The Mike Stories, Pt. 46

Tonight i was doing a little research on how to care for my new orchid. I noticed an interesting little quote at the bottom of the tag that came with the plant, and read it to Mike:

Me: "A NASA study has shown houseplants: help remove toxins from the air; help to increase energy and health"

Mike: I'm pretty sure Morpheus adds some toxins to the air.

Me: Maybe we should put a houseplant in his crate!

Mike: Oh, did you say housePLANTS? I thought you said house PETS!

The Mike Stories, Pt. 45

Earlier this evening....

Me: Are you going running with me?
Mike: Yes, when are you going running?
Me: As soon as I change my clothes....

...several minutes later, after changing my clothes...

Me: Mike.... what are you doing?
Mike: Going to the bathroom!
Me: Well, have you changed your clothes yet?
Mike: You don't know!
Me: That's why I'm asking!
Mike: walks into the room wearing only his underwear
Me: oh my god. you can't go to the gym like that. Go put your clothes on. I know about you!
Mike: What do you know about me?
Me: I know you're trying to go to the gym naked!
Mike: Yeah!
Me: I'm pretty sure they don't allow you to work out naked at the gym. You have to go to a nudist colony for that.
Mike: hmph.

The Mike Stories, Pt. 44

Chrissy: Did you call Meg?
Mike: No, I can do it right now.... [looking through his phone for a minute]... hmm.... I can't find her phone number.
Chrissy: You definitely have it.
Mike: Are you sure? How do you know?
Chrissy: Remember when we went to the movie in the park, and you had to keep talking to Meg on my phone, and I made you add her number to yours, so you would quit using my phone?
Mike: Hmm... Are you sure I actually did it, or did I just tell you I did it?
Chrissy: Yeah.... that is a distinct possibility...

The Mike Stories, Pt. 43

So Mike came down with a chest cold about a month ago, and stayed home sick, sleeping on the couch for something like a week and a half. A couple of weeks ago, when he didn't appear to be getting any better, I asked him if he had a fever. He said he didn't know - and wandered off into the bathroom to take his temp. Sure enough - he had a fever. I told him he had better go to the doctor in the morning.

And off to the doctor he went, just over two weeks ago. The doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia, and sent him home with an antibiotic and some codeine for his cough. He's slowly improved since then, but has been coughing like a maniac. He went back to work last week - only to be told that he should go back home and work from home for a couple of days. He was making the other worker bees nervous about contagious germs. He went back in a couple days this week - but has stayed home the last two days to work from home. Yesterday I told him if he still felt like he needed to stay home, he should probably go back to the doctor.

And so off to the doctor he went again. This time the doctor told him that a cough often seems worse as the body makes its way toward the end of the cold/pneumonia/whatever. (I can vouch for that. During my first couple of years in the classroom, I was a card carrying member of the cold-of-the-month club. The awful cough was always the last thing to hit, and always a sign that i was finally nearing health again)

Well on Monday of this week, Mike found the motivation to go running with me. I've been running for just over a month, and keep asking if he wants to go with me. We discovered that I can run longer than he can (which was a surprise. I've never been a runner until recently. I expect to be worse at it than everybody I know)!... then on Wednesday he told me he didn't feel well enough to go running, and opted out. He opted out again today, saying that his doctor had told him today that he should rest and take in plenty of fluids.

That's when I learned that Mike's interpretation of the good doctor's advice is to lounge around on the couch with his feet up, drinking cocktails. When I inquired about this - he said that cocktails definitely count as a category of fluids, and that he was just following the doctor's orders.

The Mike Stories, Pt. 42

Me: What are you doing?
Mike: I don't know.
Me: Are you writing me a love song?
Mike: No.
Me: Are you writing me a love poem?
Mike: No.
Me: Are you writing me a love letter?
Mike: No.
Me: Are you writing me a love e-mail?
Mike: No.
Me: Why not?
Mike: Do you want me to write you a love letter?
Me: Yes. You should write me a love sonnet.
Mike: Who is going to sing this love sonnet?
Me: You are. But not in your church singing voice. I hate your church singing voice. You should use your regular singing voice.

The Mike Stories, Pt. 41

Tuesday. 4 a.m.

I was jolted awake to the blurry sight of Mike standing in the bedroom doorway telling me to get up. I immediately rolled over and looked at my alarm clock, thinking my alarm clock must not have gone off, and wondering exactly how late I was about to be.... except Mike was going on about something to do with a police officer in the driveway, and I discovered that it was only 4am. I just stared at him for a few minutes. Then I uttered something along the lines of "huh?" ....and finally asked him why he woke me up. Mike said something about the officer needing my statement. I asked him: what statement?! I was sleeping!

