The bags are packed, the booby-traps are set in the house and the wife is chopping at the bit to get going to Vegas.

Video poker machines, hanging with her high school reunion friends and shopping have been a siren’s wail calling her for weeks.

I get the real small luggage bag so it can fit inside a big, empty bag.
That becomes my one check-in luggage.

Then she can fill that big bag with goodies scarfed from sales at all the malls.

In fact, on one trip she had to buy another big bag to bring home all the stuff she bought.

I will admit I helped add to it.

When we finally get there she’ll pat me on the head and send me to the casino floor in the eternal search for riches.

Well, she would if she could.
She’s too short for that.

It’s called literary license…

She heads off and waits at the poker machine.
With me, she knows good things come to those who wait.

I’m a pretty lucky guy all things considered.
I usually win enough to pay for the trip.

Except that doesn’t happen.

Whenever my machine spits out a fairly large payoff, I walk it over and give it to her.
I try to be a good provider.

She gleefully takes it and stuffs it in her machine where she begins the slow but steady journey of losing it all.

By that time I’m back with some more payoff tickets.

Win, give, lose, repeat for 5 days.

I go home with hardly anything and she goes home with most of what she had to start with, plus the once empty big luggage bag stuffed with stuff.

Look up “good provider” in the dictionary and I suspect you’ll find a picture of me.
With money in my hand.

When we get home she’ll say, “Gimme the rest of the money to put back in the bank.”

Now I’m grumpy.

See you in a week.

It’s interesting to watch the wife get dressed in the morning, not that I have much time to be doing that.

I’m too busy stumbling around looking for coffee while trying not to step on the dogs whose favorite place seems to be under my feet.

But having known many men who also have wives, I can say with certainty most women usually have it all planned out the night before.

When it comes to planning, the wife is a lady that’s dragging out the suitcases 2 weeks before we go anywhere.

Some even pick everything and lay it out so they can putz around in the morning.
She doesn’t do that.

The wife gets the two big closets – one in the master bedroom and one in the bathroom area.

She doesn’t need to move more than 5 feet to grab whatever she wants for that day. Not that it speeds things up much.

I get the dinky closet in the spare room with no light because no one ever stays in it.

Since most women are too busy getting gussied up to see how the husbands do it, I’ll explain.

I wander over to whatever closet space has been allowed me and stand there in the dark looking through the shadows at the same old stuff all jammed together because it’s much too small and I never throw clothes away.

One never knows when one just might fit in something again or it comes back in style.
Having been a Boy Scout I know being prepared is always a good idea.

I got stuff going back thirty years.

A good aloha shirt never goes out of style, regardless of what the wife says.

Her idea of something too old is something she bought last month.

I’ve turned down jobs on the mainland because I would have had to wear a tie or something fancy-ish.

I got married in a suit and expect I’ll never wear another one at my age.
But if I have to, I have ties ranging from 2 inches to 4 inches in width, so I’m covered not matter what the style is at that time.

I’d rather wear jeans and a t-shirt except work frowns on that unless I’m taking out the garbage or mowing the lawn – neither of which is in my job description.

Back to getting dressed…

My closet is roughly divided into my fat and skinny clothes.

The skinny clothes all look new because they aren’t worn very often.

I think it’s been 4 years since I wore something from the skinny pants side.

Hope springs eternal.

Ignoring those girly-men in New York, most guys – me included – don’t have much fashion sense.

My best looking stuff is usually something the wife bought sometime after she was particularly embarrassed to be seen with me in public.

I do know some things like orange and purple don’t go well together.
Neither does red and green, unless it’s Christmas.

Stripes and checks also bring looks my way and I suspect it’s not admiration although I think it can look quite spiffy in the right circumstances.

Anyway, the first decision is what pants to wear.
Black always goes with most things, except more black.
Unless you’re Goth.

Are they really wrinkled?
Not too bad equals good enough.

What shirt to wear.
Look in the fat or skinny section depending on how ugly, gross and fat I feel at the moment.

Sniff under the sleeve to make sure it’s not a dirty one I stashed back in the closet.
If it passes that test, grab it and put it on.

I’m dressed.

As I head out the door, there’s sometimes, “You’re not wearing that to work, are you?”

Of course I am – I have it on don’t I?

Now she’s grumpy.

Most people probably never heard that term before.

It’s apparently reserved for scientific conferences and my wife’s girlfriends.

Here’s the story…

Two years ago I threw a surprise birthday party for the sparkle in my eye.

I really put a lot of work into it.

I badgered all her friends so much they came just so I’d go away.

It was such a hit her best friend said I’d be golden for two years.

The scientific definition of “golden” is one could do no wrong, or turn lead into gold.

Same thing, actually, because we know neither is possible.

The unscientific term golden goes back to the first duck that was ever seen, “Hey, look at that gold bird! Water just runs off that thing. He must be golden.”

Women, who are immediately drawn to things gold and diamond, made the word as part of their secret language.

The concept of doing something so great the wife would actually like me more than some new pair of shoes is a profound discovery.

Of course, regardless of what her girlfriend said to me, my goldenness only lasted about a month.

Keep the thought as we flash forward to last week.

The wife puts a picture of us on her Facebook page.

It has to be the most ugly one in the entire universe.

They say love is blind but that’s not the case here so I have to suspect she wants people to feel sorry for her or she picked it while angry at me for something.

Unfortunately the list is so long I’ll never be able to pinpoint what that something might be this week.

For all I know it could be in anticipation for something I will do at a later time as yet to be determined.

The wife is a saver and she tucks away lots of stuff for later use – including transgressions of every sort, great or small.

The scientific reality is even if husbands were able to do something they consider magical, the goldenness never lasts very long.

Like a good cigar its shelf life is never very long.

Moving on…next week we’re going to Las Vegas.

She’s going to hang out with her friends and I’ll visit my money.

I’ll also drive her to every mall and clothing sale within 50 miles of the hotel without grumbling once.

I will patiently wait for her, load her many purchased items in the trunk and move on to the next store while she is all a-flitter with anticipation at what bargain she might find just around the corner.

Shopping makes her happy, as it does for the majority of the ladies.

That’s good because any husband will tell you – if the wife’s not happy, she’ll make damn sure you aren’t either.

But the reality is I’m not golden for doing all that service with a smile – she thinks that’s the way it’s always supposed to be.

I’m not saying the wife is a grump – but she does have her moments where her absolutely sterling personality is not up to its sometimes usual wonderfulness.

But she takes very good care of me and I give her more than her share of grief.

But most wife’s have this special view that husbands are always supposed to do magical things daily to make them happy.

The scientific truth is – that’s impossible.
Guys aren’t built that way.

We can do good stuff for only so long before this overriding urge destroys the nice side of our brain and we do something really stupid when the wife is around.

No sane man willingly chooses a path of self-destruction.
And yet here I go, hurtling toward the edge of the precipice.

Golden doesn’t enter into it.

That’s another reason old guys can be grumpy.