A new year's bang!

2009 started with a bang. My darlin' hubby and I, both enjoying this island of middle age and the relative quiet sanity that comes with it, have put away our wild partying habits of our youth, We've exchanged flirting with strangers for the comfort of gazing at each other over scrabble boards while wearin' our long johns.

And so, we opted for a "quiet night in" for New Years Eve; just the two of us. A big crock pot of stew offered it's warm comfy aroma to the air, the woodstove was busily pumping out the heat, and downstairs we had the gameboards set up - readying for a night of simple amusement. (We turned the telly off! No way were we going to resort to watching the ball drop in New York and the fireworks goin' off on Sydney Harbor bridge etc...we're not at the point where we have to watch international others enjoyin' themselves for our entertainment! It always looks so glamorous and ritzy when you watch celebrations from afar, you tend to forget that the camera doesn't pick up the scent of vomit and urine that wafts from those same far away streets. Believe me, Singapore isn't so exotic when the streets are full of regurtitated saki and noodles..I should know I spent new years eve there in 1994, but that's whole other blog for another time.)

"Let's just have a few beers and stay home," I suggested to my mister. And he agreed, relieved that he didn't have to deal with navigating the streets full of party goers and breathalysin' cops.

So he popped round to the local certified to pick up some beers.

He was gone a long time.

"Must have popped in the local VFW for a drink," I thought to myself. "Certified might be closed after all".

An hour later my mister comes home all white and shakey. He looked like he'd just bumped into his ex wife.

"You ever looked down the barrel of a gun?" he asked, (he doesn't like to think so, but my mister has a dash of the dramatics about him, always starts a story with a theatrical attention grabbing opener!)

Apparently he was paying for the beer at the local certified when they were interrupted by a young thief - wearing a ski mask no less. (So very cliched. They are not very imaginative the thieves around here in Ohio.)

The language the thief used was also disappointingly hackneyed: "Give me all your cash motherf*cker, and do it now!" Sounds like a crips reject.

While the guy at the counter willingly obliged and began handing over all the money to the unoriginal ski mask wearin' twerp facing him, my mister examined the gun that was bein' waved in the air so threateningly.

Now then, my mister might not be able to rattle off Albert Einstein's theory of relativity at the drop of a hat (or should I say ski mask?). He might not be clear on why Romeo and Juliette topped themselves, (I did try to point out to him that it might not have been quite the same love story if they had lived, had four kids, with Romeo being unemployed and with both of them having to deal with nasty in laws); but he does know his guns!

He was raised on a farm by his grandparents, two strict military colonels. He goes hunting every year. He knows his guns.

He says he was intrigued by a red mark on the hammer of the gun this thief was waving around in the air like a cheerleaders's baton. When you are holding a heavy piece of equipment like that, you tend to want to keep it steady. Either the thief was a total knobhead at gun handling, or this little object he clutched was a plastic replica. My mister says the thief was leaning forward with all his weight on one foot, which was a bit stupid, because it would be easy for anyone to push him over. He says he thought about pushing the guy over for a minute, but then thought better of it incase the guy had an accomplice outside. (Who knows his friend might have been heavily armed with a water pistol!!!)

When ski mask cliche man was finished gathering up his illegal takings (couldn't have amounted more to a few hundred bucks), he turned and pointed the dubious looking piece of armery towards my husband and said "lie down bitch".

And this is where I am both proud of, and horrified by, my husband's reaction.

He said "no".

He said the thief paused for a moment, his brown eyes blinking disbelievingly through the eyeholes of his knitted face gear staring at my husband. And then he did what all thieves are famous for. He ran away.

That's a hell of a way to find out it was a toy gun!

When my husband finished telling me the story of his new year's eve adventure, I crumbled. I was thinking I would never again send him out at night for beer- milk- eggs anything! Then I got good and angry. "How dare some stupid punk intimidate a neighborhood into being too scared to go out for groceries!"

It's probably just as well I didn't go with my husband. I don't know what I would have done in that situation. If alone, I daresay I would have complied with the thief's demands, no matter how idiotic. But I am fiercely protective of my loved ones, and the thought of some young idiot trying to intimidate my husband makes my blood boil.

So, a hex on you young thief where ever you are. May your ski mask give you a nasty facial rash, may your gun, toy or not, jam permanently and may all the fear you've induced in others be returned to you threefold so that you pee yourself during your next pathetic "hold up". May the cops get the dna from your unvolunteered urine, and may your little bitch botty be harmed by others wearing sand paper condoms when you land yourself where you belong- in prison!

Ah, there, I feel a bit better now.