One morning not too long ago, after having loaded the dishwasher with the first of several loads of dirty dishes, I pressed the start button and nothing happened.

“What the heck?” I said, and pressed it again.

Nothing.

I made sure the door was shut. Still it wouldn’t start.

I checked to be sure nothing was blocking the door, made sure the rotors were free to move, checked the interlock switch, checked the child lock – everything was fine. It just didn’t want to start.

This was unacceptable. Not only is this dishwasher a scant six months old, but it is ENTIRELY NECESSARY in a home where dirty dishes stack to the ceiling before noon.

In a blind panic, I logged onto the Sears Blue Crew web site and started a chat session with a tech. My tech was unquestionably armed with a 1972 Sunbeam toaster manual and boasted a Kenmore product knowledge exceeded only by the guy who aerates my lawn as she asked questions like “is the door closed?” and “are the lights in the house on?” and “is it filling with water but not draining?” and “is it plugged in?” before finally declaring with authority that I’ve got the child lock engaged. The fact that I’d already informed her at the very beginning of our conversation that it was definitely not engaged was apparently lost. I was then asked to press the reset button on the GFI cord on the dishwasher, because the power is out. Through clenched teeth I calmly explained that the lights are on, therefore the power must be on as well. And I re-iterated the fact that the dishwasher was BUILT IN to the CABINET and would require DE-INSTALLATION to reach the power connection.

Upon receiving this helpful bit of information, she asked if I’d like to make an appointment for a service call. Please hurry, I said.

The next day the helpful service tech came out, and after some insightful grunts and murmurs, declared the circuit board to be dead. “I’ve never had to replace one of these before. You’re the first one,” he said. Lucky us.

He then informed us that the part is on order and that we’d be stuck doing dishes by hand for the next 11 days at least.

As I bid goodbye to the service tech and turned back to the now-crippled kitchen, in my mind appeared a vision of several large piles of saucepans, plates, saucers and cups, stacked in teetering Dr. Seuss-style arches. We would be inundated in short order.

But since in our house the watchword is “Persevere,” I rolled up my sleeves and started cleaning out the sink.

Michael asked what I was doing, so I told him I was going to do the dishes by hand. Naturally, he wanted to help.

Seeing an opportunity to provide Michael A) something to do besides chasing the cat and stepping on his sister’s hair, B) an important life skill and possibly even C) a key father-son bonding experience, I told him to go grab a chair and get some gloves on.

We started right in, scouring the sink and rinsing the dishes. Once we had our space ready, he washed and I rinsed/dried/put away. We did pretty well, he and I, plowing a sizable swath through the filthy stacks before he lost interest and decided he was done. I continued on. He asked why, and I told him very matter-of-factly that it needed to be done, even though it was a lot of work.

This cycle continued for several days: the dishes stack up, Michael expresses interest in helping, he does for a short time and then loses interest. One time he even went the distance, working with his mom to the very last dish. His expression of disappointment that they’d completed the load was priceless:

“Oh, great! I want to scrub more dishes! Who will make more dishes? Who, mama??!?”

He had contributed to the family’s workload throughput, and he knew his help was appreciated.

And something else occurred: my wife and I noticed that even after a week of doing the dishes entirely by hand, several times per day, our kitchen has never been cleaner. The sinks are clean and empty, the dishes are kept under control and the counters are clear.

I pondered this observation and considered dusting off one of my pet concepts, namely that our reliance on technology to save us labor is misguided; that perhaps it is the labor saving devices that keep us enslaved.

I happened to catch something on a blog site that supported my theory, or at least lent itself to the idea.

But just yesterday I was brought back to reality as the toll of eight days without a dishwasher finally began to register. With a sink load of dishes and no counter space for cooking, Michael’s mom reached her frustration boil over point:

“Gaaah! I’m tired of doing dishes! I’m not pioneer woman! This isn’t relaxing!”

There goes my plan of shutting off the power to the house this next weekend.

So there you go. We still have a few days before the part shows up and is installed. Until then, don’t expect a lot of writing out of me; I have a stack of dishes to work through.

