I really wonder about people sometimes.

I ran into a former work-friend who is taking up golf. He asked if I played.

So… It’s like this. Back in high school/early college I was into golf. Or rather, I was into driving ranges. I never actually played golf, unless it was disc golf.  I was into any kind of cheap, active entertainment. Back in ‘85-‘88 there were a bunch of golf driving ranges in the cow pastures and flood plains surrounding our suburban half-acres. I picked up a set of clubs for next-to-nothing at a garage sale. A bucket of range balls cost four dollars and I could make it last more than an hour, if I took my time and enjoyed the bucolic atmosphere on a hot summer day.

When I was flat broke, my buddies and I hit golf “wiffle ball” practice balls in the local parks until The Man passed ordinances prohibiting any kind of golf. Even the plastic practice balls that couldn’t float more than 25 feet in a tailwind were verboten.

I was never great at golf, but I practiced my way to “competent.”

Flash forward to 2004. The tech startup I worked for at the time hosted a mandatory golf scramble every year. Instead of a company barbecue or Six Flags Day, it was golf at the nine-hole municipal across the street from our office.

I finally played “real” golf, albeit in a scramble.  I was not great. I did not suck. Our foursome used my scramble best-lie perhaps six or seven times on the day. Not great. Not suckage. Competent, considering how long it had been since I swung a club, and with no driving range to warm up.

Flash forward to present day. I need some exercise. I promised the aforementioned work friend that I would find some clubs and – given a couple of weeks on the driving range – we’d play.

I know myself better than to run out and buy a nice set of clubs. I know for a fact the golf bag soon will be a home for wayward spiders until I sell it off at a garage sale in two years for a fraction of what I paid. I went back to Square One: Finding a set of garage sale clubs. First to Craigslist. Using the map feature, I found a set of clubs right down the road from me. $25. Perfect! Friday at 4 p.m. I emailed the address and included my phone number.

Ten minutes later came the email replay. “Sure! Still have them! When do you want to see them?”

I checked my watch. “Now?” I replied, again including my phone number.

An hour later: No reply.

I wrote again. “Okay, please let me know when I can come take a look at the clubs. I have some availability tomorrow.”

No reply.

The next morning I woke up and checked my email. No reply. Went out to breakfast with MBW and checked my email. No reply.

By Saturday noon I gave up on my Craiglist clubtease. I found the next cheapest option, a guy in St. Charles who had a couple boxes of old clubs that I could mix-and-match for $3 per club. Can’t beat that. I picked up a 1 wood, a 5 wood, a 2 iron, a 7 iron, a pitching wedge and a putter for $18. The guy also threw in a trashbag filled with used balls.  No golf bag, but still… Good deal. Given my skill level, the 5 wood was probably unnecessary. It’s not like I’m going to play any subtle distance variation between the 1 wood and a 5 wood.

Sweet! I’m happy with my hobo golf set.

There would be no more golf talk on Saturday, though. It was MBW’s birthday. My Beautiful Wife, for the 14^th time in our fourteen-year courtship, hemmed and hawed about what she wanted for her birthday.

I decided to pay for an airline fare to send her to Florida to see her mother. Brilliant! Great idea!

…And then her mother bought the ticket before I could nag MBW into booking her seat. Shit! Back to zero.  We looked at new stoves for a while. This gave me hives. Both the cost, which ran a little rich for a birthday present, and because MBW decided that any replacement stove had to be a gas option. We presently have electric. A couple years back I nervously replaced some gas lines in our basement as I was building our theater. I went ahead and ran a gas line almost all the way to where the stove is, complete with downstream shutoff valve that would allow me to build out the rest of the line without having to shut down the line for the house or call the gas company.

You get the picture. It wasn’t merely the cost of the oven, it was the cost of the oven plus the stress of a semi-major home repair. (I also would have to run a new electrical box to accommodate the lower voltage used by a gas range.)

I breathed a sigh of relief when MBW said, “How about you just take me on a clothes shopping spree instead?”  WOOT!

Yeah! Yeaaaaaaah. Yeah. You’d think I had the husband skills to be gracious for one flippin’ day. I was in win-win territory, ducking the uber-expensive birthday gift and having (essentially) to do nothing except sit in a folding chair next to the dressing room and listen to the ballgame on the iPhone and offer the occasional meaningless opinion.

THREE HOURS and 40 dresses later, she was ready to check out. WOOT! Wait. She had four items in her hand.

“Whoa! Whoa! Where’s the rest of it?” I asked. “I know I thumbs-upped at least ten dresses, and those aren’t even them.”

“Meh,” said MBW. “I liked those, but I didn’t LOVE them. These are the only ones I really wanted.”

“But… But…” I stuttered. “Those are all clearance. There’s barely a hundred dollars of merch in your hand.”

“Yeah,” smiled MBW. “Let’s bop across town to the other outlet mall.”

[insert sound of Shawn’s head exploding here.]

Yep. It wasn’t over. It was a long damn way from over.

[insert MBW impersonating Al Pacino here. “Oh, I’m just getting’ stah-ted!”]

“Best Husband in the World” status to “Shitheel Grump” in fifteen seconds.  It was her birthday. This was the easy gift. All I had to do was sit patiently. Somehow I bjorked it up.

After another two stores and two hours of sitting and staring at a smart phone that had long gone battery-dead, it was finally over. My eyelid was twitching like a mental patient. I could feel my heartbeat pulsing through my temples. The saleslady at Store #3 asked me what I did for a living.

“I’m a writer.”

“Oh! Are you published?”

I was already on tilt. That little bon mot pushed me into homicidal ideations.

We had a nice dinner at a tapas restaurant. The belly dancer left us alone, thank God. I’m Super-Shy Rob Lowe. I don’t need finger cymbals and scimitars balanced on a dancer’s head eighteen inches away from me while I’m spooning saganaki onto a slice of pita.

Sunday I had to make up for all the chores that got pushed aside during the shopping marathon.

Before the sun went down I finally made it to the driving range. $14 FOR A MEDIUM SIZED BUCKET OF BALLS??? WTF??? When did the driving range turn expensive? Crimeny!

Funny. The first ten or so balls I hit were nothing short of amazing. “Hey,” I said to myself, “I haven’t lost a stroke! I’m pretty good at this! Okay, now what was all that stuff I’m supposed to remember? Oh yeah. Head down. Left elbow locked at contact. Swing through. Keep your vertical axis.”

After I thought about my form, it was Sheltered Workshop Day at the range. I couldn’t hit for squat. My slice returned.

Also, I am old and fat. About two-thirds of my way through the bucket, I thought, “Jeez. Are these balls breeding like Tribbles? Enough, already. My back hurts. Okay, a couple more. A couple more. A couple more.”

MBW and I finished the evening with a little barbecue and some wine while we powered through three episodes of House of Cards. I stood to fetch a refill and I could feel every single swing I took past the first time I said, “Okay, a couple more.”  Wowsers. I’m old.

At nine-thirty at night my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello, Shawn!”

“Er… Hello?”

“How’s it going?”

“Grrrreat?”

“This is Donna. When do you want to come look at the golf clubs? Are you busy now?”

“What? Oh! Er, I already bought another set this weekend.”

“WHAT? You’re kidding! I thought you were interested.”

“I was, but you never got back to me.”

“I’m calling you now.”

“And now I have a set of golf clubs.”

“Wow. Really. Fine!” **click**

I was stunned. I really wonder about people sometimes.

 

NOTE: Below is the comments section. You don’t need to input an email. (I don’t think)