Male Bonding

So at the bright and early hour of 7ish o'clock this morning, Striker and his buddies headed off on an overnight camping trip to Lake Mead. Given the amount of stuff they took, you'd swear they were going for a week...they were also picking up the boat on the way, so that necessitated the wakeboard.

Contents of the Pilot upon departure:

• 4 men (please note that 2 are above average size)
• 1 huge tent that probably sleeps 12 regular sized people (they wanted to be sure that they'd all be able to comfortably sleep together for proper bonding-yes, they actually gave me this reason when I suggested they take our 2 smaller and much lighter tents)
• 4 sleeping bags
• 2 queen size air mattresses
• 4 chairs
• 2 ice chests
• 4 backpacks
• 2 boxes of food and supplies
• 4 pillows
• 1 wakeboard
• 1 grocery bag full of adult beverage supplies
• 1 bag of beach towels
• 1 case of water
• 1 camping stove
• 1 First Aid kit (yes, the wife snuck that into the car) :)
• 1 large and 1 small container for hookah supplies

I love my Pilot!!!

Laundry

My loving husband, who is off every other Friday thanks to his 9/80 work schedule, typically does the laundry in our house - generally just clothes and towels. (He also cooks and takes care of our furries - the dog and cat). I am responsible for purchasing all necessary household items and I ALWAYS ask if he needs anything before I go shopping - this will be important later on. (I generally dislike shopping and tend to shop only when necessary.)

Being the wonderful husband that he is, the last load of laundry was just completed when he offered to run to Panda Express to pick up lunch (quite the Saturday tradition for us). I said that I would take it out, since I needed to wash all of the new bedding I got for our bedroom.

Since we are 99.9% not moving, I've begun the (re)decorating of our house. It's a bit of a hodge-podge right now and I'm going for a calming and neutral mix of blues and browns. Last weekend I used all of my LNT gift cards and purchased a mountain of new bedding in slate blue and chocolate brown.

But I digress...

I strip the old bedding from our bed and decide to wash the mattress pad first. I stick it in the washer and reach for the liquid detergent...empty. I sigh and pull out the drawer for my back up supply of powder that I know is there because I switched to liquid shortly after buying the washer and didn't bother to finish the powder. I saved it for an emergency such as this, or so I tell the pack-rat in myself. I reach for the fabric softener - the blue one that's a special scent -you know, one of the blue, purple, or pink ones - empty. I reach for the boring April Fresh bottle - also empty. I start laughing. While my darling husband does not return the milk carton to the fridge empty, apparently he is guilty in the laundry arena. Not wanting to postpone the start of this load, I hold both empty bottles upside down in hopes of getting just enough fabric softener to fill up the cup to "MIN".

It's my lucky day!!!! By combining both the April Fresh and special blue scent (I forget exactly what the combo of scents are - they just smell good!) I get just enough to start the load. YAY!!!

The husband returns and I ask him if he knew the bottles were empty. Our conversation goes something like this:
Wife: Did you know the detergent and fabric softener bottles were empty?
Husband: Yes, that's why I told you we needed more (true statement).
Wife: Why didn't you throw the bottles away then?
Husband: I thought you might be able to get a little bit more out of each bottle.
Wife: (I can't really argue since that is exactly what I just did.) Why didn't you tell me we needed more then?
Husband: I just did.

If my husband were the light that comes on when your car is low on gas, he would turn on right as the last drop of gas was being used. I love him!