I Suck At Terms Of Endearment

in the latest installment of spy vs spy, my friend (marc) tried to take out my other friend (kelley) with a furnace. after all, tonight is wednesday... and wednesdays are what i call "marc and kelley" night. every week, i always look forward to "marc and kelley" night because i can always count on having a great time... laughing... and just hanging out with people who i admire and consider great friends. the weekly hang out provides a constant in what has become a rollercoaster ride following the death of my son (braden) over two months ago.

anyway, tonight marc tried to get rid of kelley via a furnace. i had picked up dinner for everyone from the falafel king located in quincy. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound... the falafel king is so good!) when i got to marc and kelley's place, there apparently was some sort of technical problem with the thermostat.

as luck would have it, i have been installing thermostats... a lot... within the past week. marc explained that the landlords already had someone come to look at the furnace that day. that person did not find anything wrong with the furnace. yet, for some reason, marc and kelley's thermostat was not working. kelley thought the pilot light was simply out.

anyway, karen and i thought that perhaps they should just hit the reset button on the furnace to see if that would restart things. so kelley got ready to go down to the basement to hit the reset button. before she went down, marc adamantly suggested that i accompany her. thinking nothing of it, i agreed.

both kelley and i ventured down to the basement. i was expecting a somewhat modern furnace. to my surprise, the furnace looked... ancient. i would consider the furnace "old school"... quite possibly an antique even. there was a metal lid, that reminded me of the hood of an old car, that had to be removed in order to get to the reset button. anyway, kelley pushed the reset button.

in what was quite possibly a scary... yet comical moment, flames shot out from the furnace for a brief second right in front of kelley. kelley's groin was considerably close to the flames... in fact, had the flames ignited kelley's groin, she could have possibly been like lindsay lohan... a "fire crotch". (that's a pop culture reference.)

needless to say, kelley was fine. and the heat started right up! so naturally, we had a good laugh over it. we have since used our creative licensing to change the story to make it seem like marc was trying to eliminate kelley again, using me as a pawn in his master plan. it sounds better at least.

after the incident, all four of us watched the latest episode of heroes. we were even able to catch another episode of the greatest show ever... buffy the vampire slayer. (the episode was about giles... the librarian/watcher... and his seedy past.)

as the episode was nearing its end, my friend (scott) was actually up and stopped on over. scott lives in new york. he occasionally has to come up to massachusetts for work, which he thankfully still has. his company recently had some layoffs. layoffs are never fun, especially in our current economy. i should know, i've been laid off twice in my short professional career (during the "dot-bomb" years).

anyway, it's always good to see scott. he is a great guy. while he was at marc and kelley's, he got a call from his wife (ofelia). not that we were eavesdropping or anything, but scott had used some terms of endearment when referring to ofelia.

naturally, karen asked me how come we don't use any terms of endearment. i didn't want to say... "because i suck at terms of endearment"... because i do. karen and i have never used any terms of endearment for one another since we have been together. no "honey", "hun", "sweetie", "schnookums"... nothing. we just never had the opportunity to use any terms. i guess you can say we are a strange couple that way.

this is not the first time this topic has come up in conversation. awhile ago, we discussed creating terms for each other. she couldn't come up with one for me. i, however, came up with "kiwi" for her. no, karen is not australian... and to my knowledge has no ties to australia. i chose "kiwi" because of the fruit with the same name.

karen is a registered dietitian, so i figured... fruit equals good! plus, the kiwi fruit is just such a cute looking fruit. and as it turns out, according to my friend wikipedia:

"The kiwifruit (or kiwi) is the edible berry of a cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and hybrids between this and other species in the genus Actinidia. The Actinidia is native to Shaanxi, China."

the kiwi was apparently originally called the chinese gooseberry and was actually declared the "national fruit" of the people's republic of china. so i guess the term "kiwi" has more meaning than i thought.

the more that i think about it, the more i like... kiwi.