My husband does many different things to relax. He reads (anything from sci-fi/fantasy fiction to quantum physics), he plays video games (usually something super boring like Gran Turismo 5; ugh, I hate racing games), and he lets his mind wander and ponders different things.
Occasionally, he does the mind wandering thing on the internet. He thinks something like, “hm, I wonder what housing prices are like in this neighborhood.” So he hits trulia and finds out what the neighbor’s house is worth and what year our house was built and how much the property taxes are on the place across the street. Then he starts to think about how the whole neighborhood shares utility providers. He wonders what the borders are and goes to find out where Time Warner’s cable is unavailable and people have to rely on Windstream instead. He thinks about what would happen if a natural disaster happened and knocked out the cable to one neighborhood but not the other. That leads to him pondering what we would do if our utilities were not working and what he should do to prevent such an inconvenience, so he looks up electricity generators for private home use.
And then he giggles.
My husband does not need the internet to let his mind wander and think about what ifs and make plans for eventualities. I ask what he’s thinking when he gets that look on his face whether he’s using the computer or not.
But when something on a website makes him laugh, I have to stop working on my most recent crafting project and ask him what he’s looking at that fills him with so much mirth.
“Hot tubs!” he responds.
“What?”
“What?”
“Some home generators you can buy make sure that everything, including your hot tub, can still run even when the power is out!” He stops to laugh again. “Yes, because that’s exactly what I need in the event of a natural disaster, my hot tub!”
“Well, you never know when you’ll need to relax.”
“‘There might be a tornado out there, but nothin’s gonna stop my hot tubbin’!’”
Ah, the wonderful mind of that husband of mine.
Or maybe it'll be cold and you'll need to get in the hot tub for warmth. Or you'll get bored and you'll want to re-enact the James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub sketch from SNL.
ReplyDeleteIt could happen.