here's a post that will leave you unsure what to comment so you'll probably say something like 'sorry?' and then avoid eye contact with me

My Tool Man has been traveling for work the last few weeks. What could be so important that a representative of a mid-level tool company must be away from his loved ones for so long, you ask. Good question. The tool business is like Black Ops, only instead of whatever it is Black Ops agents do, this involves things like garden resets and going out to dinner every night. The black cat walks at midnight. This post will self destruct on 10 seconds, yada yada yada.

As you might imagine and a few of you know for reasons far, far less trivial, being without one's spouse for any length of time can be rough. Factor in loneliness, no one to tag team second grade math homework with, and the lack of protection from possible (though I say highly probable) Bigfoot encounters and the other loneliness that actually means sex and well, dammit, where's MY Uncle Jesse and Uncle Joey to help ME out ?

(For the homework and help with dinner part, not the sex part! Gah, did you think I meant the sex part? With Uncle Jesse and Uncle Joey?! Cut! It! Out!)

I was thrilled when Tool Man reappeared last Friday night for a brief respite after two weeks away and before having to leave again Monday for another mission (shhh...). OK, first I was scared because he crept into the dark house, and while that might be construed as some awesome role playing, he'd grown a beard while away and if you'd seen it you'd understand my long-simmering Bigfoot issues, which are not to be confused in any way with any role playing scenarios.

There was some random happy time greetings which you might imagine led to some truly hot foreplay. Go ahead and think that if you want, but that's not at all what happened. Instead we settled in to watch that week's episode of Lost. Because THAT'S the first thing you want to do after you've been away from the one you love for several days. No, wait! The first thing you want to do is have a wee little discussion of the heated variety and THEN you watch that week's episode of Lost, which your awesome wife waited four days to watch so she could watch it unadulterated with you because she is indeed awesome like that. Kind of like you're an awesome husband like that, but after eight weeks of Heroes clogging your DVR, you caved and watched, but saved them for your awesome wife, who then discovered all those hours clogging your DVR when she was trying to record something cool and actually good like Modern Family, and she was all "Dude?" and you were all "What? I thought you liked Heroes?" and she was all "Um, I broke up with Heroes in 2007. You don't even know me at all, do you?!"

(sidebar - this isn't what Secret Agent Tool Man and I ::finger quote:: discussed ::end finger quote:: but I will say that I deleted 8 hours of Heroes from the DVR Saturday)

Long story short, by Sunday morning, we couldn't remember what it was we'd opted to discuss passionately rather than be passionate, but by then, he was heading out the door to engage in another mission, and he was probably halfway toward embedding himself with another family before I realized there would been no "Guess what! No, that's not a monkey wrench in my pocket! I AM actually happy to happy to see you after two weeks and 12 hours, but who's counting welcome home sex for you! Hooray!" for me.

Which explains why I thought Sandree Lee, she of the semi-homemade wackiness, was mocking me Sunday afternoon while I was watching her Food Network show (why? no idea) when, while plating a tray of lamb kabobs, she looked out of the TV screen and directly at me and said "Make sure they have a place to put their skewers after eating your delicious kabobs!"

Oh, screw you, Sandra Lee (unless you, too, are married to a secret agent)! First you annoy me with you ever changing window treatments and array of cleverly named cocktails, but then you give me kabob envy? As one of Uncle Joey's adorable charges would say, how rude!

But wait! It gets better (or worse)! In my state of frustration, I ventured to Target to buy new underwear which I needed having broken up with ice cream and peanut butter, and when I got them home and tore open the package, the little slip of paper letting me know my new drawers had been inspected for quality control purposes fell directly onto my lap and dear lord, THIS was the number:

Thanks for rubbing it in universe.

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You might now be asking yourself what I did with all my free time since I didn't use 10 minutes out of the last 352 hours I've been alone to have sex (I kid, I kid. It's more like seven minutes). Well, Polite Fictions flipped the lights back on, so I cranked out a little something for that. Our theme this go around is the alphabet of regret. I had C, so I wrote about a cowboy. Seriously. It's early on this new round, so I highly suggest you go be awed by TwoBusy's take on A, and blown away by Ms. Picket's wicked good embrace with B. See what I just did there? Boggled your mind with some sweet alliteration. Now when you get to my chaotic go at C, you'll be like "Hmm...too bad you didn't just get laid." I know!

Anyway, seriously, please go read and let us know what you think. Comment! Link! Tweet! Tongue kiss us (I mean, come on! More than two weeks here, folks!)! We've got some awesome new talent on board in the form of Mr. Lady from Whiskey in My Sippy Cup and Jessica from Bernthis. There's 26 letters in the alphabet, so I'll be back there when we get a little deeper into it. Someone has to bring the cheese to the party (or the pinatas if it's a party made of awesome) so that's a clue to let you know my next go 'round will be with the letter P.

Here's hoping the next time my Tool Man's home, I also get to go 'round with something that starts with the letter P.