Satellites and Milemarkers

            All night Liz had been periodically checking news reports and the RSS on the NASA website, keeping tabs on where and when the UARS satellite was going to fall, and how many people would be killed.  She wasn’t secretly pulling for catastrophe or anything, she was just sure that it was going to be bad and the Powers That Be were deliberately downplaying it to avoid mass hysteria…

            I admit, I didn’t help matters any.  She blows stuff out of proportion and it’s just funny to me, and maybe this is one I should have left alone, it just happened so fast, over a long period of time, she just talks so fast when she gets worked up. 

            She was going to bed and she made me check nine times over a period of five minutes for a new update from NASA, which we did not receive.  So she laid down and went to sleep.  Woke up an hour later to pee and made me check five times in a matter of three minutes for an update we did not receive. 

            Finally, I woke her up around three thirty and told her, “It fell somewhere in the Pacific outside California.”

            She immediately rolled back over and mumbled, “That’s nice.”

            I waited. 

            “It caused massive earthquakes and tsunamis and stirred up a dust cloud through which the sun will no longer be able to penetrate, we’re all doomed.”

            I waited.

            She rolled back over and looked up at me and slowly said, “Wwwhhaaaaaatt?”

            “Just making sure you’re awake.  Listen.  Hun.  Hey, hun!”

            “What?!”

            “I fixed that cabinet door in the kitchen.  The wobbly one?  I fixed it.”

            She eyed me.  Didn’t say anything.  She rolled back over and went to sleep.

            I thought the cabinet door was way more important.  As a news item, anyway.  I wasn’t expecting doom and catastrophe, and I don’t fix stuff very often.  Turned out to be a simple enough project.  Just had to tighten a screw.  Didn’t even have to look very long for the screwdriver. 

            It’s important to plant these milemarkers in the sand every once in awhile.  Me?  Fixing a wobbly cabinet door?  I’m growing up.  Taking responsibility.  Next thing you know I’ll have three kids and a mortgage and an ulcer to beat the band. 

            I kid.  It’s late.  I’m wide awake, I’m bored… so bored I resorted to household repairs to entertain myself.