Not too long ago, I recounted the tale of a difficult weekend.

On Monday I was breathing a sigh of relief to be shut of it.

Little did I know what level of Dante’s Inferno I’d be touring the very next weekend.

I think it began when I announced plans for a family excursion to see the annual Starlight Parade in Portland. These words, upon leaving my lips, passed through the aether and began to resonate deep in the interstices of time and space, where it then created a focused beam of adversity aimed directly at the most critical spot in our home’s plumbing system.

Before I go on, I must remind you that I hate plumbing problems. I don’t mind electrical wiring problems, structural problems or heating/air conditioning problems. Those are easy to deal with.

Plumbing is different. Plumbing is a way of routing water under pressure, and if not dealt with quickly and correctly will cause loss of resources, great amounts of wetness, pervasive and very expensive wood damage and significant reduction in dignity. This is why in every corner of our house there currently thrives some minor plumbing annoyance, from running toilets to an intermittent refrigerator water dispenser, a completely inoperable hot water tap and a defunct hot tub.

So, this one Saturday morning, I brought Michael outside to do some bike riding. It was time to take off his training wheels and see what he could do on two wheels. He actually got four seconds of riding time without my holding on to him! Pretty cool. On the way down the driveway, he asked me why the sidewalk was all wet.

“Probably the neighbors watering,” I said, and gave it no further thought.

Later, when my wife came home from errands, she asked me why the sidewalk was wet, and whether it was coming from our yard.

This time I went outside to give it a good look.

Sure enough, the water that was saturating the sidewalk was merrily bubbling up from our yard. Specifically, from the water meter. I pulled up the cover and saw a murky brown ocean.

No problem, I thought, call the water department.

They sent a guy around in under twenty minutes. He pumped out the meter well and took a look around.

“Yeah, it’s the fitting on the street elbow,” he said.

“And now you’re going to tell me it’s an easy fix and it won’t be expensive, right?” I asked, optimistically.

“Oh, yeah. It’s a simple job. All you have to do is-“

I sort of hung on that phrase there: “all you have to do is”

And by “you” he meant the poor shmuck who owns the house, who hates plumbing, and who had plans that day.

I asked him to repeat himself, so he described again the “very simple” process of removing the street elbow, cutting the reducer coupling off of the main line and replacing it with PVC adapters.

“It’ll take you half an hour and cost three bucks.”

My wife and I looked at each other, knowing full well both figures were way off.

As the water department dude drove off, she went and got the camera while I went to fetch the shovel.
My eldest daughter, having discovered that there was no water pressure in the house, came out to investigate. She wanted a shower, and said she was willing to work for it.

Yes, she has no qualms against performing manual labor barefoot and in pajamas.

And of course it’s necessary to dig out the concrete box surrounding the meter just to get to the pipes.

I’ll be needing a manicure after this.

Say a prayer. I’m cutting the water main.

Here’s the culprit. A leaky street elbow and reducer coupling.

So off to Home Depot I went, taking eldest daughter with me. She was gracious enough to put on some daytime attire before we left.

Okay – I got parts and teflon plumber’s tape. And a water pump. And a new PVC cutter. And some PVC cement. Let’s see… so far we’re up to $42.51. So much for the cheery estimate I got from the water company rep.

Now, I know how to cut PVC, and I know how to apply PVC cement. And I know that once you put the cement-coated pieces together, they ain’t coming apart: no way, no how. So it’s important to get it done right the first time.

Missed it by that much. Okay, okay, so I blew it the first time. I can get more connectors, they’re not too expensive.

Off to Home Depot I went, for the second time. Running total is now up to $48.69.

This time, I dry-fit the pieces and make SURE they’re the right length before I cemented them together. No more crude eyeball measurements.

Yeah.

Interesting fact: when you coat PVC with cement, the pieces fit together a lot closer than when you dry fit them, making it really easy to misjudge (again) how long your connector assembly is. I have learned something. Something I’ll only need to recall when I am forced to do plumbing work. Something I’ll no doubt forget long before the time I need to recall it.

I had made two attempts to get our home’s water main reconnected and had blown them both.

