It was the Sunday of the NFL Championship games and I had given fair warning to my lovely wife that I would be commandeering the wide screen TV and the couch and would pretty much be worthless all day. We've been married long enough so that she took it well, giving me one of those eye rolling smiles and resigning herself to watching some love story marathon on one of the women channels in the other room.
I settled in for the pigskin marathon with the usual healthy snacks, put my feet up on the couch and promptly fell asleep in the middle of the first game. I was really more interested in the Packers-Giants game anyway, and by the time that game kicked off it was late in the afternoon. From time to time my lovely wife would stroll through the den and ask how things were going, doing a reasonably good job of pretending to be remotely interested. It was at a critical point in the second quarter when she asked the feared question:
"How much time before halftime?" she asked.
Generally when a wife asks this question she has some chore or duty planned and is politely gathering information for when best to ask.
"There's just a few minutes left," I said cautiously.
"Hm. Is that regular time or football time?" she asked.
I laughed. "Football time," I said. "So you probably need to multiply by a factor of four or five."
I was awaiting the request that would no doubt come, take out the trash, or move some furniture, or whatever, but instead, she just smiled and nodded and walked out.
Shit I thought, she's probably got something big I'm going to have to do. It was getting dark and colder outside, and I feared the task would involve going out, maybe even driving to the store.
About ten minutes later the first half ended, but I stayed on the couch watching the halftime analysis. After all, she didn't officially ask me to do anything, so its not like I was dodging something.
Then I heard it, the inevitable question called out from the other room.