Obviously Leah and I have a considerable amount more to learn about each other if she thinks the best way to sneak shoes into the house is in an ice cream container, which would lead to certain and immediate discovery.  Also with the rate and abandon with which I devour ice cream, I could be the first person to definitively answer the question, “what does a Blahnik taste like?” 

We all know that if she put the shoes in a big detergent box, a box of trash bags, or heck, even a costco sized package of vegetarian sausage links, I’d quite literally never find them.  As a matter of fact, she could be running drugs out of our house in veggie sausage patties, and I wouldn’t know until the DEA showed up. 

Out of all the things I do know about her, one trait that I am continually grateful for is her ability to keep functioning under stressful situations.  She doesn’t shut down when life creates a confluence of intersecting story lines.  She keeps her head down and keeps moving; she’s dependable (ed: unless it involves folding laundry and there’s anything else that could be done, anywhere). 

On one of my favorite BMW message boards someone started a meme revolving around the phrase “that wouldn’t last five minutes in combat”, or as it’s usually rendered, “THAT WOULDNT LAST 5 MINUTES IN COMBAT!!!”  It often applies when some 18 year old “slamzz” his car by clipping its springs and scrapes off the oil pan, and then repairs said pan with JB Weld epoxy.  Since the repair won’t last more than a few drives, and will fail spectacularly, it wouldn’t last in combat.  lolz.

Leah would last five minutes in combat, and working for the church you could argue she does on a regular basis.  Fortunately for me, I realize she’s not the only one around me who can.  I’m surrounded, with few exceptions, by friends and family who are at their best when life is difficult.  I know my loved ones have my back, and their support means so much.  It means I’m never over-exposed to difficulty, and it means that regardless of outcomes I know they’ll still be there.  And when it comes to combat, just as GI JOE taught us, knowing is at least half the battle.

If there’s one thing i’ve learned from being married to Alan, it’s that you can’t let him get away with stuff for too long. Once he gets an idea in his head, he’s liable to follow it to a place that will get him into trouble. Case in point: auctioning off the kids’ names.  While having offspring named “Coca-Cola” and “Pepsi” might sound great to some, in my mind, if I spend 27 hours giving birth to our firstborn, I’m naming the sucker. If he’s lucky, and he behaves himself, Alan might get to have some input.  If he behaves himself.

While we’re concerned about the budget, and Alan shows me the excel spreadsheet breakdown of how we’re doing, what our goals are, and projections for where we could be for various scenarios ( I think lately he was preparing for “how much would we need to save to ensure survival in the face of a combined tornado/tsunami/hurricane/earthquake”), I’ve figured out a sure-fire way to circumvent the budget in case of emergency.  Like most couples, we have categories in our budget for ‘eating out’, ‘clothing’, and ‘household improvements’.  Also like most couples, we’d like to keep our actual expenses a little lower to save some cash.  Since our ‘clothing’ budget is fairly small, a pair of shoes could max it out for multiple months.  How can I sneak new shoes past our ironclad excel spreadsheet?

I have a developed a foolproof plan: bring them into the house COVERED IN ICE CREAM.

Last week, I brought groceries home to stock the fridge.  The one item on the list in Alan’s handwriting was ‘ice cream’.   Like a good family shopper, I try to buy items on sale, or at stores that offer them at reasonable prices. We’re talking Safeway here, not Metropolitan Market or Whole “Paycheck” Foods.  When I saw ice cream on sale, I bought two half-gallons and figured mint-chocolate-chip and maple nut would make the big guy happy.  As usual, when Alan got home after work he opened up the freezer and that’s when the trouble started. “What is this?” were the first words that dropped out of his mouth.  Not ‘Thanks so much honey for shopping on your day off and bringing home all the food we needed, at good prices, and cooking curry for the week, and cleaning the house”, but “what is this?”  Note to all current and future husbands: that is not a wise thing to say to a woman with a mop in her hands. She will beat you about the head and shoulders with the mop until more appropriate words come out of your mouth.  More appreciative words.

Even though the ice cream fulfilled criteria #1, “must be cheap”, it did not fulfill the unknown ultimate criteria: must be only the ‘good’ ice cream, not the store brand.  Even if it means PAYING MORE MONEY.  Since this is the first instance in which I have heard that paying more money is acceptable, I have decided to start smuggling items that don’t fit into the budget into the house inside premium ice cream cartons.  Nice ice cream, but not too nice.  I wouldn’t want to be flashy.  Maybe some Tillamook, or some Safeway Select.  One real carton, to get Alan hopped up on sugar and distracted, and one containing the contraband.  And inside the hollowed out carton?  A new pair of black flats, or maybe some brown platform peep-toes.  A little cookies and cream meets Steve Madden.  Stay tuned for more tales of household espionage…

Young couples who cannot afford to buy a house or condo must constantly wonder how other young couples have purchased homes.  Certainly some people came to ownership through questionable mortgages, and hoped to make up the unfavorable long term ramifications of their loan terms through a continued and unprecedented period of price escalation, as the current market meltdown suggests.  However, in talking to many peers, I’ve come to realize that unless you live in a locale where goats are allowable in a front yard, or if you carry the letters JD after your name, the chances are that a portion of your funding comes from Mom and Dad.  Sadly, it’s about the only way possible to start out, and for Leah and I, it’s a reality.

Between our two salaries, we’re doing pretty well compared to many of our peers, but things are hardly easy.  On top of the mortgage, there are massive student loans, and cars to pay for, and food, and gas like everyone else.  The one expense we do not yet have, however, is that of parenthood and from what I understand that will be the proverbial bitch.

So, I started thinking that since we’ve already sold out in the sense that we don’t really own the entirety of our house, why not apply the same concept to parenthood?  Therefore, I’ve made an executive decision (don’t worry babe, it’ll be fine) to sell the naming rights to our hypothetically possible, potentially future children.  All to the highest bidder, of course.

This solves not only the problem of finances, but also that of finding a unique name for our child(ren) as nearly all of our friends are wont to do.  So instead naming our kid Dalys Fudrucker Klug, and receiving derision, we will instead receive cash.

Boo-yah.

Look for bidding terms in the years to come.