At this point, I had a hyperventilating, mouth-frothing panic attack became somewhat discouraged. I wasn’t sure if I could actually make this work. It was critical that our house has water, and my repeated screw-ups were causing us to run out of workable pipe length. Pretty soon I’d have to call in a back hoe and/or a fleet of professionals.

My wife, the soul of support, offered a suggestion:

“You need a beer.”

“It’s only noon,” I said, in mild protest. “Besides, I have to go get more parts.”

“I’ll go get them,” she said. “You need to relax.” She took the first connector set with her and sped off to the hardware store.

I hate plumbing.

Soon my wife was back, handing me the new parts. She bought two sets. Smart woman.

“Did you drink that beer?” she asked me.

“No…”

She heaved a sigh and marched into the house to get one.

After she came back out and forced me to relax, she offered a suggestion:

“You know, inside that coupling there’s a little ridge that lets you know how far the pipe goes in. How about you measure how far inside that ridge is, and use that to figure out how long the connecting pipe should be?”

“That’s a really smart idea,” I said.

With that in mind, I carefully measured all the distances and lengths involved in the connection from the water main to the meter.

I made the cuts, cemented the pieces and fit them together.

Not exactly perfect, but serviceable and solid.

Time to apply water pressure.

No leaks. Hallelujah!

Back goes the box, dirt and surrounding rocks.

After five hours and fifty-three some odd dollars, the problem was resolved. Don’t mistake this pose for relaxation. What you’re seeing is exhaustion.

And even after two weeks, I still have nightmares.

I hate plumbing.

note: the pictures you didn’t get to see were the ones where wife and daughter took their turns fitting and tightening the connectors. There were threats involved.

We’re cruising down the road toward Michael’s school, ready for his second-to-last day.

“Kidz Bop” CD #4 is playing, Michael’s current choice for drive-time musical accompaniment.

We pass rows of houses, those infamous spinning trees, a set of apartment buildings and a construction site. My mind is abuzz with the usual mental din, the background clamor consisting of thoughts of work-related trials, bills, kids schedules, plumbing problems, rodents and a host of other annoyances beseeching my attention.

“Daddy, look! They’re flying!” Michael suddenly says.

“What’s flying, sport?” I ask.

“The drops! Up there!” He points to the windshield. I can see little drops of water, remnants of yesterday’s gully washer as they travel up the glass, buffeted by the wind.

“Oh, yeah. Look at that,” I say.

Suddenly I’m transported back to the early 1970s, and I’m the young passenger staring out the car window at the little drops of water that dance and play across the glass, and imagining that each one has its own little universe. I used to wonder what was going on in each of these little drops of water, what they might be thinking, what business they had that drove them to follow the courses they took. My mind was a free space of possibilities and wonder unhindered by the burden of adult responsibilities.

I remember a specific instance in which my mother had picked me up from school early, probably because I was claiming to be sick, and I was forced to run errands. And it occurred to me that on that day my mom’s mind was probably roiling with troubles as well, no doubt wondering how she’s supposed to get anything productive done with a small boy tagging along.

“Where are the drops going?” Michael asked, snapping me out of my reverie.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure they have business somewhere,” I said.

After checking Michael in at school, I drove on to work in silence.

But I spent a little extra time wondering at water droplets while waiting at stop lights, and a little less time listening to my internal clamor.

And I made a mental note to do that more often.

My wife and I blissfully sifted awake this morning around a quarter to 8 o’clock.

This is a nearly unprecedented event. I truly cannot recall the last time we were able to sleep in.

We both needed it; with the frantic activities and various illnesses that cropped up last week, she and I had been running on fumes.

“Honey?” I asked. “It’s almost eight, and Michael hasn’t burst into our room. I’m actually sort of concerned.”

“You want me to check on him?” she asked

“Yes, I think so.” She got up and headed to the door. “I’ll wait here and listen for your horrified shriek,” I said, hoping my joke didn’t portend anything true.

No sound.

Then, in through our door walked Michael, followed by his mom.

“He was waiting for us to get him up,” she said.

“Waiting for us? How long were you going to wait, buddy?” I asked him as he clambered up on the bed.

