NEVER ASK

SWMBO came into my den this morning and said she was going into town for some shopping.  She said she'd probably be gone for quite awhile.  I (stupidly) asked if there was anything I could do for her while she was gone.

She dramatically said "Since you asked . . . could you vacuum the carpets and the floors?"

"Oh, sure", said I.

She left.  I vacuumed the whole house.  While doing so I had encountered some empty boxes and I knew there were some others in the garage so I went out with my trusty box cutter and demolished them. I filled one garbage bag with paper that had been used for packing.  I filled another bag with even more paper and the remains of a few boxes.  Then I filled a third bag with the rest of the cut-up cardboard.

Then, noticing that some of that damned insulated stuff, kind of like styrofoam popcorn, had littered the floor, I swept the garage and put it in the third garbage bag.  Then I moved a few full boxes around and generally neatened the garage up.  (If you could see our garage right now you'd know "neatened", as used in the previous sentence is a relative term.)

At the end of all this, I was totally bushed.  The Ibuprofen and the muscle relaxant I had taken had met their match.

During all of this, except the stuff in the garage, my trusty superintendent Blackwell had been wandering around keeping an eye on me.  Actually he just fixed me with this wondering stare, as if to say "Is this guy nuts?"

(The picture of Blackwell has been tweaked for a project the BRD is working on.  Gives him sort of a ghostly stare, doesn't it?)