Once a year we have the Belles family reunion. We didn’t when I was enjoying the fine dining at the vAMC for the last two years. Nevertheless, it is that magic moment again. I look forward to seeing all my wife’s relatives. They’re certainly more agreeable than mine. My eldest sister screwed us all out of our inheritance and my next oldest one won’t speak to me because I refused to divide mine in half and share with her. Somehow she failed to notice I’m still a pauper and  my vA compensation wouldn’t even cover her bill at her country club.

What concerns me is the insane urge to clean and rearrange what I consider to be acceptable. Just when you become accustomed to where all the furniture is and can navigate it in the dark without creaming a toe, you have to relearn it. I compare it to waking up and discovering someone has changed the English language and it requires remedial education to remaster it.

Nowhere is this enunciated so clearly as in the Bedroom. For six long years, the bed resided in its usual spot. This placement was carefully thought out with much incense and Feng Shui. Our heads would align to the North and the television would be to our immediate south. The CATV outlet was thusly placed accordingly. What to my consternation should I be met with upon returning from gardening yesterday than the realignment of the most important facet of my life where I spend an inordinate amount of my time?

Men will understand the complexity of this. We are only recently potty trained indoors in the grand scheme of Time. This was accomplished by the cupcakes of the world over many eons. We are really only a stone’s throw from the cave in their minds. I personally think this stems from women’s frustration that they cannot claim the whole of outdoors as their urinal as we men can. Now imagine relocating the sleep vessel such that one arises in the middle of the night and is forced to navigate to the water closet from a strange perspective that in no way comports with his geographical remembrances of yesteryear. Compound that with sleep interest and you have confusion piled on top of mental deficiency.

Of far more import is the location of the telecommunications device. As there is now a window due west of my feet, this precludes locating it there. It will have to be at an acute angle to the left or right of it. Naturally the choice has been predetermined without my input to locate it as far from where it was originally. Since I am the designated communications expert and head installer, this will require my relocating the CATV outlet. It would be unsightly to simply tuck the cable along the perimeter of the room.

Electrical outlets now are in the wrong location too. None are accessible since the bed location blocks their access. This, too will require amelioration. I’m praying for an extension cord repair order but I sense it will be far more.

Since we are now looking out over the pasture when we greet the dawn, a whole new paradigm will have to be employed. Landscaping will have to be altered to facilitate a proper view from the prone position. New curtains are in order to frame this properly. Curtains that cannot be purchased at a NORMAL store. A curtain expert must be summoned to pontificate on this new phenomenon and eviscerate my bank account.

I feel conservatively that I will be out many thousands before this is over. I suspect prostate/urinary difficulties too. My first foray at 0300 took upwards of 7 minutes to correctly identify that I was in the walk-in closet and not the bathroom. By then my urinary distress was imminent. Trust me when I say I take no humor in reciting scatological humor. I consider it a medical emergency when I am in that state.

I  politely discussed the incongruity of the feng shui ceremony since we are no longer properly aligned. Cupcake smiled and said “You can’t honestly say you believe in that, can you?” My rejoinder is unprintable but consisted mainly of implying that she certainly did when she designed the house. I now understand that is no longer an operable statement. Feng shui apparently is malleable. What is also glaringly apparent is that I am not allowed to contribute my valued but unsolicited opinions on something I don’t believe in.

I wonder if other men suffer similarly. Is this a female aberration or simply a phase Cupcake is going through? Judging from the past, I will get three or four years to become accustomed to this new arrangement in the bedroom before we revert back to the original format.

Fortunately for me, I kept those handy little urinal jugs the vA gave me when I was discharged in 2010.Feng shui can be an art form.  Two can play this game, you know.