“Well, I didn’t want to disturb you two,” he said.

The sun broke through the clouds at just that moment.

This, my fellow parents, is the moment that makes all the rest of it worth while.

It was a near miss.

We nearly pulled Michael out of his in-home preschool completely yesterday.

There were countless reasons: alleged complaints from parents about their kids being hurt by Michael, notes that come home describing Michael’s apparent inability to sit still or stay focused, reports of Michael being overwhelmed by the noise of the music program, Michael’s own grumblings about not wanting to go each morning.

And then there was the great peanut incident of last Friday. Michael came home wearing different clothes, and he told me that he wasn’t supposed to have peanuts so they changed him. That evening I found a bag of peanuts in his lunch box, which made no sense at all. I asked one of the teachers the following Monday what had happened, and she said they were concerned that Michael had brought peanuts to school, when there is a very clear no-peanut policy (one of the students has a severe allergy to peanuts). I explained that we don’t pack peanuts; either they were given to him or he snuck them by us somehow.

And then there was the conference that Michael’s mommy was brought in to Monday afternoon, when she’d gone to pick Michael up after having a very stressful and heartbreaking day at work. She left feeling that maybe Michael wasn’t fitting in, again.

To us, this seemed identical to the situation we’d encountered when Michael was two. It was something we never wanted to face again.

My wife and I talked about it Monday evening, and decided by Tuesday afternoon that Michael would not be going there any longer. She and I would take turns staying home with him for the forseeable future. To spare him, to spare us, to spare everyone.

When my wife arrived to collect Michael and his belongings, Ms S (the owner/operator/principal) went above and beyond to explain the back story to each situation.

It turns out that there was only one parent complaining, and that situation is well understood to be a spurious clash between Michael and one other student only. She said that Michael has made tremendous progress in his ability to sit still and to stay focused. While he is overwhelmed by the sound and activity level of the music class, it is something they understand and cope with, and hope to find a resolution for.

The bottom line is that they very much want Michael to stay.

My wife and I were very relieved to know this, and were encouraged enough to change our course and keep Michael going there until summer, and after that it’s off to public kindergarten.

In the mean time his mom and I will be working to find methods for helping Michael improve his ability to consistently make better choices, to control his temper and to improve his focus.

And of course, we have Sister L to keep in mind, since his behavior patterns so far have followed hers almost to the letter. She made huge improvements as she grew, and we know he will too.

What a weekend.

Friday I came home early, having contracted whatever plague Michael had brought home. The disease we’d shared was characterized by an unrelentingly stuffy nose. He suffered through his bout by continual, vigorous sniffing. This of course served no useful purpose other than to annoy his older sister; it did not provide any relief for his symptoms. Since Oregon doesn’t allow the OTC sale of Psuedoephederine HCL, there was little to do but just ride it out.

And there wasn’t much rest to be had on Friday anyway as there were many errands to be accomplished, for which I volunteered to be chauffeur. Fortunately I got something akin to rest for the half hour that sister S had her physical therapy appointment. Michael and I sat in the car in the parking lot. I attempted to allow myself to dip down into a lower state of consciousness briefly while Michael peppered me with questions from the back seat regarding the movie he was watching (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs).

The real fun began at midnight.

Michael woke up because he heard the downstairs phone loudly declare its rapidly declining battery life. His manner of dealing with this crisis is to report it to his parents immediately. And that meant crawling into bed with us. I tried my best to remain inert, but my alleged snoring was found to be disturbing to Michael’s mommy, and amusing to Michael. I was asked to roll over. Instead I got up and went downstairs, first and foremost to grind that annoying phone into a fine powder put the phone back on the charger, and then to curl up on the couch where I wouldn’t disturb anyone. My absence proved more disturbing than my snoring, so I was soon joined by my wife and son. We watched “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” yet again.

At 2:30 I put Michael back to bed, and his mom and I tried to recapture our sleep.

At 7:30, Michael comes bombing into our room, chipper and fresh as a daisy, ready to greet the day.

I opted against decaf coffee that morning.

