So Macho

"So..." I said, looking at the thing online. "You wanna get that delivered?"

For any women reading this blog, that is desperate 220-pound weakling-speak for "Please God, don't tell me you want me to carry this thing?!"
I watched my meaning fly daintily over d's head. It turned its own head and blew me a raspberry, just before it splatted against the living-room wall.
"No," she said, "I was thinking we'd just go and pick it up."
"Fuuuuuuuuuck!" grumbled my brain. At which point, my balls spoke up.
"Oh, sure, OK," I said, in a slightly deeper register.

Again, for any women reading, we know you understand when we say things like this. We know you're choosing to ignore us for your own purposes. We know all this, but once the balls have spoken, we find it impossible to take their words back. And yes, sadly, we know you know that too...
"Great," said d, smiling, and getting her keys.

The thing in question was...Hell I don't even know. Some wood and rattan storage...thing...for bathrooms. No straight man ever designed anything like it. Hell, no straight man ever designed anything to store bathroom products. We wouldn't have bathroom products, left to our own devices. Hell, many of us wouldn't have bathrooms.

It looked fairly formidable even in the online catalogue.
"You can always get them to show it to you before we take it home," said d. This is such a cute, intensely feminine point of view - Here honey, you can at least take a look at your hernia before you decide to get one.

As it happened, we did - but looking at it was of course absolutley immaterial - the balls had spoken; their will must be done. I looked at it. It was chunky and short, kinda like me. It was also really...freakin'...heavy, also, as it happens, like me. I lifted it in the store, and thought I was going to pass out.
"Wow," I said. "That's really pretty heavy."
"Yeah?" said d. There was jusssst a hint of (possibly unconscious) feminine wilery in her voice. My balls roared to the rescue and grabbed my vocal chords again.
"Ach, that's no problem. Just get them to string it for me, would you?"

I think the idea is probably primeval - Me Man. Man - Strong. Impress Woman With Muscles, Make Many Babies Tonight! The flaw of course is somewhere around Stage 2. That whole "Man - Strong" thing...cos your balls may know what they think works for them, but they're pretty much a two-man band, while the rest of your body (including the bit with the brain in it) is screaming "I'm too old for this shit! Ah, fuck it, I'm gonna just lay down here and have a coronary embollism..."

I stood in the store, asking the poor assistant to "maybe just add one more loop of string, just to make good and sure of it...", all the while thinking "how...the...HELL...???"
And then I picked it up. And then it's quite possible I died - sorry for the whole Sixth Sense ending, but I think quite possibly I'm a ghost right now.

Managed to get it about halfway home, struggling and sweaty and red-faced and panting, with d asking every few steps - "Can I help? Seriously, can I help in any way at all?"

Again, this is sweet, and cute, and the balls won't allow it. "We're taking care of business!" they seem to scream. "No Wombs Allowed Here, move along now madam..."
"You could put on a glove, so it doesn't cut into your hand...erm...quite so much?" she suggested. I staggered to the nearest bench, to put the thing down.
"There's a bench straight ahead," she advised.
"Sure," I muttered. "Food, water, nubile maidens, but fuck it, let's press on to the next oasis..."
I reached the next oasis and set the thing down and pulled on one glove. It should be pointed out that at this point I also had on my what-people-think-is-a-cowboy hat. A cowboy hat and one glove.
"Oh look," I muttered. "Who's Bad?!"
It was a pretty ridiculous get-up, and I wondered if I was now expected to Moonwalk home, but thankfully not.
"You could turn the other glove round and wear it on top of the first one...y'know, for protection..." d dangled.
"Fuck it, why not?" I said, fitting actions to words, and gloves on gloves on fingers.
And so I staggered on, the other half of the way home, and then up the flight of stairs to our maisonette. d opened the door for me.
"Keep going," she instructed. "No point in stopping now, migh tas well take it all the way up to the bathroom..."
"Sure," I squealed, as a vein appeared to pop in the side of my head. "Why take two instalments to do a job when you can combine them into one big heart attack."
"Exactly," said d, probably listening.
When I stumbled back down the stairs, she smiled brightly.
"So - still wanna go swimming tonight?" she asked, with the kind of open, innocent look that gets people killed in cities.
"Get into your kitchen, woman, and feed me," I said, shuddering through to the living room and parking my not-inconsiderably ass on the couch. "I just used about 3000 calories," I whinged, destroying any last vestige of primal male attractiveness that had survived the sweating and the struggling and the bitching up to this point.
"Well...good then," she said, grinning not a little. "Y'know, since you haven't moved off the couch all day..."
She's not wrong. It's been a day for proofing the scientific journal I occasionally work on. Very dull, very clever, very mind-scrambling, but hardly high on the aerobic exercise front.
I looked at her.
"Ug," I said.
"Yes dear," she said, and went to fix us dinner...