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A Day In The Life Of An Average American Family
It was sometime after my son Blake was born, at one of the many Thanksgiving dinners with the relatives, that I noticed how much fun people had telling humorous stories about one another. Everyone chirped in, one after another, until the whole room would be bellowing with laughter. It always seemed like I had a few good stories in my back pocket as well, and loved to join in the fun. As the years passed, I started writing my stories down as they happened so I wouldn't forget them, and occasionally something would trigger a memory of a story lost, and I would write it down as well. Blake is now 18, soon to be 19...so, I've been writing these stories down for years, and have almost more than I can count. I got the idea to share a few with you when I started this website. So, here ya go. If you dare to continue... what lies ahead are a few stories from the collection I call "A Day In The Life Of An Average American Family".
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We had celebrated a summer wedding and were savoring those first few joyous months of getting to know each other. You know what I mean – how my wife had to adjust to those dirty clothes strewn throughout the house, an unusual amount of dirty dishes accumulating in the sink, etc.
Of course, my wife had a few bad habits of her own (which I dare not mention in public due to marital retaliation)!
As with most newlyweds, we determined that we had our differences and decided early on that we should work through them so that we both felt satisfaction in the compromise.
One such compromise had to do with the temperature of our sleeping environment. My wife had always felt she slept more comfortably when it was warm. I preferred sleeping cool. Being proud of my ability to solve such dilemmas, and with winter nights approaching, I came up with what I thought to be a brilliant solution: a king-size electric blanket with his/her temperature controls! My wife was amazed and agreed, it was actually a brilliant idea! It would now take just a few nights of adjustments to find our perfect sleeping temperatures.
However, as each night passed, I found myself complaining that I was too warm and kept adjusting my thermostat down slightly. My wife was still feeling too cold, and each night continued adjusting hers up. These adjustments continued night after night until, inexplicably, I found myself baking in my sleep. I woke up in the morning with no covers on at all, while noticing my wife had pulled all the covers onto her side of the bed (kind of wrapping herself up into a little cocoon of comfort) while complaining of being cold in the night! We were flabbergasted!
I went to work as usual that day, but upon arriving home that evening, I found my wife could not contain herself: she was joyously hysterical and in tears from laughter as she explained the situation.
You see, she had been changing the bedding when to her amazement, she had found our thermostats criss-crossed beneath the bed. She had been controlling my temperature, and I had been controlling hers all along!
We both broke down in laughter and then realized fate had literally brought us closer together: As I fought toward the coolness of her side of the bed, and she struggled for the warmth of mine, we had often met in the middle!
The Electric Blanket
I don't remember the exact year, but I was living in the Quad Cities at the time...somewhere around 1992, and I was reading the newspaper in late January. There was an article published by the newspaper that they were starting a writing contest for Valentine's Day. They wanted interesting stories about how you and your sweetheart met or some funny story about your relationship. The following story instantly came to mind. I wrote it as you see, sent it in, and a week or so later, was called by the paper and notified that I had won the contest! They sent out a photographer and on Valentine's Day, the story along with our picture appeared in the newspaper. I promptly gathered all the copies I could get my hands on and sent them to every relative I could think of. I have one lone copy of the article framed and hanging in my office at work. My wife Wendy and I chuckled at the dinner they provided as the first place prize!
