SO FAR, SO GOOD

We've been holding it to one meltdown a day, and that's not so bad. Today, however, is rainy in the White Mountains...and that means outlet shopping for fall necessities (yeah, that's the ticket, necessities) instead of the usual itinerary. Could work out well, could be a nightmare, will definitely eat a hole in the wallet.

SIGNS MY WIFE HASN'T HAD ENOUGH SLEEP

She just told me "I think I'll hit Wal-Mart with the kids tomorrow."

My wife hates Wal-Mart with the intensity of a thousand suns. Not for any political or labor-relations reasons, but just because it's a freak show. Me, I like freak shows because they're a fount of material for the radio show, but the kids really don't need to see the 250-pound tattooed woman in gold tights telling her troglodytic husband/boyfriend/rutting partner "Now this here aisle is the one I was in the last time I got kicked out."

How far off the bell curve of acceptable behavior do you have to be to get kicked out of a Wal-Mart?

And yet my wife is talking about going there tomorrow - with the kids, on a Friday, before a summer's weekend.

She will need a glass of wine tomorrow night. And a foot massage. I shall provide.