snowmobile.

Once the nurse had finished her interview of our friend, I entered for my share of the proceedings. I introduced myself, and asked him to tell me what happened.

“Well, Doc,” (No, I’m not a doctor, yet folks persist in addressing me as a physician, notwithstanding the fact that every single time I begin an interview, I introduce myself as ‘Hello, I’m Reltney McFee, a Nurse Practitioner. What can I do for you?’), he began, “Yesterday I rolled my snowmobile down an embankment, and it wound up on my leg, pinning me to the road. I rolled it right in front of a DNR officer, and he and one of my buddies rolled it off me. My knee feels pretty sore, even though I can walk on it. I have another bruise, here on my side, I guess from my Sig 365, that I had in my pocket.”

For those in our studio audience who are not “gun guys”, a Sig 365 is a striker fired semi auto 9 mm handgun, with a 10 round detachable box magazine. It is relatively small sized, being just under 6 inches from muzzle to the back of the slide.

I asked him where his pistol was presently, and he responded, “Well, this is in the hospital, so I left it in my car. That’s what the regs regarding my CPL (concealed pistol license) call for.”

I performed my exam, and we chatted about firearms while I did so. I contributed, “My wife is looking at getting another concealed carry pistol, and she has considered the Sig. What do you think about that?”

“Well, I really like my Sig. It carries well, and I am pretty accurate with it. You read about firing pin drag on the primer, and some guys say that the firing pin may break because of that. I haven’t had any problems myself. Just in case, I carry it with the hammer down on an empty chamber.”

TDW bought a Springfield Armory Hellcat. And loves it!

Another, tangentially related, small town story. Several weeks ago TDW-Mark II and I went on vacation. We set our camper up, and decided that this night was a good choice for pizza. We went to the local pizza place, placed our order, and settled in to wait. It was getting on towards dusk, and I noticed that, as I turned on the lights, there did not appear to be any illumination from the passenger side tail light. Since I did not feel any particular desire to explain to Officer Friendly how this light might have failed, nor my plans to remedy this failure (let alone the conversation that begins, “Well, officer, you see, I have my CPL, and my sidearm is on my right hip. How would you like to proceed?” I have had a couple of friendly roadside conversations about carry sidearm choice, but, wouldn’t it be nice to not encounter Officer Friendly as the traffic stop just after he received a soliloquy regarding his mother’s poor life choices?)

So, the next day, TDW and I set off on our day, and detoured to the Rural Town Truck Dealership. I explained my need to the service advisor, and he said that one of the mechanics could set me right, once the present job was complete.

Cool by me.

I settled in for a spell of a wait, and soon met the mechanic, who identified my bulb type, and led me to the parts counter, there to pay for my bulb.

I typically wear a ball cap, and this one is from Freedom Munitions (no payola, simply a satisfied customer). The parts guy asked me if I worked there, and a conversation about The Ammo Drought ensued. We chatted about caliber, about carry choices, and about setting ammunition by for a “rainy day”.

At the end of the chat, my taillight was repaired, I was NOT charged for the mechanic’s time (despite the fact that I asked what I owed for his time!)

The moral of the story is that, as Commander Zero (http://www.commanderzero.com/)often notes, there are Like Minded Individuals all over the place, if you look carefully.

Op Sec and The Belt

My charming and talented youthful Darling Wife, Mark II (hereinafter TDW Mark II) is both short statured and full figured. Holding a CPL (license to carry a concealed pistol), she is presented with challenges that I do not face. She employed the gunbelt I had purchased for her, but found that it hurt her back. She resolved that problem by carrying in a much modified appendix carry, but the buckle of the belt I had purchased interfered with positioning her pistol. She and I went to the store, in search of a belt that would function for her.

She found a candidate belt, but, wanting to be certain it would fit and function, wanted to try it on. Doing so in the middle of the store would make unmistakable the fact that she was carrying (no longer concealed), so she thought to use the dressing room.