Turns out there was a police officer in the driveway because he had just caught someone trying to break into one of our cars. I begrudgingly threw on my bathrobe and wandered downstairs. The officer handed me a plastic evidence bag thing with what looked like a credit card inside, and asked me what it was. the 4am hour did not help. I just stared at it. Eventually I realized it had my name on it. It also had my work's name printed below my name, and it said it was a Debit/Mastercard in the corner. I was a little bewildered by the question. Obviously it was some sort of credit card in my name, except I didn't recognize it. I told him as much - and that the only card I owned was my Debit card, which this was not.

Meanwhile Mike was asking me if it was our medical card. Again, the 4am hour was not helping me here - I told him it was obviously a credit card, not a benefits card. The officer was also going on about how the jerk in the back of the squad car was caught with it, and that he could be charged with a felony for having possession of my credit card instead of just a misdemeanor. Eventually, Mike's nagging about a medical card broke through my 4am haze, and I realized he was talking about our Benny card. It's a card we can use to make use of a benefit I get through work, where I can use pre-tax dollars to pay for certain medical expenses. It hasn't had any funds on it for over a year, and Mike hasn't been able to locate his card for about 2 years.

The officer wanted me to take a look in the car to see if anything else was taken, and give a statement. So I started walking to mine.... and the officer started walking to Mike's. I pointed to my car and told him "that one's mine." He had assumed that the douchebag criminal was robbing my car, because it was my name on the card he'd stolen. This is how we learned where Mike had hidden his Benny card 2 years ago. (It had my name on it, because the benefit is through my workplace). At this point, the officer said something about how he thought it was just Mike's car that had been broken into, because that was the one with unlocked doors. Next I turned my 4am hazy wrath on Mike with something that went about like this: I've been telling you to lock your car doors for years! This is all your fault!

The officer kept apologizing. Poor guy. It wasn't his fault that Mike left something resembling a credit card in his car, with the doors unlocked.... during a spree of car thefts in our neighborhood.... I just asked the officer to tell the criminal that I called him a douchebag for waking me up at such an obnoxious hour, then give him the evil eye all the way.... to wherever they take criminals in my town. (He promised he would).

The Mike Stories, Pt. 40

a conversation that occurred earlier this evening:

Me: You don't fool me.

Mike: Yes I do, I fool you all the time.

Me: No you don't. But that's ok.

Mike: it's ok?

Me: Yes. Why, you think I want to be fooled?

Mike: Yes.

Me: Why? Do you want to be fooled?

Mike: Depends by who!

Me: By me?

Mike: Yeah, you fool me all the time!

Me: And you like it?

Mike: Yeah!

Me: What?! Like when?

Mike: Like sometimes you fool me into having sex!

Me: When have I ever had to do that?!

Mike: All the time!

Me: Do you mean like - I ask you if you want to have sex?

Mike: hmph.

Me: I don't think you know what fooling means.

The Mike Stories, Pt. 39

Yesterday I set my alarm for 7:30am. I had an appointment in Tacoma at 9am, and I wanted to leave home around 8am because I didn't know what traffic would be like, and I didn't want to be late. Mike set his alarm for 6:30am for work. That would have been just fine, except he didn't get up at 6:30. He kept hitting snooze, and his alarm kept going off every 10 to 15 minutes for the next hour. I lost an entire hour of sleep because of it (and for a non-morning person, that's the most precious hour of sleep).

I got up right at 7:30 and washed my face, brushed my teeth - and Mike was still in bed, cultivating some kind of dysfunctional relationship with his annoying alarm clock. I finally just pounced him and told him that he must get out of bed because I couldn't stand listening to his alarm anymore. I made him change the sound it makes too. I'm pretty sure I'll have nightmares about that particular alarm sound harassing me! (and Mike barely made it out of bed by the time I left the house at 8am).

The Mike Stories, Pt. 38

Mike and I went to see Princess Bride in the park a couple of days ago with our friends Meg & George.  It was a great time - who doesn't love a picnic and movie in the park with friends?

Well, after the movie, Mike stuffed our blanket back in his backpack and then as we were starting to go back to the car Mike announced that he couldn't find his keys. He spent a good amount of time using his cell phone as a flashlight to check the grass for the keys with no luck. triple checked all of his pockets with no luck. unpacked his backpack - still no luck. He stood around for a while trying to decide between looking for a Lost and Found area, and going back to the car to see if he'd dropped them near the car. He finally settled on checking by the car, while Meg graciously went and checked Lost and Found for us.

