Tidy Husband

Eligible for the seniors discount and the Happy Meal deal at the same time.

  1. Exit Stage Left

    I would like to thank the Academy....

    Today is a Tuesday. Under normal circumstances, the child would be at school, but the powers that be in her school district decided to have a ‘superintendent’s day” - whatever that means, so no school.

    We could have had her stay home and just oversaturate her brain with YouTube Kids all day like we have been known to do, but with a little googling and a bit of luck I managed to get her enrolled in theater class for the day at Theater of Youth where she had a workshop titled: Play in a Day - Disney Themed

    From castles to sidekicks, students will bring their favorite Disney-inspired characters to life in an original play they create together. Whether it’s a hero, a villain, or a talking animal, everyone gets a starring role in this magical theatre day! Costumes are welcome and families are invited to a short performance at the end of the day!

    When I told her, I don’t think I had seen her so excited in such a long time and she couldn’t keep the excitement in her and was squealing with joy around the house.

    Of course, when you are this excited and can’t sleep you get up early the next morning and start by waking up Dad because if you’re awake then he needs to be too.

    The rest of the morning was like a school day for us: out the door about 8:15 to get there on time. When we pulled into the parking lot, we saw that one of her classmates from Kindergarten was also attending and I think that helped both with the nerves too which was good.

    I wish I could tell you what they learned, but she told me “You know, acting stuff” as she shrugged her shoulders.

    At pickup all the parents were invited to a little 2-minute play that they put together over the course of the day and performed for us.

    In short, she had a great time.

    When she walked off the stage her friend’s mother presented her with a bouquet of flowers for my little actor.

    I think we may have a new actor on the family. She sure took to it.

    Oh, the bouquet she was given:

    It was very sweet and appreciated.

    For some random Tuesday, she sure had a good day.

    Encore,

    TH and Co.

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  2. It's the Right Thing to Do

    A story about smelly oatmeal.

    “ WHAT THE HECK IS THAT SMELL?”, I asked, after I came out of the shower.

    Photo by Melissa Di Rocco on Unsplash

    “Calm down” BW told me. “It’s just my oatmeal heating pad. I warmed it up and it’s in the bed”.

    “How long did you put it in the microwave?!” I asked. “It smells like you burned it to death”

    I made some fake death noises 1 to further emphasize my case against trying to burn the house down with oatmeal to which BW glared at me disapprovingly and told me to get over myself.

    “You’re so neurotic”, she told me lovingly.

    We both went our own ways: Me to get away from the smell and have my eyes sstop burning from the oat-smoke and to start this post now that the child is in bed.

    BW just wanted to get as far away from me as possible. I can’t blame her.

    I had just started to write something entirely different when I hear the child:

    “Guys! Guys! Mom! Dad!”, she screams from the top of the stairs.

    “ WHAT THE HECK IS THAT SMELL?”, she asks me.

    I explain to her and she reacts with “EWWWW. We need to get Mommy a new heating pad because that one has gone bad” as she crawled back into bed.

    Keep your oatmeal cold and your loved ones close,

    TH and Co.

    1. I really don’t know what those noises would be because, I am still alive but I hazarded a guess. ↩

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  3. That Time I Had Fifteen Seconds of Fame with My Newsletter

    A story about going viral. (sort of)

    I don’t know what prompted me to check the stats for this newsletter, because I know very few read it and that’s okay because I would rather connect with my few regulars than 10,000 bots

    But by chance, I decided to check the stats for this newsletter and lo and behold this happened after I wrote the post where BW and I dressed up as the world’s richest couple

    This chart could also double as my EKG results.

    I had something like 900+ visitors yesterday. That’s almost a thousand in ONE DAY. Had I known I was going to be seen by so many eyeballs I would have brushed my hair before I went out 1 and had my photo taken.

    I wondered what the heck could be the source of this traffic so I went digging and it seems to be coming from a site called NewsBreak. From what I can figure out this site is a news aggregator that pulls from different sources and I guess for one day we were worthy of the algorithm’s blessing.

    This fame went straight to my head and this got me thinking - what would happen if I searched Google for Jeff Bezos Halloween Costume

    And will you look at that! My little pumpkin is about the fourth result on the first page for that particular search term:

    All this fame went right to my head and made me giddy with the hope of being able to quit the day job and write full time here with all the money I’m making from my writing skills.

    The stats told me otherwise and to buy a lottery ticket instead, because all this success resulted in one new reader.2

    I guess I won’t quit the day job just yet, but maybe the child has a future in cardboard box modeling.