The employee supervising the access to the dressing rooms asked why she needed to use a dressing room to try on a belt. Thinking quickly, TDW-Mark II informed the employee that “I have an apparatus on me that I would be embarrassed to show everybody, and if I pull up my shirt it will be fully revealed.” The employee, saying “I’m so sorry”, ushered her into the dressing room, where she found that the belt in question fit and performed suitably. We made the purchase.

After she regaled me with the details of her conversation, I told her that her response was perfect: absolutely truthful, not overly informative, and completely misleading.

Back From Vacation. I Have Stories!

I just got back from vacation (well, by the time you folk(s) see this, I will have been back for a couple of weeks, but, anyhow…) So, here are two anecdotes, serving as a sort of “Cruise: after action report”

The elevator counseled “Patience!”

TDW-Mark II and I were on a cruise, earlier this year. I had worked considerable extra shifts, in order to avoid financing this adventure. So, TINS©, there we were, soaking up sunshine and living the life, and we were attempting to take the elevator from whatever deck that we were on (say, deck 3) to Deck 14 (which would be “The Serenity Deck”, relatively quiet as well as sunny).

There were numerous other people who had a similar idea (which, on a cruise ship with something like 2,000 + passengers, is likely to be unsurprising). So, when I pressed the button to summon the elevator, there appeared, after some time, to be no response. I again depressed the elevator call button, and was surprised to hear a typical robot like female voice emanating from the elevator, counseling “Patience!”

TDW was very, very amused.

Departure elevator lobby Hide and Seek

TDW-Mark II is, well, petite. At the end of the cruise previously mentioned, we arose early, got out crap together, and joined the lowing herd stampeding towards the gangway. As we were on a middle sort of deck, well, all the folks who had arisen around the same time as we had, and were on upper decks, well, the elevators were full up by the time that they arrived at our floors. (I, of course, lacked the insight that, should we enter the elevator ON THE WAY UP, well, we would ALREADY be on that elevator, once the upper floor folks tried to join us. Alas, THAT insight, however useful it might have been at the time of departure, did not occur to me until, well, just now. Good timing.)

In any event, soon there would arrive an elevator with space for one of us, but not both. After several such events, I directed TDW-Mark II to enter the next elevator, and I would join her downstairs once I myself became the room-for-one-more elevator passenger.

Great plan. Well, except for one issue. Recall that my wife is petite. Consider one readily foreseeable result of lots of people deciding that RIGHT NOW would be a good time to depart, luggage in tow. Yep, I arrived on the departure deck, waited for the crowd to move so far as to allow me to exit, and did not see my wife. She called to me, and I heard her, but could not place her in the lowing crowd.

I decided that this problem resembled the childhood swimming pool game of “Marco Polo”, wherein contestants were forbidden the use of their eyes, and had to find, and tag, other players. “It” would elicit calls from the other players, by calling out “Marco!”, requiring the others to respond “Polo!”.

I implemented my solution. “Marco!”, I called out.

“Polo!” responded TDW-Mark II. I placed her across the lobby, but still could not see her.

“Marco!”

“Polo!”. Ah, there she was, hand a-waving. We “swam” through the crowd, meeting just a little ways “downstream”, and therefrom making our way past checkout, and on to Customs. The rest of our trip home was uneventful, except for the guy who, in the left hand lane of the expressway, decided that he had to exit RIGHT FUCKING NOW!, and swerved, abruptly, across three lanes of traffic and onto the off ramp. Fortunately, it appeared that the other drivers had experienced this sort of shenanigans before, as they braked, and nearly seamlessly allowed Mr. Late Decider off the expressway, and out of our lives.

But, except for that, it was all good.

“The Gun Show Loophole!”

One year, my (very successful) brother rented a house in Some Blue Hive State, so his family could summer there. I received an invitation, that should I wrangle the time off of work, and my own transportation, I’d have a spot to stay and join in the merriment.

TDW was interested, and so I arranged vacation, and purchased plane tickets. One car rental later, and we were off!

