I outsmarted myself this morning.

The word on high was that we were getting a SNOWSTORM overnight. Oh, you should have seen the panic ensue. Babies were slaughtered to appease jealous gods. Houses were barricaded with stone and puppies. Black marketeers would accept nothing but gold or uncut Turkish heroin for even one bottle of water.

We take our storms seriously around here.

So I set my alarm for a good hour earlier than normal, expecting to be up in the vicious and cruel pre-dawn hour of 6:00, removing bucketloads of snow WITH MY BARE HANDS (and a shovel) while every single one of my neighbours would sleep in until, oh, let’s say “noon”, and then, en masse, enter their driveways with their snowblowers and, a scant 90 seconds later, depart for their assorted daily employments, errands, and meanderings.

I covet their snowblowers.

Anyways… alarm goes off… and I lie in bed for a moment, luxuriating in the warmth of a warm bed topped off with a small black and white cat lying across my legs. But I cannot wait for long. I have a task ahead of me. After a deep, soul-wrenching sigh, I throw the covers off and trudge to the window. Pushing aside the blinds, I steel myself for the first glimpse of what is sure to be a back-shattering morning.

Nothing.

No snow. None. Nada. The driveway is as black and as cracked as normal. (No, the cracks did not spontaneously repair themselves over night. Much to my chagrin.)

Looking back at the bed, I realise that my morning now stretches ahead of me like a vast empty landscape.

I have time to get stuff done.

So after My Lovely Wife gets up and heads for the shower, I head downstairs to get a jump on the day.

I make some lunches. I pour cereal into bowls. I give The Large One and The Small One their early morning snack/fix.

And I make coffee.

Normally, I make just enough coffee in the morning to fill up my travel mug and then I don’t even get my first sip until I’m halfway to work. With as much time ahead of me, I can have a cup at home. Heck, I can make coffee for My Lovely Wife. I rub my hands with glee at the sheer decadence of life.

So I get the coffeemaker percolating along merrily, and I get out three mugs: my travel mug, My Lovely Wife’s Cafe Du Monde mug from our honeymoon in New Orleans, and a Christmas mug that I have yet to put away. Trying be as efficient as possible, I take this time put two spoonfuls of sugar in my travel mug, put two spoonfuls of sugar in my Christmas mug, and put no spoonfuls of sugar in My Lovely Wife’s. (She’s sweet enough.)

Intermission: At this moment, I would normally apologise to My Lovely Wife for the above comment, but as it has most likely put her into a diabetic coma, it’s a moot point.

After showering and getting dressed, I head back downstairs, pour the coffee into the Cafe Du Monde and the Christmas mug, leaving the travel mug empty (because there’s no reason for it to get cold before I leave for work, is there? No, I thought not). I take the coffee and breakfasts upstairs, handing off My Lovely Wife’s to her, getting a “Coffee? But, I didn’t ask for coffee!” I take that as a compliment, swell with domestic (yet masculine) pride, and head into the computer room to eat my breakfast, drink my coffee, and read the next episode in Magazine Man’s The Case of the Poop on the Stoop.

Time passes.

Suddenly, it’s three minutes before we have to go and I have things to do. I run downstairs and give the Boys their last allotment of food until supper. I put our lunches by the front door. I turn down the heat. I pour my coffee into my travel mug, add two spoonfuls of sugar to my travel mug (right about now is when the light bulb should be turning on), pour my coffee and add the cream, and head out to the car to drop everything off and scrape the windows. Moments later, My Lovely Wife appears and off we go.

Five minutes away from home I grab my mug, raise it to my lips, and that’s when I discover that four spoonfuls of sugar in your coffee is not a pleasant thing to discover while driving at 95 kilometers per hour.

Because, at that point, you want to use your car as a weapon.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 11:12 am and is filed under idiots, me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.