In a drastic measure to realize a childhood dream, Daver had been petitioning for an air hockey table for about a year. I can’t complain about trying to realize childhood dreams, righting what once went wrong, or in my own case, buying my kids the crap my parents refused me. As my parents were hippies, their idea of “toys” consisted of those lovely wooden figures, you know, the ones that you buy in those specialty stores for about a million bucks?

Problem was, I’m not much of a wooden figure person. I longed not-so-secretly for Barbies (not allowed in my house under any circumstance), a Baby Pee-Pee, and most importantly a Power Wheels.

I am sad to report that although my not-so-subtle drip-drip method of acquisition (it’s likened to being pecked to death by an adorable chicken) never managed to work in this case.

So I plan to do what any mature and responsible parent would do, I’m going to buy my kids the one thing that I always wanted and never got (the Barbies and Baby Pee-Pee aren’t really appropriate for my boys, gender stratification and all): a Power Wheels. This is providing, of course, that they aren’t off the market by the time I’m IN the market for it.

Dave is aware of this impending expenditure, and would possibly complain were it not that the deck is now totally stacked in my favor. What on Earth (besides blow jobs) did I do to convince him, you ask?

I let him buy the fancy air hockey table he has been oogling.

It appears as though unfortunately even I am not immune the not-so-subtle drip-drip method.

When I was released this weekend from the purgatory that is getting my eyes examined (for some freakish reason, even though I have to do this yearly, my dread only intensifies with each year. No clue why), Dave and Ben took me over to “see something.” That “something” happened to be a half-priced air hockey table. Dave had used the fact that I love very little more than a good bargain (or a good humping) against me, damn him straight to hell!

There were three models sitting menacingly there, all at half off their sticker price, and Dave knew to start me on the cheapest, which was a full $60 cheaper than the next one up and looked it. It was ugly as fuck. No way is that going into our basement, I said, which happened to be his cue to point out the nicer model. I saw it and immediately agreed: the price was reasonable, the set up wasn’t too hideous, and it wasn’t nearly as HUGE as the highest price one.

I could hear a silent “fuck” pass over Daver’s eyes, as he then hastily backpedaled to point out all of the glaring problems with it. It didn’t have a score keeper computer (so.fucking.what?), it was smaller (good, GREAT!), and the legs looked weaker (there were no legs to be seen on the display).

Turns out, he’d been trying to sell me on option Number 3 and because my eyes were still fucked up from the exam, I hadn’t realized his angle until I had agreed to Option 2.

Option 3 was only about $20 higher than Option 2, which is not a sum that makes me go “Woah, Nellie!” but what I didn’t like about it was that it was so fucking huge. When I said as much, Daver and Ben immediately insisted that it only looked that way because my eyes were still adjusting back to normal from the exam, and because I was hot, hungry, and tired, I finally agreed to Option 3.

Who am I to deny someone their childhood dream?

Turns out that I happen to have “Sucker” written on my forehead, with what a piss poor decision I agreed to.

When Daver dropped us off at home and went back for the table, he realized that there was no way in hell that he was going to fit it inside our truck (which is only midsized), and had to borrow our generous neighbors Suburban.

Once he got it home, he had to enlist the help of ANOTHER neighbor to get the damn thing inside (we live in the world’s best neighborhood. Seriously), and once he set it gleefully up and called me down to see it, I nearly swallowed my own fucking tongue.

We have a finished basement, and the fucking albatross takes up half of one of the rooms. HALF OF ONE OF THE ROOMS.

(I would put a picture here but you wouldn’t be able to see it’s massiveness to scale. One could easily surmise that our basement was teeny-tiny and that the air hockey table was just a normal size, but looked much bigger. This, my friends, couldn’t be farther from the truth).

Now, we hadn’t exactly decided WHAT to do with that half of the room, and although I’d repeatedly petitioned for a Cotton Candy machine to put there, sadly no one had agreed to it, which is why I stubbornly refused Dave’s suggestion of a bar to go there. Besides, when the basement is The Teenagers Lair, I’m assuming that a bar would be the last thing we’d need there.

And to be completely honest, it’s not that it’s so massive (it’s seriously as big or a little bigger than our dining room table, with it’s leaves in) or that it hulks at me menacingly when I go downstairs to do laundry, it’s that someday, when the novelty has worn completely off, it’s going to become a flat storage space. Or a train table. Or a place to sort your dime bag.

Then, eventually, I will have to devise some way of storing it that doesn’t involve putting it on the side of the road for someone else to take, lest I get killed by certain members of my family who, despite the overwhelming layers of dust, will INSIST that they DO play it! Regularly!

Maybe this is the time to tell Dave about the fully functional Hot Dog Cart I bought for our bedroom. I can tell him he’ll hardly notice it’s there, sleeping tenderly on his side of the bed.