My brother is an alumnus of an Eastern Sophisticated University, and, therefore, all of his college buddies are, as well. That trends towards them also being of the Blue Hive Borg, where, evidently, “assimilation is Mandatory!”

All these fellows are attorneys, and, generally, pretty smart. No surprise there, right? So, one evening, after consumption of Tax Stamped Beverages, well, one guy (let’s call him Bob, “not-his-real-name”) overheard The Darling Wife regaling me with her recent visit to an Unnamed Flyover State Gun Show, wherein she had purchased an AR pattern rifle, in 6.8 Rem Special. Good News: She was very excited at her selection, describing her new rifle as “Pretty!”. Bad news: Have you PRICED 6.8 Rem Spl ammo lately? Holy Stool, that is expensive ammunition. Not as pricey as H & H .375, or .416 Rigby, I’ll grant you, but pretty spendy against sixty-cent-a-round .223 ammo.

So, Bob told us what his thoughts about that were. That is, if you could characterize him as “thinking” on that subject. “Man, they ought outlaw gun shows! That gun show loophole is awful!”

I know a thing or two about guns, as does The Darling Wife. She had, after all, just the preceding month gone to a gun show, and purchased a rifle. Indeed, in terms of contemporaneous experience based knowledge, she might qualify, within the confines of that house, as a subject matter expert.

Therefore, I asked Bob, “Oh, really? What is the ‘gun show loophole’, and what is the most objectionable part of it, in your view?”

He apparently was not one to let ignorance of the subject get in the way of a good opportunity to let his “woke” flag fly. “Why, it shouldn’t be allowed that simply anyone can just walk right in to a gun show, and just buy any sort of gun that they want, and then just walk right out!”

“Say what?”

He was gonna repeat himself. “Any sort of drunken lout, or mental defective, or terrorist, or mass shooter, can just walk into any gun show, buy any sort of mass murder machine that they want, and waltz out! No background check, no permit, no nothing!”

I turned to My Darling Bride, and said, “Honey, didn’t you just buy a rifle at a gun show a couple of weeks ago? Why don’t you tell Bob, here, how that worked?”

She smiled sweetly at me, and turned to Bob. “Well, I paid my admission, I walked the aisles until I found that rifle. It looked so pretty, I thought that it ought to be my first AR. I negotiated a price with the seller. He then needed my picture ID, as well as my concealed carry license. He called the National Instant Check System with my information, and got an approval. He recorded the approval serial number, and then I had to complete a form 4473 before we could complete the sale.”

I invited her to be more detailed in her tutorial for Bob. “So, Honey, what’s a ‘Form 4473’?”

“Well, it is a sworn statement, under penalties of both perjury as well as violation of the federal Gun Control Act, that I’m not a felon, fugitive from justice, mentally ill, an illegal alien, have never been convicted of a crime of domestic violence. There’s a couple of other reasons that I could be disqualified, but they are all listed right there on the form. No sale can move forward without that form.”

Bob could not contain his superior expertise any longer. “That’s just wrong! None of that is required!”

I turned to him. “Really? Why don’t you tell us how it went, the last time YOU purchased a gun at a gun show?”

He looked at me, surprised. “I have never bought any sort of gun, ever! I do not own a gun!”

I feigned surprise. “Really? So, just how did you come by your expertise regarding how things really happen in a gun show, such as to contradict my wife’s recent, personal experience in a gun show? Buying a gun, no less?”

“I read it in the New York Times! They said that’s how it works!”

