Instead I hang out with guys, and do guy work. I'm stoned out of my mind at ten in the morning, driving around in a utility truck. With Mike shouting and pounding the dash, "My god, did you see that?!!" My god, a woman with breasts who wasn't otherwise super-sized. Us guys stand around smoking, hands filthy and caked in caulk or drywall mud, talking about strip clubs. My god, what if they find out I've never even been to a Hooters?!!

Yesterday we got in and barely did any work, then went for a ride in the Jeep. We were going to go get some brushes or something. New bag was in the house, so Mike had a fat one rolled. So then we just drove around way the fuck around all over town. Mike likes to look at houses. He's also worked jobs in nearly every sector of town. And then we started thinking about Burger King. The thing about Burger King is that they've been closing all over town. The one across from our Kroger turned into a branch of a bank I didn't know existed. We figured that surely somewhere on Bardstown Road one still existed. Then Mike made a sharp turn and we were suddenly on this narrow country lane, parallel but well below grade of the Auld Main Drag. We turned into this driveway, and back behind a house we stopped so Mike could order and pay for a pallet of sod. Kathy had recently decided she wanted the backyard sodded. By the time we found a BK (Bardstown Road in the shadow of the Snyder Expressway), it was why-not-get-lunch-out-of-the-way time anyway. The meal made me glad to be alive.

Eventually we made our way back to the job site. Our pal Frank was there doing the HVAC. Very soon Mike's two-way was ringing. He kept ignoring it, "Kathy, I'm working!" Finally he relented. The speaker was on, so we all heard how there was a dead bird in their livingroom. "Babe, put a bucket over it then; I'm working." Such are their dynamics that he had to go home and take care of the dead bird. It was just a couple blocks away. But then he kept not coming back. Frank was in the crawl assembling shit while I was trying to fake up final runs of mud. Finally I asked Frank, "So do you think dead bird in the livingroom is code for me naked on the sofa or what?" We goofed on that, then went back to work. I thought of something else funny to say, but Mike got back before I could say it. Frank spilled my "dead bird" theory, so I tore in, shrugging my shoulders at how we'd been thinking maybe he'd gotten his sod-reward. "I'd like a sod-job," Frank intoned. I was adamant, "I want the phrase to enter the vernacular! Yea, Friday night, I'm gonna go out and try and get me some sod."

Frank got a pensive look. "You know, I remember sod-jobs. My advice is this: keep slipping her everything but the ring. Because there's something about marriage--the sod-jobs just sort of, just sort of . . . peter off."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Guys, I had to hit the BP, okay? I was almost out of gas."

"Hmm," Frank remarked, "that's not what Kathy said."

"Yea," I joined in, "according to her, the pump's always full."

"Shut up and get back to work, okay?!"