We must have walked around for half an hour looking for the car. I told him someone probably found the keys by the car and stole it. As it turned out, Mike's bad memory was the culprit. the car was still there, and we eventually found it. We also found the keys - which Mike had left sticking out of the trunk lock. (it's a wonder it didn't get stolen!)

On the way home, Mike kept trying to tell me that these things happen to people occasionally. I maintained that these things happen to HIM occasionally, not to people in general. I can't say that I have ever left my keys in the trunk lock (or any other lock) like that, ever. Nor do I know anyone else who has admitted to me that they have done it. Since Mike kept arguing that it happens sometimes, I asked him exactly how many times this has happened to him. He told me that once while he was working at a car wash, he left them in the trunk lock for a week. He said a co-worker finally noticed and mentioned it - to which he says he replied "hey! i've been looking for those for a week!" I told him that's not normal.

The Mike Stories, Pt. 37

Asian Edition

Mike and I recently took a vacation in Japan and China. We went to Japan for my friend Yuka's wedding. We flew into Osaka, and spent about a day exploring Osaka before we took a train to Kyoto to meet Yuka. Trains in Japan are great! They're fast, and run frequently. We arrived at Kyoto station in no time... and then as we were walking off of the platform, I realized I didn't see Mike carrying one of my bags (that he'd graciously agreed to carry for me). I asked him about it - and he immediately ran full speed back to the train. It's a wonder he made it back on - and by some travel miracle he made it back off before the train started moving again - bag in hand. "Don't leave my stuff on a train" became the running joke for the rest of our trip, and now has loaded meaning in our house. It wasn't until about 3 days after we returned home that I realized my house and car keys were in that bag, and were nearly lost forever.

About a week later we returned to Osaka, and caught a boat to Shanghai. The boat ride took two days, and we discovered that one of us (me) does just fine on the open sea, and the other one of us (Mike) gets sea sick. (probably karma getting payback for nearly leaving my comfortable shoes, novel, and keys on a Japanese train).

While in China we took a weekend trip to visit smaller towns near Shanghai. One of the places we visited was a great little place called Suzhou (pronounced Sue-Joe). We stayed in a 400-year old home converted to hotel, complete with amazing antique furniture. It was a dream hotel room! We arrived early enough in the day that the room wasn't quite ready for us, though. We were able to drop off our bags, and then left to explore the town. We stopped at a very cute little tea shop nearby, and while relaxing with a particularly great cup of ice tea, Mike turned to me and asked the following: "Have you noticed there are a lot of people here, and they're all Asian?" (that's literally word for word what he said). I just stared at him for a moment.... then replied "you know we're in CHINA, right?" what a nut.

When we returned to Shanghai, we stayed outside of town at a farmhouse. These (farmhouses) are difficult to book for a non-native, but we had a local (Quincy) assisting us, which turned out to be a huge blessing. As they don't see foreigners very often, no one at the farmhouse spoke English.  Quincy's assistance when we got to the farmhouse was invaluable. I don't know how we ever would have been able to figure much out without her. With her assistance, we knew that we would need to catch a bus the following morning, which we could take straight into the city, to meet back up with her to see the sights. The following morning we enjoyed breakfast, then tried to ask the staff to help us figure out how to get the bus. We knew we should catch it at the gate, but didn't know if it would automatically stop when it saw us, or if we needed to flag it down. We knew how much it would cost, but didn't know if we needed exact change. At this point, Mike decided to try his miming skills to communicate with the hotel staff. I learned that when Mike does this miming to communicate with someone who speaks any language other than English, he also starts speaking disjointed Spanish. We took one of the flyers that they had on the desk, and Mike was able to figure out that the phone number on the flyer was indeed the hotel phone number - which we thought would come in handy later if we took a taxi back. Then he proceeded to try to ask about the bus. He got what he considers a brilliant idea - to turn on his cell phone and point at the icon for some kind of app he uses at home to figure out the bus system. supposedly the app's icon looks like a bus. the poor girl behind the counter saw him pointing wildly at the icon, took the phone, and clicked on it (it didn't do much, as we had no internet connection and kept our phones in airplane mode to save the batteries)... so the whole thing only confused her. i took a look at the icon he was pointing at, and was nearly as confused as she was! I finally just took out the guidebook, opened up the phrasebook section, and pointed at a couple of phrases that had something to do with a bus. She understood instantly - then lead us out to the gate and flagged down the bus for us.

Always an adventure traveling with Mike!