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 One of Life's Unexpected Blessings First published 4/9/1996 It was an unplanned purchase -- like so many other young couples my girlfriend and I went shopping without thinking about the consequences, then bam! -- suddenly we had a new couch to take care of and our lives were changed forever. But we decided to keep our couch, and now we love it as much as if it had been a couch we had planned for all along. However, I am constantly worried about it. "Be careful of the couch," I'll tell the people who used to be my friends but are coming over less and less often these days. "Don't drop your food on the couch! Don't smoke near it! Let's not look at it too much! Das couch is nicht sehr gut for den beer spillen! Nicht touchen sie den couch, bitte!," I find myself shouting to their backs as they wander out the door. Who needs 'em anyway? Savages! When my girlfriend and I have a fight and it looks like I'm going to be sleeping on the couch we inevitably make up these days. Not for the sake of our relationship, but because we both know I'll drool on the couch if I sleep there. My lovely couch isn't the only sign of adulthood in my life. This week I was for the first time issued with a credit card, care of my good friends at the Hudson's Bay Company. Yes, I know, it's just a Bay card. But for me it was a shock and surprise to even get it. I have horrible credit. I only applied because I wanted the Bay's 326 Anniversary cookbook (I think wanting a cookbook is in itself another sign that it's too late to run off and join the circus or think of starting a career in Olympic gymnastics). But for whatever reason, "The Man" decided to give me a Bay card, and so before he changed his mind I ran off to the Bay and bought some socks and some pajamas. "The Man" feels I can be trusted to pay for them when the time comes. Me and "The Man" have an understanding. I feel that it's just a matter of time until "The Man" gives me a multi-million dollar interest free loan to set up a telecommunications company in some obscure foreign country. And what will I secretly channel all those interest-free millions into? More socks and pajamas, baby, more socks and pajamas! Anyway, I have instructed my relatives that if by some unfortunate accident I should die over the course of the next month they are not to pay off my Bay card. Bury me in my new pajamas, with all eight pairs of Grenadier sports socks on my feet. That should show "The Man"! "The Man" should have given me a credit card the first time I asked for one! If you, like me, worry that you have passed into adulthood forever; relax. A few more years and we will all enter our second childhood. Yes, I am comforted knowing that mid way into the next century I will be locked up in some old age home with no responsibilities. And what will I do with my time? I can answer that with two letters and an ampersand: D&D. Remember Dungeons and Dragons? Well, this is my honest prediction. When the people who grew up playing D&D hit retirement age, D&D is going to come back big time. I mean think about it. What else are you going to do when you're stuck in some old age home? Your hands are too arthritic to play Rubik's Cube or Gameboy. But you'll still be able to throw the old eight sided die to find out how much damage your plus three vorpal blade did to that hobgoblin. I look forward to the young attendants thinking we're all crazy. I look forward to my grandchildren worrying that I'm going to become a Satanist. Maybe they'll even remake "Mazes and Monsters", that Tom Hanks movie where he plays D&D and goes nuts and almost jumps off the World Trade Center. Instead of Tom Hanks, maybe the remake can star an elderly Keanu Reeves in the lead role, although with any luck at all by then he'll be dead.
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