DOH! Oh, Dear! A Female Tear. HEY! A Plot Seen By No One.

Did I just wake up from a Rip Van Winkle snooze? First, my Blogger dashboard is all wonky and unpleasant, making me jump through extra hoops that I did not have to do only this morning. Now I have to click a sidebar category to see my reading list, rather than it popping up at the bottom of the dashboard. And yesterday it only gave me ONE post showing on my blog instead of seven as I have it set.

Also, I think Hick is now some kind of genius.

Don't take that to mean a SMART genius, like our son, Genius. Or an orange striped-cat like Genius's dear departed cat, Genius. No. I think that Hick might now be some kind of simple genius, who...I don't know how to say this...just might have...kinda...okay, literally...OUTSMARTED ME today!

Maybe it was because I was so thrilled to get rid of him around 2:30 (this double retirement thing happening in December is simply not going to work out!) that my guard was down when he called home at 3:06 to tell me about a paint sprayer.

It was kind of my own fault, really, because I am a gambler. But one who doesn't know the secret to survivin'. I don't know when to hold 'em. And just this morning, I told Hick about the points I've accumulated on the molottery website by entering losing ticket numbers. Uh huh. I've had a few over the years. And you can use those points to buy merchandise. The Pony refused a tablet or notebook or some newfangled electronic gewgaw just before leaving for college. I knew better than to ask Genius (the son, not the dead cat) if he wanted something like that, because he custom orders his play-pretties. I did, though, see a tent/sleeping bag/camp chair/cooler package that I though he might like. He goes camping every year with his Boys State fellow staffers.

Anyhoo...I mentioned that to Hick, who said, "Genius already has a tent." So I told him about some items in the TOOLS section of the points store, not because Hick is a tool (at least not 50% of the time) but because he enjoys tools. And there happened to be a paint sprayer on there, but Hick thought it was a cheap one, and could tell (or he was bluffing like a better gambler) just from looking at the thumbnail picture that it was really a reverse vacuum cleaner that sprayed paint. He said he really NEEDED a paint sprayer, and that he'd seen one down at Lowe's. And as happenstance would have it, a mere four hours later, Hick was off to Lowe's!

But that's not the outsmarting part.

When he called at 3:06, he said that yes, he saw that Lowe's had ONE of those paint sprayers. But that he'd just wait until Friday to go look at it. Because there would be a good sale. Uh huh. Hick is not even a simple genius when it comes to the ins and outs of Black Friday.

"WHAT? You want to go down there in that crowd? Good luck with that. It will be sold before you even get there."

"It's on the bottom shelf."

"Like that will keep it hidden. You don't even know if they'll have a special on it."

"Don't they discount everything in the store?"

"Um. NO. Didn't you look up their Black Friday ad to see if it's on there?"

"No. How do I do that."

"Here. I'm at my computer. Huh. Eight pages. Let me go through them. No. I don't see a paint sprayer. They have FRIGs like ours. For $400 off, they say. And washers and dryers. And toolboxes. But no paint sprayers."

"Huh. They have it marked down right now. It's $229 but it's regular $336. I'll just wait and think about it."

"Good luck with that. I'm sure they'll get more between now and Christmas. I don't know about the price."

"Well. What do you think?"

"If you really want it, that could be your Christmas present."

"I need a paint sprayer. I don't really need anything for Christmas."

"I guess you can go ahead and get it."

"Do you want me to use the credit card? Or the debit?"

"Use the credit card, because I'll deposit some Christmas money to pay it off."

"Okay then. If you're sure. I'll go ahead and get it."

WHAT JUST HAPPENED THERE?