It Sounds Like Him

Yesterday, while cleaning the house, I received a phone call. The voice on the other end identified himself as my husband and he sounded like my husband , but WAS it MY husband?! "Hey honey, a friend told me about a little place downtown. Every Tuesday night they have an Irish band that plays...how about the two of us going down there, having a good cold Irish beer and listening to the music for awhile...just the two of us?" My first thought was who was this person and what have they done with my husband? So, using the detective skills that I have honed while raising my family, I was going to get to the bottom of this..."Excuse me, what exactly did you say?" Okay, so I need some more honing on those detective skills....yes, it was my husband's voice but I was sure, like in one of those old 1970's scifi movies, that someone or something had overtaken him.

You see, in the here, dates were putting the children to bed and watching a good movie on cable while eating a homemade pizza. it is not that my husband doesn't desire to spend time alone with me, it is that we put evenings away from home on hold while we were raising our family. First, my husband was a fireman and spent every other 24 hours away from home...ate, slept, and resided at the firehouse. Four out of every seven days were already spent away from his home and his children so we where not going to spend one of those precious three evenings out somewhere. Also, I was schooling my children through elementary, then middle and finally high school. I was the teacher, by our choosing, but it was a weighty responsibility. I needed every evening to prepare myself for the studies of the next day...doing algebra problems, reading literature books, studying their biology, learning their goverment and world history. You see, if I didn't know the material, if I didn't do the problem sets, if I didn't read the books, how in the world could I teach, little less answer their questions. We developed our bedroom as our meeting place. Instead of hiring a babysitter or leaving the kids at home, driving somewhere, spending time and money we did not have, and then arriving home past our bedtime, only to be not at our best the next day, we would put the kids to bed, and go to our room. There we would have a picinic or a movie. I would make special iced-coffees, and desserts. We would talk about hiking trails and camping..books and movie ratings...my cares and his concerns. But, go out on a grown-up date...drinks and music..traveling there and back..I haven't been asked to do that since.......

So again, using those honed detective skills and also using my femine protective skills (wanting expectations to be the same), I asked, "Russell?, are you asking me to go out at 8 pm tonight with you to listen to some music and have cold beer or an Irish coffee? Is that what you said?" The "Russell" part was to trip him up in case it was an imposter! Clever don't you think? What came out of his mouth next really left me dumbfounded..."Yes, that is what I was asking you, I thought it might be alot of fun for us. It's time we started getting out a little and doing something just for us!" Has some romantic, grown-up man taken over my home-body, no crowd, ruled husband? Seems like it!! After some discussion, we decided that since he had been at work since 4:00 am, we would go for our date next Tuesday. He would go in at a resonable time and come home early....he said we might even let the kids take care of themselves and grab a bite to eat. So next Tuesday night I have a date...i'm still not sure that something or someone hasn't overtaken my husband but it did sound like him...and this morning when he kissed me goodbye and reminded me that Tuesday we had a date, it looked like him. It appears that all of us in this family, in the after, are going to be doing a little growing up and spreading our wings a little. Here's to next Tuesday and the luck of the Irish!!!

Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, because it is now that God favors your works. ...Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of the fleeting life that is granted you under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9: 7,9