We got a few clean-up and preparation projects accomplished, and took Michael to “The Chicken Nugget Store” (aka McDonald’s) as per our standing agreement: if he has a good week at school, he gets a treat on the weekend. This week he picked a trip to McDonald’s for chicken nuggets and playtime on the indoor play structure.

Naturally he spent his hour playing on the videogames there instead of crawling, sliding and climbing on the play structure.

Fortunately he did nap. It was a requirement that he do so, or his mom and I would shoo the Easter Bunny off the next morning. My wife and I attempted to catch naps ourselves, though that was difficult with one absent teenager choosing that time to provide sketchy text information regarding when her impromptu visit with her friend would be over, and when and where she’d need to be picked up.

Sunday started rainy again. I had vowed that after Church, I’d finish working on the hot tub. The week before I’d refilled it and started it up, only to find that rather than starting up and running, it would merely emit an ominous buzzing sound. After shutting off the power, I pulled open the spa’s electrical control box to discover that the GFCI was not wired properly. I’d need to repair that. To compound this repair job, I thought it would be smart to disassemble the jet diverter unit as well, since over the years the jet control knob had been getting increasingly difficult to turn.

I learned a valuable lesson right then: do not attempt to undo plumbing in a system that is currently under a great deal of water pressure.

So this weekend, since the hot tub had completely drained itself, I would fix the diverter and the faulty GFCI. Fortunately the diverter was easy to fix: a little smear of vaseline on the o-ring and it was perfectly happy. The GFCI was a different matter. The one in the hot tub was not wired right, meaning our beloved hot tub had been a potential death trap for as long as we’ve had our house. Code states that the GFCI be in the breaker at the main box, so I bought one online for what I knew to be a great price.

Sunday afternoon I shut down the power, and attempted to remove the electrical panel. It was then that I discovered that the shelves I’d put up in the garage included a brace that was covering three of the screws securing the panel.

Brilliant.

I had to cut holes in the brace to get the screws undone.

With that complete, I peeled back the panel cover (which had been left open). I was greeted with a black spider the size of Rhode Island, a critter that had been happily living under the electrical panel cover, and who was only millimeters from my fingertips at one point.

I am not a lover of spiders. I must have given out an involuntary scream (yes, I confess – they really bother me that badly) because my wife called out “Tom! Are you okay? What happened?”

I met her at the garage door, still shuddering.

“S- s- sp- spiiiiiider!”

Michael of course had to see, so I led him outside to view. Once he got within eight feet he ran inside and cowered under a blanket on the couch. I dragged out my favorite spider-slaying device, the trusty Miele vacuum.

Once the spider was devoured, I was able to move on to replacing the hot tub circuit breaker.

After pulling out the old one, I discovered that my low-cost, sight-unseen internet purchase was the wrong type.

So here I learned another lesson: be sure you know the manufacturer of your electrical panel before buying circuit breakers.

After all that, I could not finish my project. This weekend warrior had been defeated.

I hate when that happens. Makes me glad for Monday.

Michael was tired, there was no doubt of that.

After over two hours of play at his favorite vaguely space-themed play facility, he was clearly bored with all of the play structures and bounce houses and other venues of rambunctious physical activity. We could tell, as he was now stalking other children in hopes of drawing some excitement off of whatever their lives had to offer.

One group of kids, a subset of the kids attending a birthday party, was playing keep-away with a balloon. This was an irresitable attraction for Michael, who wormed his way into their group, no doubt hoping his presence would either not be noticed or would be disregarded as merely one of the other many children in the group.

I watched their interaction for a bit, and after becoming satisfied that no ill will was shown either to Michael or from him, I turned back around and continued my conversation with my wife.

A few minutes later Michael came running up to us from the other direction.

He was grinning from ear to ear, and in his hands he held a bright purple balloon. Following closely behind him was another little boy, one of the birthday group. He was calling out something unintelligible.

“Michael, where did you get that balloon?”

“It’s mine!” he said.

“He took my balloon!” The other boy cried.

“Michael, did you take this balloon?”

“But I…” he started.

“It’s my balloon,” the little boy said again.