I looked at my wife, and she at me. I continued. “So, let me see if I heard you correctly. You have never bought any gun, ever, anywhere. You read some bullshit in the New York Times, and that is canonical, for some reason. Based on some perhaps third, maybe fourth hand story, that you think you remember reading, in that noted journal of all things firearms, The New York Times, you are in a solid position to tell my adult wife, sitting right here, that things that she, in fact, and in her own direct testimony actually, really, and recently experienced, did not actually experience. Now, that means that you are either telling me my wife will lie, smiling all the while, to your face, or she is so stupid or mentally defective that she cannot tell what she actually did, at a gun show, buying a gun. Now, mind you, she successfully passed the training to qualify for, and the background check to be issued, a license to carry a concealed handgun from The Un-Named Flyover State. So, pray tell, on what basis does your superior intellect and greater knowledge in All Things Gun, lead you to accuse my wife of imbecility, or lying to your face? Please, go slowly, and show your work!”

At this point, Bob had the wit to stammer, and not answer my questions. My brother, wisely, diverted my attention with some query of firearms law esoterica.

So, therefore, I did not break a stein over Bob’s head.

Although, I still wonder if it might have improved either his manners, or his intellect. Or, perhaps, both.

Insurance Companies and Purgatory

So, over the holidays, we were at a family gathering when TDW-Mark II’s niece (an adult) departed to go home.

Shortly thereafter she returned to inform us that, due to the poor lighting and TDW-Mark II’s petite vehicle, she, the niece, had inadvertently struck my wife’s vehicle, leaving a dent.

BFD, bent metal, no bent people, all good.

So, we went to our insurance company in order to get the bent sheet metal, unbent. We could, indeed, have our insurance pay for it, since our vehicle was parked, BUT!, we’d have a chargeable accident and likely would see our insurance premiums rise. From the currently affordable, reasonable, “Give us all the money and nobody has to get hurt!” levels we currently enjoy, that is.

THAT sounds attractive!

Or, our niece’s insurance company could foot the bill.

The niece made her report to her insurer, and shortly thereafter I had a conversation with one of their genius, script reading (Thanks, Beans on June 3 ’19), slack jawed, pompous personnel.

It seems that, let us call it “County Garden Auto Insurance”, requires that you take your broken vehicle to one of their adjusters for an estimate. In this area, the freaking capitol of the freaking Un-Named Midwestern State, the (insert pejorative here) adjuster only works freaking Wednesdays, and, into the bargain, Young Ms. Mensa informed me that, since mine is the name on the title, well, I would have to show my happy hairy ass up with the bent vehicle for the estimate.

Well, ya know, I work Wednesdays. 12 hours. Days. I told Ms. Mensa as much. “Ma’am, I will not be attending this estimate. I’m working, my wife will be there acting as my agent.”

“Reltney”, she replied (and, as an aside, I had been previously unaware that she and I were quite that chummy), “You have to be there, since the vehicle in titled in your name.”

“Well, Ma’am, I’ll be working, and so my wife will be there with the vehicle.”

“Reltney, you have to be there!”

“Ma’am, I will not be there. My wife will be acting as my agent.”

“Reltney, you have to be there for the estimate!”

“Ma’am, perhaps you should write this down. My wife will be there, I will not. She will act as my agent, and I will be working.”

“Reltney, if you are going to be hostile, I cannot continue to talk to you. I’m simply trying to tell you how this process goes.”

“That’s fine. So, tell me my options.”

“Sir, it you are going to be hostile, you will have to talk to another agent!”

(My thought, at that point, was along the lines of, “Sugar, if you think that I have been hostile, you really, really have a severe poverty of life experience, that, should you desire, I can remedy!” A thought that went unspoken.)

“Ma’am, I thought you were going to tell me what my options would be? I’m waiting for that information.”

“Please hold!”

(lengthy hold)

“Reltney, your wife can meet with our estimator, but we cannot hand her the check. Can we mail it to you, or to your selected body shop?”

“That will be satisfactory. Mail it to the shop.”

“So, Reltney, what arrangements would you like to make for a rental?”

“Ma’am, we have made satisfactory arrangements for a loaner with our body shop. I suggest that you phone them, and have that conversation with them.”

“I do not understand what you just said, Reltney.”

“Call my shop, you have the name. Talk to Bob. Tell him what you just told me about a rental. Make whatever arrangements you wish with Bob about a rental. Bob will fill me in. “

“Reltney, I do not understand that, but I will notate it in our file.”

