All Mike, Almost all the time

In case U mite have had NE doubt that Mike has taken over as the focus of Milborough, here's his l8ist slice of domestic life:

April,

Formerly little sis. There are times when a man realizes that no matter how long he has been married there is something new he learns about his wife. It’s a part of the mystery I think that has kept my marriage so strong over the years, is that half the time, I have no idea where my wife is or what she is doing.

For example, just the other day, I was walking through a room I thought I knew and there was this little door on the side of the wall and it was opened. I looked through it expecting perhaps to see elves or leprechauns or some other kind of little person; but instead there was my wife, Deanna. I said to her “Deanna? What are you doing in the crawl space?” I called it a crawl space, because she was crawling in it. It seemed like a catchy phrase to me.

She replied, “I found a bunch of stuff in here!” For a moment there I thought she might have uncovered the thing that we hid in the house that you remember we found back when you were about 6 years old and we swore never to tell anyone about. Fortunately it wasn’t that. Deanna shoved out two boxes, one taped shut and the other opened and said, “This box hasn’t been opened in 20 years!...There’s baby clothes and Christmas cards…” I know you are probably wondering how my wife knew the box hadn’t been opened in 20 years. Possibly she had the box carbon-dated, or she counted the number of rings in the dust; but the truth of the matter is that our mother has the habit of putting dates on everything to the point of excess. So, the label actually had the date when the box had been sealed.

However, looking at the baby clothes and Christmas cards in the other box, I was struck by this sudden realization. I said, “But, my folks had a yard sale!” Then I remembered that mom had said she planned to have a yard sale with all her old stuff in it, and if she had included 20-year-old baby clothes and her old Christmas cards, then no one would buy those, even if they were Christmas cards sent to Pattersons. Naturally, Christmas cards sent from Pattersons are the ones which carry value. I also noticed a distinct lack of dust on these items. If a box had not been opened in 20 years, you would think there would be 20 years of dust on it, and yet both boxes and my lovely wife, were completely unperturbed by any appearance of dust. Could it be that my mother was such a neatnik that she dusted boxes she had in crawl spaces, or could it be that my mother couldn’t sell these items in a yard sale, and so she decided to store them in our crawl space, or could it be that my wife has a natural force about her which repels dust? Any of those answers are plausible.

My wife was not putting these things together and went enthusiastically back into the crawl space saying, “I guess nobody looked beyond this rock.” I think she was saying something related to the phrase “leave no stone unturned”, but who knows? She was too busy pulling out one box after another to ask. Eventually we had quite a pile of cardboard boxes, and some sealed food containers, which I fear is food with which my mother held some sentiment (last pastry made by Grandma Marian and things like that), an old coffee pot, and some books. I suddenly began to realize that there was enough room in that crawl space for another office or another bedroom, and my mind immediately raced to that possibility.

Whenever I see a big, messy pile of things; my natural tendency as a Patterson is throw out some words of condemnation. It’s just a reflex action, eh? I said, “Man, how come people collect so much JUNK!!” I realize, of course, that these words of condemnation were aimed at my parents and you; so they were foolishly uttered. The only thing I could do to compensate was to put my hand in my right pocket and thrust my hip out, in a sort of pseudo girlish repentance.

My wife put things in perspective for me. She said, “That’s not junk, Michael…That’s OURS!” As she said this a mysterious bag of things appeared in front of the junk. I decided to switch pocket hands and gave the cameraman a look which was intended to say, “My mom has scammed me by hiding all this stuff in the house, so now I have to get rid of the junk she couldn’t sell in that yard sale.” That’s the conclusion I came to anyway. When Deanna was initially drawing a comparison between the words, “Junk” and “Ours”, I had thought there was some kind of pun in there. I immediately thought of words similar in meaning to “Junk” in the hopes that one of them would sound like the word, “Ours”. My mind raced through: clutter, collateral, debris, filth, hogwash*, litter, miscellany, offal, refuse, rubbish, rubble, rummage, salvage, scrap, trash, waste, bits, crap*, detritus, dregs, dross, fragments, garbage, offal, pieces, refuse, remains, rubbish, rubble, ruins, shit, trash, waste, wreck, wreckage. I couldn’t think of a single one that would work; so I was forced to accept the fact that my wife Deanna had not actually made a pun, but made it look like she was making a pun.

And there you have it, formerly little sis, the new thing I learned about my wife: She fakes puns. It’s sad but true.

Love,
Michael Patterson

Mike, "fakes puns"? Can't it B the much simpler conclusion, that she wasn't trying 2 pun @ all? Really, there R ppl who go thru their daily lives WITHOUT looking 4 a punnertunity in everything they're abt 2 say. U shd try it!

Liz, if U R so angry abt the fact that I xxist, U shd really take that out on Dad. One time, when U were a baby and Mike was in kindergarten, Mom was feeling bored and restless, and Anne Nichols suggested she cd always have another baby. Mom raised this possibility 2 Dad, and he was all absolutely-positively-NOT abt it. Then Mom suggested he take the permanent, surgical solution (get a vasectomy so he cdn't get Mom preggers again 4 sure) and he was like "I'm not THAT positive!" So there U have it, blame Dad.

Apes