“Michael, give him back his balloon!”

Michael thrust the balloon at the little boy, brow knitted into a severe frown. He folded his arms and turned back toward me, but not before exclaiming “I hate you!” at the balloon boy.

“Michael, we’re done. Let’s go get your shoes.” I marched him over to the shoe caddy and we retrieved his shoes. As I put them on his feet I told him “Little man, this is not how we make friends. We don’t steal balloons, and we certainly don’t tell people that we’ve stolen things from that we hate them. This is being mean.”

He said nothing.

“Now you’re going to go apologize to that little boy for what you did.” I steered him over to the little boy, who was bouncing his balloon up in the air. His parents noticed what I was doing and asked him to pay attention.

“Go on, Michael.”

Through fresh tears, he blurted out “I’m sorry I took your balloon!” and he darted away.

“You did the right thing, Michael.”

I knew he didn’t want to. I knew he felt horrible about it; though more likely because he’d been caught and forced to give up the prize, and then suffer the indignity of having to abase himself in front of another. Either way, I wanted to be sure he did the right thing in hopes that later on in life it would come naturally.

I continued to instruct and encourage him on our way out of the building.

That’s when we heard the little balloon boy come running up, bright purple balloon in hand.

“Here. This is for you,” he said, and he handed Michael the balloon.

“Thank you!” Michael said, brightening suddenly.

“Thank you, that was very nice,” I told the little boy, who pranced off, beaming.

As we got into the car, Michael said “That little boy gave me the balloon anyway!”

“Yes he did. That was grace, Michael. You didn’t deserve it, but you got it anyway.”

Like God’s grace, His unmerited favor in the midst of our evil toward Him. Not a purple balloon, but everlasting life.

Vacation is officially over. It’s time to head back to work, school and other standard occupations.

After we’ve fully enjoyed the holidays, we are curtly shoved out into the dark, dour epoch that stretches on until the next official holiday. We must endure a cold, bleak existence until February, when we come skidding up to Valentine’s Day and collapse on its doorstep, thankful for an excuse to celebrate something.

That, and if the stores are any indication, we also spend this time packing stuff up in Rubbermaid containers and weighing ourselves.

Another rainy day in Portland – a redundancy if ever there was one – and it started with a bit of disagreement as to whether Sister S had school or not. The school district calendar didn’t state emphatically that there was school, but there wasn’t any indication that there wasn’t school. We decided to drive her there, thus if there wasn’t school we could just turn around and drive home.

There was. She wasn’t pleased.

As I pulled back onto the road amidst lines of buses and throngs of parents dropping their kids off, I remembered how much I dislike this particular stretch of road – especially in the dark, and even more so in the rain. It’s hard to see anything at all unless it’s emitting its own source of light, with the headlights stabbing the eyes and obliterating most objects, and the rain obscuring everything else. While looking one direction and just about ready to turn, I suddenly caught sight of a group of morose-looking teenagers shuffling along the sidewalk. I was glad they weren’t shuffling along in front of my car as I turned, or I would have squashed every one of them.

It’s the clothes they wear these days. Don’t get me wrong, I know every generation of teens clings to its own fashion code and ours was no better… except that our was visible. The goth/emo trend today sports dark colors which renders the wearer, as a pedestrian, nearly invisible. Say what you will about the garish, loud, tie-dyed fashion sense of the 1970’s, but you have to give it this: you couldn’t help but notice it.

I would wager big money that there is a direct correlation to fashion trends and pedestrian versus automobile accidents.

Michael of course went back to his school today, and was entirely ambivalent about it, to the point of being blasé. He was excited about the fact that his mom would be picking him up extra early today, to take him along with his Cousin A to the train station. Cousin A had been staying with us throughout the holiday season, and Michael greatly enjoyed having another boy in the house to help even the odds. His mom and I enjoyed having Cousin A in the house because he’s polite, helpful and grateful – three traits we hope will rub off on our kids.

So with Cousin A heading home, the kids going back to school and me going back to work, it’s life as usual again.

Not much to say about it other than it’s life, and I really can’t complain. I’m thankful we have a roof over our heads, food in the cupboard, solid employment and kids who get along well for the most part.