    Dreaming of Yachts and Rockets,

    TH and Co.

    1. Oh, wait. Nevermind. ↩

    2. Welcome! ↩

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  4. The Eggstravaganza

    Now with Free Chicken Balloons

    BW has a friend. We will call her Linda. Linda likes to host or find different themed parties.

    BW loves to attend these different parties. That’s why she is friends with Linda.

    This party was about devilled eggs, or so I am told - with live music to boot.

    If you’re still with me, at this point you know more about this event than I do, but the two ladies in the house hopped in the car and went to the post-Halloween eggs-stravaganza with their future not set in stone in front of them

    Then they came home with chicken shaped balloons.

    Because it’s not a party if there’s not chicken balloons.

    It’s going to take some time to get used to having 2 foot tall chickens in the house - I have already come downstairs once tonight and scared myself because I thought the chickens have taken over the house - only to realize they’re just the chicken balloons,.

    This poulet party was apparently quite the thing with a live band at the devilled egg tasting party - which is odd- but the child was the most popular draw at the event. She talked to everybody, danced with everybody and ate all the things. To summarize, she’s a good talker and a good eater.

    Me? I had 2+ hours of uninterrupted time alone in the house so I did what any Man would do when the ladies are away and an empty house to himself.

    1. Nap
    2. Eat Leftover Pizza
    3. Hope they come back soon, because I started to worry.

    And then they arrived home safe and sound, with some blow up chickens and some stories.

    That’s quite the Saturday night here in our books.

    Keep on Clucking,

    TH and Co.

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  5. That Time we Dressed up as Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez for Halloween

    We travelled by boat the entire trip.

    A picture is 1000 words so I’ll just get this posted:

    That’s Lauren on the left and me, Jeff on the right and our little amazon package is pulling up the rear.

    I have nobody to blame but myself. Back in the summer when the wedding was all over the news I quipped to BW that we should dress up as the newlyweds on their big boat.

    “We don’t have a boat”, BW said.

    We can fix this, I told her and then rightly forgot about it until about mid September when BW reminded me.

    “Oh, this is really going to happen?”, I asked.

    BW answered by ordering 2 t-shirts with fake abs and one black wig and some red lipstick.

    Add a few strategically placed socks and we were on.

    But we need a boat! The happy couple got married on a boat and we just can’t walk down the street holding hands as that would be so boring.

    Last weekend in preparation for tonight - we made the boat:

    We named her the U.S.S Silicone, because not all the things you see are real in life.

    The boat came from a fridge box that BW asked for on facebook and so she jammed it into the car and we turned it inside out and went at it with some box cutters, magic markers and a bit of green tinsel and a whole lot of humor and we had ourselves a yacht any ogliarch with money would be envious of.

    We then had to figure out logistics like how we are going to move in the thing but BW had the bright idea to jam 2 broomsticks through it to use as handles and then we could walk along together.

    And…it worked.

    At one point, the child wanted to dress up as a Disney character but once she realized we were going to be the Amazon couple then we suggested she be an Amazon Box and the costume worked out really well as all we had to do was to cut a hole in the bottom of the box for her to fit through and then rig up some shoulder straps and we were golden.

    Once we were all dressed up and out in the world roaming the ocean that is our neigborhood we found that either people got the joke or had no idea what we were dressed up as. I thought more would get it, but whatever.

    We did get a lot of comments about commitment to the cause, and I think we won Halloween this year.

    Anybody can order something on Amazon and have it be her costume. We’re the only parents that went all in this year, and then gave the child a cardboard box and convinced her that it was going to be her costume. I’m the cheapest Dad ever.

    Would we do it again? Yes, with some modifications. A mile lap around the neighborhood walking around with very small steps and carrying your cardboard boat is tiring. Also, our flag on the back didn’t last as long as we had hoped but otherwise..sure.

    I’m now afraid that this will have become an annual thing where we have to get dressed up next year again, and I don’t think we can beat this. We could go as another couple perhaps - Sonny and Cher? Hall and Oates? - We have some time to think about it.

    I will tell you that our tiny little package had a blast and her only complaint was that she was cold but she didn’t want to wear another sweater so Halloween 2025 ended up being a bit of a life lesson to bring a sweater next time.

    Other than the cold - she just loved it. This year may have been peak Halloween for her. Some kids would run from house to house but she was happy for the experience and took her time picking the candy and sometimes had questions about the decorations on the porch from the owners.

    Happy Halloween and Trick or Treat!

    TH and Co.

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