Hello,
Well, next week I am going to have to be a big boy again — I’m all on my own for most of the week. Janette is going to company meetings all week in the Bay Area, and my girls are staying at their grandparents there too. So from the time I drop them off midday Monday, until the time I pick them up Friday afternoon, it will just be me in this big house working working working. It is true that I’m at a point where I have a backload of work to do for my entrepreneurial business, so I suppose it’s a good time for me to have no other responsibilities but work. But I will miss my girls — in fact, this will be the longest time I will have ever been without the three of them.
Not unlike my Hawaii trip a while back, I am going to use this as an opportunity to prove to myself that I still have a life, and am a functional and useful human being, even without my girls. That is probably a lie, but I’m gonna try to live that dream for five days this week. For starters, I have rented the first eight episodes of “24 Season 5” on Netflix. This is a man’s show if there ever was one.
The Counter Terrorism Unit’s Jack Bauer would never admit to sissy boy loneliness when his family was on vacation, and god damnit, I’m not gonna act lonely either. Jack makes a decision, and then he commits to it with ruthless efficiency without second guessing himself. He saves U.S. citizens and Presidents alike, always sacrificing his own personal fulfillment in the process, without so much as a request for a commendation from the government or its peoples. It’s a trait I’ve always admired in Jack, for four seasons running now.
So I’m gonna be like Jack and not complain about my lot either. Jack, you go experience great personal trauma to save the country, and I’ll hold up my end of the deal by not complaining about my girls being gone, and we’ll meet up every night at 10 PM after work for an episode of Season Five while they’re away. It’s a deal.
There are, of course, things I can do next week that I can’t do with all my chicks around. For example, my friend George (whose wife and two daughters are also out of town) and I swear we’re going to dinner at Hooters in Denver on Wednesday night. Now, knowing George and me, this will probably never happen — we’ll probably just hang around and watch sports on TV, or go see the new Simpsons movie or something instead. But maybe, just maybe, we’ll work up the courage to go out and be lecherous bastards for an evening. I’m rooting for us. I hope it happens. But history indicates it probably won’t.
Would Jack Bauer go to Hooters on Wednesday night? This is the philosophical question that has preoccupied my mind this morning. I can see the pros and cons to Jack going. I will try to glean answers to this question from the episodes I watch Monday and Tuesday nights before making my decision about Wednesday.
I’ll let you know.
Sincerely,
Cory