Wishing you all the best in 2010.

Here’s a little quiz for all the husbands out there.

Let’s say you’re working toward a deadline that is mere days away. The project has been going on for about a year, and you know you’re under the gun.

And let’s say that today you have an opportunity to work late; the last opportunity this week. Next week doesn’t really count, because it’s likely that you’ll be asked to deliver early Monday.

But let’s throw in the fact that your wife has been working pretty hard lately too, and is basically running on fumes. And tonight she’s at home with two kids: one teenager who’s popped her knee and is basically useless, sprawled out on the couch and making intermittent demands; and a high-needs, hyperactive five-year-old who would have more appropriately been named Damien, whose current favorite activity is doing body slams on his sister’s bad knee.

And let’s add to that the fact that she’s still recovering from a lingering virus.

So you get an IM from her, saying, basically “Hurry home and save me!”

And you respond by saying that you were planning on working late.

And then this pops up:

Would you think that maybe:

a) She’s telling you that you should stay at work because everything’s fine and you have priorities.

or

b) You will return home to find a blanket and pillow on the front porch, and a smoldering pile of your belongings on the lawn.

Well, in the interest of maintaining an affectionate relationship with my wife, I opted to head home immediately.

I called home on the way, a little apprehensive of what I might be greeted with.

As it turns out, she really didn’t mind if I stayed at work, because she did understand completely that I needed to work late to get my project completed.

I could have interpreted that line in her IM at face value.

I should have known this; the second interpretation would have been out of character for her. Dang old IM doesn’t have any way of conveying emotion or subtext.

So let this be a lesson to you all: know your wife, but be ready to switch gears quickly just to be on the safe side.

It wasn’t five star dining, it wasn’t a healthy food haven, it wasn’t an iconic classic, it wasn’t a cherished town treasure, it wasn’t an example of period architecture.

It was just a great place to get a burger and a fries. And a corn dog. And a grilled cheese sandwich. And a milk shake in nearly any flavor you could dream up.

It was the Sunset Humdinger, a dinky little drive-in joint that had lived right off of Oregon’s Sunset Highway since the early 1970s. The place changed owners a couple of times (at some point acquiring walls to enclose the original façade and create a small indoor dining area) before finally being bought by the most recent owners just a few years ago.

The place had a familiar, “loved” atmosphere about it, like a kindly old man everyone in town knows, the guy who spends his time sitting on the bench outside the corner grocery, and who always greets you with a “Howdy” every time you pass by. In conversations with friends over the years, every time the Humdinger was brought up at least one person would spout off with a glowing review of their milkshakes, or would gush about their having the best onion rings anywhere.

Whenever I drove by I always made a point to remind myself to drop in and grab a burger, but I usually forgot. And when I didn’t forget, I’d convince myself that I should eat something else because my arteries are clogged enough already.

Now it’s no longer an option.

The powers that be decided that they needed to widen the road.

The bank on the other side of the street said they didn’t want it widened in their direction, so the Humdinger and the adjacent 1940s-era strip mall had to go.

When I first heard the news of its impending demise, I resolved that Michael must eat there at least once in his life. So one Sunday afternoon his mom and I took him there for lunch. We had burgers, fries and chocolate milkshakes. And onion rings. The staple foods. The best things. It was as delicious as it ever was, greasy and filling and sumptuous. Michael was not as impressed, and decided it would be more interesting to experiment with shoving a soda straw into the coin return of a Ms Pac-Man video game, one that probably last saw any serious game play well before Clinton was in office.

With the permission of the owners, I took pictures of the place for posterity (later I burned them onto a CD and gave it to the owners). I was afraid nobody else would, or ever had.

And now, it’s gone. Razed. It has disappeared without fanfare, mourners or bullhorn-toting protestors. There was absolutely nothing about its passing in the news. I conducted some casual interviews with some of the surrounding business owners about the Humdinger, but came away knowing no more than I had gone in with. The place was apparently a mystery that has gone silently into that dark night.

And the world is a slightly sadder, less yummy place.