Musings at Altitude

My wife, my 14 year old and I stopped off at the local bookstore this morning under the pretense of getting my 14 year old a book that was required reading for school.  We did do that, but as always, we visited our favorite sections of the bookstore too and spent our typical $100 on this month’s reading.

On the way in the store, I veered over to the “best sellers” book shelf, just to see what folks were reading right now.  I rarely look at and even more rarely buy fiction, so I peered through the non-fiction best sellers.  Number 1 was still “The Last Lecture” which I was glad to see.  Most of the others on the best seller shelf I had no interest in.  As I was peering at the titles though, I heard my wife calling me and she was holding up a book soon very relevant for her as she enters that phase of her life – “Menopause Sucks”.  I got a chuckle out of that one and though I was tempted to see what it said to get some pointers for handling it from the man side, I skirted that table and headed back to my favorite section, Management. 

I must profess, I’ve read more management books than I probably should.  I’ve shook my head in affirmation and understanding to everything they say in many of those books, and then I head right out into business in my leadership and management roles and blow it more times than I’d like to admit and violate most of the rules that they’ve ever written.  Fortunately, with lots of apologies and some significant support from others who have always protected me well, more often than not, things turn out good – but not because of the leadership or management approach I took – it was because of great people that have always seemed to pick me up and carry me across that successful finish line.  Today, I bought two books by David Cottrell – “Monday Morning Mentoring” and “Monday Morning Choices”.  I’m anxious to read both books and spend most of my reading saying “yup, know that” and “you got that right”, and then proceed right to my job and blow it.  I really do have a thick head, and I’ll spend the next few months reminding myself of what I read and then what I did different than what was suggested in the readings.

While I was in the Management section, my wife popped by, gave me a quick hug and kiss and headed off to her private world of reading pleasure – the romance section.  After picking my books, I walked over into her section with her, and she was telling me how last visit to the bookstore when she came to the romance section, two 80 year old guys were browsing the books too.  That made me chuckle.  Everyone needs a spark sometimes!  My wife picked her books, and we headed out to find my 14 year old.  [Editor’s Note: Notice I’m not spending any time on why my wife visits the romance section – somethings are best left unsaid!]

She was in the teen section, and after finding the required reading book (that was why we went to the bookstore after all), she was looking through the teen series books to find the perfect series for her to read next.  Of course when she says “series”, I see dollars, because these 10, 12, or even 14 book series get the kids locked in and thus keeps the parents credit card out…brilliant move on their part…reminiscent of my passion for the Bourne Series of books when I was a high schooler.

When we all had our books (yep, $100 worth), we stopped by the journal section in route to the cash register (by the way, why is it still called a cash register?).  While my wife and I looked at journals, my daughter found a book that as she read you could hear her chuckling – thus, she had to have it.  Here’s the book she was looking at: 

 

It’s 100 questions that tell you how well you know the significant woman in your life.  I immediately said “no” (since I was paying), and she said “I’ll pay for it”.  All I could see was embarrassment in my future, so I said “no” again.  She pleaded her case, and even though I will hate every single minute of this test, I caved.  So we now have this book at home.  For those of you who are wondering, the scoring goes like this:

— Above 900 – great performance

— 800 – 900 – very good for a couple just starting out

— 600 – 790 – pretty good, but should improve with time

— Under 600 – ask for help

My biggest fear is that after 25 years of marriage, I’ll do so poorly that my wife will use this against me for the rest of my life.  She already reminds me of my poor choice of restaurants for Mother’s Day decades ago (there was no line at Bob Evans), and the time I made her cry in a very expensive restaurant in Houston 15 years ago (I said I really didn’t know what love was when we were married but now I surely did – as politicians say all the time now, “I was taken out of context”), and the time I brought her home from the hospital after the birth of our first child (23 years ago) and immediately went off to play in a squash tournament (it was the finals of the base championships and I couldn’t possibly forfeit – besides I lost and that was punishment enough).  I can only imagine the ammunition she will have when I get 500 or less on this test – I am that unaware of things going on around me and definitely that clueless about what she likes and dislikes.  I don’t fear the score nearly as much as the answers that I miss…it could be brutal.

So, I’m thinking about hiding this book and hoping that my daughter doesn’t remember.  Unfortunately though, she’s got a mind like my wife and remembers everything.  My guess is the questions will start sometime today, and then the grading will start later this weekend.  I’m fortunately leaving on another trip on Sunday so with any luck at all I’ll be North of the Arctic Circle before too many of my answers are compared to my wife’s.  It will be nice to be out of phone and blackberry range when the full scope of my ignorance becomes known!