MadMup.com

Last week on my Tuesday run to Best Buy I ran into an old friend. I hadn’t seen him in two years, for a variety of reasons, and it was a bit surprising. After exchanging pleasantries, he dropped this:

“Did you know my wife is expecting quintuplets?”

No amount of double-returns at this point will adequately express the jolt this was to me.

I congratulated him and made some joke about how it was a good thing he was stopping by Best Buy when he could since he wasn’t going to have any more time to do that kind of thing. He smiled and nodded before saying he had to get going, and then he was on his way.

Looking back on the encounter I’m struck with one particular thing: the look on his face. He seemed … stunned. It was somewhere between “I’ve just been told I own the Statue of Liberty” look and the “I’ve been told I’m going to be spending next week being chewed on by rabid badgers” look.

(The other thing that struck me afterwards was the fact that I borrowed a game from him a couple of years ago – Final Fantasy VIII for the PlayStation, I believe. I never played it for more than an hour or two and at this point, I never will. I ran across it when I moved and thought about getting it back to him, but wasn’t sure how I’d go about doing that. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to be playing it any time soon, but I feel bad that I’ve had it this long.)

I tried putting myself in his position and I think I understand. I mean, some days two cats is more than I can deal with, and I’ve been around people with a new baby and seen how difficult that can be. I cannot imagine getting five new babies all at once. Heck, being around five regular people at one time can be difficult for me! I wish them all the best.

Yikes.

Lately I’ve been noticing how much weight I’ve put on in the last year. It’s not surprising, really. Restaurant meals are bad for you and they make up 75% of my diet. The other 25% is made up of cake, Zingers, Dove Chocolate, cookies… well, you get the idea. The only exercise I get on a daily basis is holding my stomach in when I’m around other people.

In plain English: I’m tubby. I weigh more than I ought to weigh.

You need proof? Fine.

Earlier today, in my office at work, I was sitting in front of my computer and I stretched… and the button popped off my pants.

I’ll repeat that in case you missed it: the button popped off my pants.

Okay, so this is not my proudest moment. But it’s worse than it sounds. These pants already had a problem: the zipper wouldn’t stay up. I have been using my system of a rubber band wound through the zipper pull and looped up around the button. Once the button was gone, the zipper could do as it desired. And it did.

This happened pretty early in the day. I never know how to react in a crisis, even a semi-unimportant one like this. Do I go home at lunch and change? I don’t really have any other suitable pants there, do I? Do I stay locked in my office all day? Should I go buy a new pair of pants? Should I take my lunch at 9:30 in the morning to do it?

I ended up going to the mall at lunch and buying some pants. Kat actually met me on her lunch break so I didn’t end buying a completely stupid-looking pair (this is more of a danger than you might realize). Kohl’s ended up being the place with the pants (which, incidentally, would make a great slogan for them: “Kohl’s – The Place with the Pants”) today, and I’m glad, as it was the first place I looked.

After I bought my pants, we had lunch. At a restaurant.

I will never learn.

Despite what the title might lead you to believe, this isn’t the best review of Spider-Man ever. Rather, it’s a review of a game called “Ultimate Spider-Man.”