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I always admired my wife because of her ability to know a little bit about everything, but a recent trip by her to the West Coast for a week really made me appreciate her more than anything.
She runs the household with a firm hand and a memory like no other, which is fine because my hands are not steady and my ability to recall past events is starting to go at age 61. In fact, if someone asks us about something we did in the past, I ask her if I had a good time, and she doesn't like ... I either did or I didn't. The woman is incapable of lying. In fact, because I am good at it, I always offer up a lie to her to get out of something, and she flat-out refuses it.
Anyways, I digress.
To establish this story, let me tell you first that Ann Marie and our daughter, Maggie, recently went to Oregon to visit our daughter, Julianna, who lives there. She is a traveling X-ray technician who -- in the last six years -- has worked in hospitals in Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Kentucky, Utah and Tennessee.
Why didn't I go? Not a big fan of planes. It's not that I'm afraid of flying, but I am afraid of crashing. If Hollywood would make more movies about planes not crashing, I think I would be fine, but you take into account all of those "Airport" movies in the 1970s and 1980s that I grew up with, along with "Die Hard 2" and "Final Destination" ... let's just say my mind is not in a good place when it comes to flying the unfriendly skies.
Speaking of my mind, I almost lost it when my wife left me a list of things that I had to do while she was gone. I did have Vincent, my one son, at home, too, but he basically uses us as a bed-and-breakfast now that he has graduated. He works, goes to see his fiance, his friends, golfing ... on his list of things to do, staying home is not on it much. He did pencil me in the one day we went out to eat on my night out. How thoughtful of him since my friend picked up the check that night, too.
To set the picture here, we have two dogs, three cats, one vicious rabbit ... that's right, I said vicious ... two geckos and a lot of plants that might as well be pets with the amount of instruction involved in taking care of them.
The dogs were kind of easy, except that Ann Marie gets up early with them, which is usually between 6 and 6:30 a.m. to take them out. She's not there, so guess who got up with them? Yes, the guy who doesn't get home from work until about 1 a.m.
I granted Vincent visitation rights to at least come home from work, feed them and take them out, before heading over to the next Mrs. Franco's house to visit. It's hard for me to watch our dogs since my work hours are 4 p.m. to midnight.
The cats were a little easier -- you just clean the litter box and feed them, but again, cleaning two litter boxes for three cats is not fun, but my wife and Maggie share that job. They have three food dishes and one big water dish. I both admire and loathe their independence. I, on the other hand, love having people do stuff for me. I love being dependent!
Now, let me tell you about Gigi, our killer rabbit.
First of all, it will help you if you have ever seen the movie "Monty Python & the Holy Grail," which features a killer rabbit in it. If not, go to YouTube and type in killer rabbit and Monty Python and you'll see for yourself. Gigi is a descendant of that rabbit!
Feeding Gigi and taking care of her litter tray is an experience, especially when her living quarters is a two-story home in our dining room. That's right, two stories. My wife saved all of her Amazon points and instead of buying herself something, she spent it on Gigi, the lions' head rabbit that is spoiled with a condo that includes a ramp, a rec room, a bathroom, food dish, a huge water bottle with a straw and two different doors.
Here is how you feed her:
– On the second floor, open the door, give her this treat that looks like a carrot to distract her then close and lock it quickly.
– Then reach downstairs and open that door and put her rabbit food in one dish and a handful of hay in another dish and close that back up and pray she hasn't finished the carrot because she will race down the ramp to gnaw off my arm. You also have to throw several cups of litter in her tray while trying to figure out where she is in her dwelling at that point in this exercise.
Did I mention she knows when the carrot is coming because she is forcing her head through the door while I am trying to keep the door semi-open to hand her the @#$% treat, and not let her jump out of it into a room with two dogs and three cats -- each wearing bibs and holding a knife and fork and asking where the barbecue sauce for the fresh rabbit is.
This was six straight days of a deadly obstacle course that had me frazzled. Did I mention when the Mrs. got home Saturday afternoon, she noticed that one of the doors was not secure, and that Gigi could have just pushed it wide open? There could have been a crime scene at our home, which some might think could be renamed "Dr. Doolittle's Annex."
The geckos, who were Julianna's when my wife rescued them from some daycare project years ago, were not supposed to live that long. That was 18 years ago. They are easy to feed and water because they hardly move around, but it is nice to have a can of dead crickets in my fridgerator to show folks who come over and visit sometimes.
And the care of the house plants, well, there were three that had to be watered every day and five that had to be watered every other day. When I said "I do" back on June 18, 1994, I was under the impression that there would be no math. But there was.
Did I mention that one of the cats, Ranger, got out while I was watering the plants? He's very sneaky and always around a door when you open it. I opened the door one morning to water the plants near the kitchen door, and the next thing I know, he's sitting on a bag of mulch in my yard, just watching me. He could have taken off, but he didn't.
Remembering my wife's advice not to scream at our pets -- or kids -- when they are doing something wrong, I casually walked over to him, picked him up and brought him back inside. Cats escaping was not on the list of things she left for me to do, but I managed.
There was no laundry duty, but I don't mind laundry duty, although Ann Marie does not care for my methods. From my days of washing the football uniforms at Bishop Guilfoyle between 1979-1983, we had two loads, whites and darks, and that was it. White clothes in one machine, purple and gold in another machine. Worked for Tom Irwin for four years, but not in my home evidently.
But I survived. The pets survived. The plants survived. Hopefully, after my lovely, wonderful future Mrs. President reads this column, I, too, will have survived.