Thanks, Victoria's Secret -or- Why I'm Leaving Home

Seth started acting really weird the other night after dinner.

Typically, he's in his robe right after the meal and starts to yawn and rub his sleepy eyes with his tiny fists soon after that.

In his defense, he rises at 4 am but he's asleep in the recliner, head back and decorated with two narcoleptic cats, no later than 8:30. Once the snoring begins, I wake him and point him in the direction of the bedroom to which he and the cats grudgingly relocate.

Seth insists that if he's sitting next to me asleep, we are still "spending time together." I disagree with this since, when asleep, he is non-conversational and his eyes are closed-- both impediments to interactive communication to all other than scientologists. But I let him believe whatever he wishes to believe to keep the peace.

All this aside, he was still awake at 8:30...and in a very chipper mood.

I was all happy, thinking that, for a change, I might have someone besides Buzzy to help me guess which condo the young couple would go for in House Hunters.

But since this was such an unusual event, I asked what was up with him being up, only to have him get all crazy eyes and tell me "It's my house, I go to sleep when I want to!"

Okay! Sheesh.

But when he went upstairs, returning freshly showered, his beard and eyebrows neatly trimmed and dressed in a tuxedo, it hit me....

The Victoria's Secret Annual Fashion Show was going to be on later. Now I understood.

Since I have never been able to successfully convince Seth that the people on the TV cannot see the people at home, every year he dresses up. That's what finally gave it away.

Last year he wore a maroon velvet smoking jacket with matching slippers.

Unfortunately, he'd had a particularly tiring day.Traffic ramps up during the Christmas season and he'd sat on the Belt Parkway for a long time and could not, despite the No-Doz he was washing down with Red Bull, stay awake for the big event.

The fashion show began at ten p.m. The last time Seth was awake at that hour was on our wedding day...and that was a struggle. He fell asleep before we cut the cake and the head waiter had to stand in, feeding me coyly and posing for pictures.

Taking pity on him and not being bothered in the least that he was trying this hard to remain conscious to watch young, taut, perfect, gorgeous women strut down the runway in their underwear (we're together 30 years...a man needs some happiness), I offered to record the show for him.

Despite his disappointment -- he knows, once it's been DVRed, they cannot see him through the screen --  he unhooked his cummerbund  and trudged up the stairs. I think I heard him crying softly.

What I should have done is set up the DVR at that very moment but the phone rang and the dryer pinged and I had to just finish one last row of my crocheting and yes, goddammit, I forgot to tape the show for him.

He thinks he's going to watch it this evening immediately upon getting home.

He just called to remind me and I haven't heard him sound so happy since he realized he'd slept through the cake-cutting portion of our wedding. He's not a big sweets eater.

For me, there exist only two choices: Either join the witness protection program (there's a special division for this sort of thing) or leave on a midnight train going anywhere.

So, I'm currently sitting on a bus (the train was sold-out...I bet I wasn't the only wife who forgot to set the DVR) pointed west with a small suitcase, my new lap top and a half-eaten bag of pistachios. I'm squeezed in next to a man with extremely hairy knuckles who just explained, unsolicited, that he hasn't paid taxes since the Nixon administration but that I better not tell a soul.

I was only friends with that bus!

  

I think Herman Cain is on the bus, as well but he was too busy talking to a woman in a low cut blouse to notice me when I got on.

Mmmmmmm.

I hated to leave...especially since the holidays are coming and I enjoy collecting used tinsel from discarded Christmas trees and angily poking the lapels of store managers who don't stock adequate supplies of egg nog ice cream...but I had to go.

It's simply way too dangerous for me once Seth realizes what's not waiting for him on the DVR.

Will someone please tell Buzzy that I'll send for him once I'm settled.

Mommy?