Abducted

Our family tradition is to spend New Year’s Day in our pajamas. Monday morning I was able to sleep quite late (9:15) after an evening of year-end carousing. Well, it wasn’t so much carousing as socializing and eating lots of really tasty treats, though I did have a glass of wine. Kim’s mom watched the girls on New Year’s Eve, and she spent the night and watched the girls as we slept in. That was a very nice set-up for us.

So I got up and stayed in my pajamas, and after a while I showered and put my pajamas back on. Then Kim had the idea of going to the grocery to get something for the crock pot (something for which I’ve recently expressed a desire). She wanted to go to Kroger.

By now it was early afternoon. We worked on lunch, and then I called my parents to wish them a Happy New Year. My mom answered.

“Hi, Mom!” I said. “Happy New Year!”

“Well,” she said, “Happy New Year to you! Where are you?”

“I’m at home.”

Slight pause on her end of the line. “What are you doing?”

“We’re just hanging around in our PJs. I just was calling to say Happy New Year. Nothing much.”

Another slight pause. I could tell that my mom was making some kind of mental adjustments. She asked, “At home? Are you feeling OK?”

I thought for a second, wondering what was throwing her off, and answered thoughtfully,

“This is Mark. We’re just spending our New Year’s Day at home, not doing much…”

“Let me talk to Kim for a minute, and then I’ll tell her to put you back on,” she said.

At this point, as I handed the phone to Kim, I realized that something was up.

Kim and Mom spoke for a minute. Kim’s half of the conversation consisted of laughter and a stream of suspiciously vague comments: “All right. Hee hee. Yeah. Yeah. Hee hee. Oooh. OK. Right. Hee hee. OK. Yeah. Yeah.”

She handed the phone back to me. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing, I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess I just had too much to drink last night and I’m a little hung over. Hah hah.”

“Ooooooo-kay,” I said, knowing full well that the glass of wine I’d had the night before probably rivaled in quantity the entire amount of alcohol that Mom had consumed over the past sixty years.

I talked with her and then with Dad, and hung up. I asked Kim what was going on, and she just shrugged and tried to play it off, trying to keep a straight face while saying that she supposed Mom had just overindulged the night before.

“C’mon,” said Kim, “Are you ready to go to the store?”

Suspicious conversation by spouse and mother. Hmm. And Kim trying to get me to leave with her. Hmm. Kim’s mom had agreed to come back, after going home for a little while, to baby sit—arrangements for which I’d heard no discussion. Hmm.

We walked out to the car. Kim hurriedly got into the driver’s seat. “To the store, huh?” I asked was we backed out of the driveway. Just before Kroger, Kim changed lanes and got onto the Gene Snyder Freeway.

“Wherever we’re going, my mom almost spilled the beans, didn’t she?”

“What do you mean? We’re going to Kroger.”

Then we got on I-71 north, toward Cincinnati. And I noticed a packed gym bag in the back seat. “Are you going to take me out to the woods and shoot me?” I questioned. She just laughed. Then I asked, “Should I have done a better job saying goodbye to the girls?”

“Ohh, honey, no, it’s OK,” Kim answered.

So I just sat and watched the scenery as I wondered where she was taking me. Amy and Dan’s house? Someplace in Cincinnati? General Butler State Park?

It turns out that one of my guesses, General Butler State Park, was on the money. We exited at Carrollton—and pulled into the Kroger. Kim told me that we had a lodge rented for the night. We shopped in our pajamas at the Carrollton Kroger, then went to the park to check in.

Within two hours I went from lounging on the sofa contemplating lunch to standing in the rain in my PJs, scrounging for kindling, just outside Carrollton, Kentucky.

Our little cottage was nice and cozy. And Kim is so sweet. There is nothing in the world that can compare to being kidnapped by a gorgeous, sexy, thoughtful, interesting woman, dragged off to an isolated cabin with a fireplace, and forced to wear pajamas or nothing. I love my wife so much.