What Marvin The Robot Did Today

If I were going to be dishonest in a straight-forward retelling of Saturday's events, I would leave out the fact that I didn't go to the gym. It's dangerous for me to skip two gym days in a row, I think, and yet I've just done it. I also didn't floss. I think the two things might be related somehow.

I'm taking myself way too seriously these days, which is also related, which is also dangerous.

What did I do today instead of flossing or going to the gym?

Dave and I had to go to a toy store to buy a birthday gift for a two-year-old. Well, a boy who's turning two years old anyway. The boy is the spawn of a friend whom I don't see much anymore but with whom Dave works. We don't know much about the spawn's likes and dislikes aside from his father's hint that he likes barnyard animals, so we bought him a couple of wooden puzzles that feature barnyard animals.

After the toy store, we stopped for lunch at Subway. Subway is my go-to fast food lunch. I don't eat fast food otherwise; it's been years, for example, since I stepped into a McDonald's except on long-distance drives when I need the bathroom and an iced tea, usually in that order. The guy at Subway knows me so well that he makes my sandwich--a six-inch turkey sub on wheat with all the veggies except onion, add mustard and green chile--with no input from me and we chat instead.

After Subway, Dave and I went to Whole Foods because Dave needed something called Yumberry juice to make mixed drinks (Yumberry juice and gin) for his Saturday afternoon drinking club at the studio. Gin goes with everything, no? If I were still drinking, I'd drink gin. It's the choice of civilized alcoholics worldwide. Do you remember Douglas Adam's ode to the various linguistic permutations of gin and tonic in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe? When I was a kid, I read that and was, like, I can't wait to grow up and drink gin and tonics. And then I did. Who says the future is unknowable?

Not I.