Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

A few weeks in the rearview, I, Stuart Tinsley, husband of Carter, father of Wyatt and Ethan, turned 38 years old. Say it with me. Holy shit. Down hill to 40, gaining speed. I write that for this. Mr. Coffee = Joe DiMaggio for me. I know, he was one of the best baseball players ever. He was married to Marilyn Monroe. Doesn't matter. That's not how I remember Joe. I remember him mainly for being a shill for Mr. Coffee in my formative years (read: 1970s.) That's always the first thing I think of when I hear his name, read about him, etc. His legacy (with me at least.) My second thought re: Joe is usually his reference in Mrs. Robinson, you know the song from the movie by Simon and Garfunkle. When I was young I thought it odd that Paul and Art would put a guy that hawked coffee pots in a song in which they wonder where he has gone when it was clear that he was on TV selling coffee pots. That's probably just me though. Huh? That's what you are probably asking yourself right about now, funk show brother. What does this entry have to do with my favorite Team of Tinsleys. Everything. Dig this.

Back in 1991 I was shacking with a young lady whom I had dated for some time. We had a big ugly break-up, and I moved out, pretty quickly. I took the two cats (both now deceased, one recently) as well as a few pieces of furniture, but that was pretty much it. I didn't have plates, or utensils, cups, or a coffee maker. Being relatively new to Dallas, and a tremendous dipshit, I loaded up in my GEO Storm and drove south on I-35 to Wal-Mart in, rim shot please, Waxahachie. Considering that at the time I resided in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas (slightly North of downtown Dallas) this was a tremendously silly thing to do. For those not familiar with the lay of the Messoplex, imagine my Pad in Oak Lawn to be, well, New York City. Waxahachie can be played by Syracuse, NY. Way upstate. Hundreds of miles away. I drove from NYC to Syracuse to buy a coffee pot when I could have taken a ferry a few miles across the river to Newark, NJ and bought one. I was (and am) a dipshit.

On this trip, my epic journey to stock up my new bachelor pad in Oak Lawn I purchased many things, one of which was a Mr. Coffee coffee maker. Fast forward to now, well, actually last week, and said coffee pot died. Now, regular readers of this here BLOG know that I have certain issues and won't be surprised to read that my old coffee pot is still sitting on our counter, right next to the shiny new replacement. I can't throw the damn thing away. Silly. Yes. Stupid. Certainly. In fact, just the other day, My Lovely Bride asked me, why haven't you thrown the coffee pot away (It should be noted that My Lovely Bride doesn't drink coffee, she claims it gives her the shits, which is probably more than you wanted to know, but my point, most coffee related happenings in our casa are done by me.) My answer. I don't really know. We've had trash pick up three times since it died. It is just an old, and gross, coffee pot, that I'm holding onto. I'm so bad, that I've even contemplated trying to fix it. You see, it still kind of works. It takes an hour to brew a pot of coffee, but it still brews. I thought maybe I could open it up and fix it and bring it to work? Then I remember, I'm inept, Mr. Fix-It I'm not. No Honey Do's, more Honey DON'T.

All of this was running through my head as I sat down to pay bills this past Saturday. Freshly brewed mug of coffee in front of me (from the new machine,) I had just seen the fallen coffee pot silently (and again, so dirty) sitting on the counter next to the new machine. Spacing out in front of the computer I was abruptly brought back to, what was then, NOW, by the entry of The Tinsley Boy(s) into our Dining/Living area. The Boy(s) will often follow me into this room when I pay bills, generally making it so I can't accomplish my task. Didn't matter this time though, as I was lost in thought, thinking about the timeline of my life with a Mr. Coffee coffee pot as my guide, with Once In A Lifetime serving as my soundtrack.

How did I get here? I hadn't really figured that out when E, Boy #1, The Elder Boy, erupted into a fierce howling cry. First thought was Wy, Boy #2, the Younger, our Little Warrior had some how hurt his big brother. I quickly did the Daddy deduction thing, and determined that Wy, across the room, and engaged in playing with a truck couldn't have hurt Ethan. Ethan was crying about something else? Thankfully, Boy #1 has a good command of the language for a 3 1/2 year old, which comes in handy at such times, so I simply asked him, what's wrong? Nothing. He was so upset that he couldn't talk. He was doing that crazy wailing sort of cry where you can't even catch your breath. As he continued, I started to get a bit upset myself, worrying that something big was up, that he had in fact hurt himself bad. Maybe something internally. Again, and a bit more urgently, I asked him what was wrong. Nothing. Huff huff, cry cry. So, I picked him up and placed him in my arms and on my lap. I was sitting on the chair that we use for our computer. It sits in front of our computer / home-office armoire. This seemed to make him cry harder which I found very curious? Did my moving him cause him pain? I was about to sound the alarm, and get My Lovely Bride involved (its indicative of how crazy the house is that she didn't immediately come running when the Boy erupted into his wailing, then again, I guess she figured I was in charge and on top of it - wrong) - she is good at this sort of thing, when he stroked the chair, and wailed louder.

That's when it hit me. That Daddy deduction thing working like some sort of doppler radar. I knew what was up...

You see, Dear Reader, what you don't know is this...until recently, like the day before, the chair we were sitting in was red. We went to Houston a few weeks back and my Mom gave us a khaki slip cover for the chair which My Lovely Bride had put upon it. Ethan hadn't noticed the change, and when he did, well he went into the crying thing. He was freaking out over a slip cover. Holding onto what was, tight. As I typed at the beginning, I'm 38, and although I've shed no tears over the Mr. Coffee, I still can't throw the damn thing away. Holy shit. The Boy is a chip off the old block, and, I'm sad to say, that ain't necessarily good in this instance.

Until I BLOG again...anyone want an old, dirty, sort of working Mr. Coffee coffee pot?