(Correctly, I hope, but do not trust…)

“Outstanding. Anything else?”

“No, Reltney, have a nice day.”

And the call ended.

Perhaps, the anticipated cluster…er, hug (HUG! Yeah, THAT’S the ticket!) will provide fodder for a subsequent blog post.

My take home lesson, here, is that there are jobs for the dull witted, and I am fated to spend my time corresponding with them.

Damn it!

“WHY DO WE NEED FARMERS? I ONLY EAT FOOD FROM THE SUPERMARKET!”

Perhaps I have mentioned that TDW-Mark II grew up on a farm. As you might expect, she is familiar with chickens, and the process whereby eggs are acquired. She is, in addition, familiar with the process whereby chickens are changed into roast chicken, and even into chicken nuggets.

Similarly cows, and milk, as with cows and beef.

So, she was in school studying to prepare herself to be a social worker. Of course, she was required to take a course on ecology, or some similar stuff, because, after all, what social worker will be able to mend broken psyches, or minister to the fearful and ill, should she/he not have studied ecology, amirite?

Please understand that, while I did, indeed , “trade up” with the transition from Wretched EX (formerly TDW-Mark Ø), my wife (TDW-Mark II) is very much a non traditional student. This works both from the perspective of her age (she is not a gosling), as well as her having had some life experience prior to college. In addition, she has developed opinions based upon that life experience, and they are not particularly consonant with the stereotypical gosling/kid kollege student opinion set.

In her class, she learned all sorts of wonderful things, such as why corn in general, and corn syrup in particular, are death in a carton/on a cob, and ZOMG! WE! ARE! ALL! GOING! TO! DIE!, because of the presence of corn and corn syrup in our diets. Nice.

So, this one time, the class took a field trip (no, I do not, either, understand the point of a college class taking a field trip, unless is it a paleontology or archaeology class visiting some dig somewhere. This was not such a class!) Since this is Land Grant College Country, and the local Enormous State University is a Land Grant College, well, her little ecology class visited the Land Grant College Agricultural School. To be exact, the University Farms.

Being a farm girl, TDW Mark II dressed accordingly. Jeans, boots, denim shirt, hair up in a baseball cap, gloves in her pocket. No surprises there, right?

Her gosling classmates, not so much. Once she got home (TDW, not the gosling/classmate), she was laughing (TDW, not the gosling classmate).

TDW started off her after action report with a dramatic foreshadowing. “Ohmigawd! I just cannot believe some people! This one girl showed up for the farm tour in nice, dressy, high heeled boots, a nice dress, and a nicer blouse. You had to see her picking her way around the cow pen! And, she had lots of fun on the ladders! It seems that miniskirts are not really designed with climbing in mind, although the guys in class did not seem to mind very much!”

I had spent the day washing clothes, washing dishes, cutting the grass, and suchlike so that we could spend a nice weekend doing something that was NOT chores, so I nodded while finishing the last of the dishes.

It seemed that TDW Mark 2’s classmate had some difficulty meandering around the farm. Farms, after all, are industrial environments, when you stop to think about it. Once the procession had returned to the classroom, Ms Fine Clothes dove deeper into the vat of clueless in which she had evidently immersed herself.

The instructor initiated some sort of discussion, perhaps seeking to tie the afternoon’s travels back into the nominal subject of the class (ecology, or environment, or some such thing). This student observed that she or he had not appreciated how much effort went into raising and marketing animals for milk, eggs, and meat. Another noted the vast difference between the olfactory experience of a farm, and the Styrofoam cleanliness of the supermarket.

Ms. Nice Clothes stood and made her point. “Oh! My! Gawd! I could NEVER eat an egg from a chicken! They come out of their butts! I’m so glad that I only ever have eaten eggs from the supermarket!”

And, TDW Mark II wonders why it appears that I have a tic, consisting of shaking my head and muttering “What the actual FUCK?!?”