Testosterone Overload

 

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 I need a break- a quiet, male-free block of time to recover my sense of humor. There were entirely too many bodies of the masculine persuasion in & out of my house this weekend, eating, drinking, stinking, & banging around at all hours.

It all started Friday; I was looking forward to going to the dedication of our high school’s brand new stadium & watching the first real varsity home game. But Sam had to teach both the Friday night classes (his sensei was ill), followed by a dress rehearsal for a Flipnotics (his mixed martial arts tricking team) demo, so they had to have an adult chaperon with them at the gym. Chris got home early enough to take that shift, & suggested that I could go to the game, but I didn’t want to go by myself, so I picked up take-and-bake pizzas & drinks for the guys to have at our house afterwards.

Chris had the whole weekend off- only the second one since May- but I had to go into the office for a couple hours; he got ferrying duty, since Flipnotics was performing at a local church’s Fall Festival- three trips across town for water, athletic tape, & getting eight kids, with their equipment, to the stage in time for a last minute walk-thru. I was able to walk over from my office to watch & I must admit, they did a pretty good job, though everyone seems to end up with some sort of (minor) injury.

We wandered around for a bit after the demo & ran into our friend J, who Chris has been seeing a lot of lately- J helped him finish up the work on the rental house side job, & Chris has been looking at fixer houses with J, who is finally taking the plunge. Since J has been living in temporary quarters with a friend after splitting from his long-time girlfriend, Chris invited him over for dinner; fortunately, I was standing there at the time (no, he didn’t check with me first), so it wasn’t a complete surprise, but now I really needed to go to the store.

Two hours & a half hours later, I arrive home with a carload of groceries…& no one around to carry them in (you might remember I’m on a 5 lb weight limit with my left arm); I made a quick phone call, succinct & to the point: “I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing- I have a trunk full of food & it needs to be inside now”, & then hung up. Within 5 minutes, the guys pulled up; once everything was inside & I had started the potatoes cooking, Chris had J on the phone, told me that he was bringing along a buddy they had run into after I left the Festival, & asked me what time dinner would be ready- I looked him straight in the eye & said, “Whenever you finish cooking everything”, & went to sit down in my recliner. I was obviously not real happy at that point- Mama doesn’t do Caveman’s little woman & he was suddenly making a lot of assumptions about my role in this little party. Then Sam piped up, reminding me that he was invited to a birthday party & it started in 30 minutes- so it was back in the car for a trip to the next town, leaving Chris to deal with dinner.

It was a pleasant enough evening- we had boneless pork ribs, mashed potatoes, green beans, grilled mushrooms, garlic bread, & salad- but the conversation quickly degenerated into a gross-out fest. J is a mortician & his friend is an EMT, so they began trading stories, which naturally egged Chris on- the language turned rather blue & there was more blood, gore, death & dismemberment than the worst B-movie horror flick. I again retreated to my chair & knitting, but good manners (mine, not their) kept me from turning on the TV to drown them out & they didn’t call it quits until nearly 10:45 pm.

Sunday was more of the same; after church, Sam had another demo at the Fall Festival, & wanted us to drop him at the practice park, go home to get his uniform out of the dryer, drive back to the park & then ferry everyone back over to the Festival. This is where I had my meltdown; I reminded him that I had already given up most of my weekend to his activities & that my sole purpose on earth was not to cart all & sundry whenever he made plans (without my input, in particular). Chris wisely dropped me off at the house, so I changed clothes, crawled into bed with the cats, & had a long nap.

When I woke up, the living room was again full of men; the demo was over, so Sam & his friend were eating leftover ribs, J had come back by to say thank you & replenish the beer that was decimated the night before, & they had got caught up in the various football games. Thankfully, the language had cleaned up & the volume was a bit more manageable- the cats even came downstairs for a while. At 5:00, Sam had youth choir rehearsal, so I drove him over, dropping off his friend on the way, & then stopped off for pet food & supplies. When I got back, Chris was telling J that I make a good pesto sauce- they looked at me hopefully, but as luck would have it, I was out of parmesan- oh, darn!

At that point, J got a call that his offer on a house was accepted, so he wanted to take me over to look at it, since “you’re going have to fix the garden- I don’t know what to do”. More Caveman assumptions. But he was so excited, I didn’t shoot him down, & we spent an hour peeking in windows & looking over fences at his home-sweet-home-to-be. Afterwards, we stopped off for a pizza before picking Sam up & heading home.

It wasn’t until 9:30 that I had my living room to myself, which means I stayed up too late watching Masterpiece Theatre & working on the sweater vest. I’m hoping the testosterone levels have dissipated by now & the Cavemen gone back into dormancy, or I might have to apply a liberal dose of “Pride and Prejudice” to balance the whacked out chi in my house.