Coffeehouse Chronicles ...and Holy Moly Teddi! Really?

Good Monday morning!  I know that many of you are starting your work week and I’m sorry, but I just had to tell you about yesterday.

Yesterday was busy! This is pretty unusual at the Coffeehouse, because as fans of the the Chronicles, you all know that at this time of year, Sundays ARE NOT busy in the Coffeehouse. We don’t travel far from the TV because it is football season. Need I remind how much a fan the HB is? 

One of the TVs is on at a high volume, and on it, there are four games in progress. She has a tablet and a computer in front of her, where she monitors the games that aren’t on her TV screen by score and/or the Red Zone. She alternately talks, and sometimes in conference, with her older sister, with whom she manages a fantasy football team, and her older brother, the League Commish. There is yelling, trash talk, gnashing of teeth, and sounds of despair when a player, whom she has never met by the way, does something fabulous or something bad. It’s loud, it’s raccous and yes, it is my life on Sunday. I dare not enter her inner sanctum, whether she has taken over the kitchen or moved down the hall into her office. I know to wait until at least the evening game when things have settled down just enough to get her attention to focus on something other than football.

It’s only on rare Sundays that we go to church because it's convenient for us that our church will broadcast services online. With technoloogy the way it is, we’re not missing a thing. Worship actually feels like we’re there. The HB isn’t even bothered that church goes into the first 20 minutes of the early games. She’ll catch up by watching the key plays.

Meanwhile, I will watch one game at a time, the 49er game, and I’ll pick another one where I don’t really have a dog in the fight, probably the Vikings game because that’s my BFF, Cmdr McCroc’s, team. I try to watch the game that I’m interested in, cheering softly for my team, because if I dare cheer for someone who isn’t on the HB’s fantasy team, I might awaken the dragon that is the Fantasy Football Manager/Coach that I married. And I wouldn’t want to do that. She reminds me of Bill Bixby on that show from the ‘70s... you wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.

Yesterday was one of those rare Sundays that we ventured outside the Coffeehouse during football season. 

We were invited to brunch by Panda and his lovely bride, Teddi From the Block. Oh, but you can best believe that I heard the grumbling during the week preceding brunch.

“Don’t they serve brunch on Saturday too?”

“UGH. Is there a TV at this restaraunt?

"Can’t you tell them that you have and ingrown toenail or something?”

“Look, you can tell them yes, but I’m going under duress.” 

I listened to her muttereings and attempts at machinationations of excuses for why we couldn’t attend anything until February for four days leading up to yesterday, when the HB finally resigned herself to the fact that we were going to brunch with our friends.

Look, truth be told, I wanted to see some people, other than really big men in colorful shirts with their names emblazoned on their backs.

And guess what? The HB found that restaurant was nice, the food was really good and as a bonus, we got to see some of our friends. Now wasn’t that nice? 

After she was finished eating, the HB was giving me sideeye, while she held her left wrist with her right hand, tapping her watch serupttiously with her index finger in the hope that only I could see her impatience. I knew what she was trying to convey, “Get me outta here, the second games are about to start.”

Then it happened, Mrs. Scrubbles hadn’t quite gotten enough ‘HB Time’ and invited us back to Villa de McCroc for some cake, a glass of wine or two and maybe a cigar. I was excited. The HB, less so, but she relented when she saw my look of glee. I guess she just didn’t want to crush my spirit, so she acquiessed.

“But there better be football,” she muttered to me when we were alone in the car.

“I’ll see what I can do, Hon.”

— 

At Villa de McCroc, the Cmdr, reading the room, had already gotten the TV prepped. He scrolled through the channels looking at the HB in the hopes he could detect a sparkle in her eye or a hint of approval in her facial expression if he got to a game that she found piqued her interest. They settled on one and the HB curled up on their couch like a cat who had found her spot and was about to nap.

But then, calamity! 

Mrs. Scubbles shifted in her seat, inadvertently nudging the TV tray that the HB set her Stanley-esque water jug on. The jug hit the tile with a crash and a tiny, little, itty-bitty piece of plastic broke away from the top and slid halfway across the room and under the couch.

Mrs Scubbles was mortified that she’d caused damage to the HB’s counterfeit water cup. Me? I’ve seen this bottle fall from heights much higher thousands of times at home before. Geez! It’s fallen out of the car hundreds of times, tumbled down the stairs in the high school gym a few times at volleyball games causing everyone to look on our direction, I’ve even tossed it out of the motorhome a couple of times and nothing has ever happened to this thing. Until yesterday, I was under the impression that the stupid thing was pretty much indestructible. 

And then Mrs Scubbles brushes past it gently and it falls less than two feet to the floor …and BAM! A tiny chip.

Oh well, I thought. No big deal. We can find another one at the Dollar Tree. 

Oh no! Mrs. Scubbles would have none of that!

She ran into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, from which she produced an assortment of water cooler jugs in a dizzyingly array of rainbow of colors, and insisted that the HB pick one and even gave her a choice of brand new lids! 

Wow.

—

A few minutes later, Moe, Winnie, Tee Pee (that's Panda) and Teddi From the Block arrived and we split up by gender to watch football, drink a little brown liquor and smoke a stick.

It was nice. That is, unti I slipped back into the house to tell the HB something.

The room inside with the ladies had an electric energy. Moe had warned me that when Teddi From the Block & Winnie get together, he can literally feel his wallet getting lighter in his pocket. Like osmosis, from another room. I looked around and Teddi From the Block had this cat-that-ate-the-canary look on her face. 

Uh-oh. My Spidey Senses tingled. I glanced at the HB, and she announced, “We’re getting a new front door.”

“Say what now?” 

“We’re getting a new front door,” the HB repeated as she showed me a photo on her phone of a gorgeous, ornate, iron front door that looked like a million bucks and probably cost almost half that.

I looked over at Teddi From the Block, who looked back at me and proudly proclaimed, “That’s MY front door.” I couldn’t help but notice that every time Teddi From the Block showed me something expensive that she had just gotten for herself, she would sound just like Marissa Tomei’s character in My Cousin Vinny. That New York accent just poured out of her. “Isn’t it beee-you-tih-full?” 

All I could think was, “HOE-LEE COW, TEDDI! Yes, it is. But why do I need it?

I walked back outside where the fellas were sitting. It was written all over my face. “What happened in there?” 

“I just got Teddi’ed.”

Moe & Panda just shook their heads back and forth, “Tsk tsk.”

Cmdr. McCroc put his hand on my shoulder to console me, “Sorry Bro. It happenes to the best of us.”

Bottom line: the HB walked out of there last night with a brand new water bottle and new front door. I’ll post a link to my Go Fund Me account at the bottom of the Chronicles.

You know what to do!  Drink ‘em if you got ‘em!

#coffeehousechronicles