You may remember Andy Rooney. He was the white-haired, unruly-eyebrowed curmudgeon who offered cranky weekly commentary on “60 Minutes,” years ago. He didn’t always use this exact phrase, but in my mind, his remarks always opened — in his characteristically nasal, whining sort of voice — with, “Did you ever wonder why…?”

I’ve thought about Andy Rooney quite a bit while we’ve been on the road. Sooo many people and situations behave in ways and for reasons completely alien to me, and often annoyingly so (milk-of-human-kindness though I try to be). Know what I mean?

Consider, for example, vending machines. Specifically, for my purposes here, the sort of vending machines with a glass front — so you can see the contents, but must actually deposit money in order to get something: a bottle of water, a can of tea, a, well, a Yoo-Hoo or whatever. (Aside: we do not drink Yoo-Hoo.) It seems fair trade, right? Make your selection, pay your money, get the product.

Until going on this trip, I never thought much about these vending machines. Since then, though, I’ve noticed them quite a bit, and not merely out of curiosity. Here’s why — and I direct your attention to the photo below:

Imagine that you yourself have stocked this vending machine. Proud of yourself, probably. It all looks so, well, so neat, eh? All the bottles and cans are leaning the same way, at about the same angle. And you’ve even been clever enough to turn the bottles of Gatorade (bottom right) upside-down, so they don’t get jammed by the coiled wire which dispenses them when their number is selected.

Now imagine that you are a consumer, with the need — at least the intention — to get a very specific sort of water out of the machine. You can see you’ve got, uh, five bottles of Saratoga and two bottles of Pellegrino to select from. Nope. You don’t want any of them. You might or might not want that oddball one, though — the one in slot #45.

The question is: what is it?

The only way to identify it is to, well, to buy the damned thing so you even know what it is you’ve just bought.

Andy Rooney would have understood.

[The setting: Wilmington, NC. The couple has already done grocery shopping for the day’s relocation to an Airbnb, from this hotel: they’ve picked up milk and creamer, and kept it in the refrigerator overnight; ditto bottles of water and soda, a small bottle of vinegar to be used for mysterious laundry purposes (Hers), and so on. He has already filled His insulated water bottle, the previous night, and as they prepare to move their luggage down to the lobby He takes a first generous swig from it.]

He: Gaaaaaah! What the living hell did I just drink a mouthful of?!?

[He opens the water bottle, takes a whiff, gags and sputters. He checks the refrigerated plastic bottle from which He filled His own metal one.]

He: Jeezus Chr—! Why the hell was the bottle of vinegar in the refrigerator?!?

[He rushes to the bathroom sink, metal water bottle in hand. He dumps its remaining contents into the sink, continues coughing and retching, washing His mouth out with tap water.]

She (from other room): What are you doing?!?

He (spitting and coughing): I’m dumping the rest of this sh!t into the sink!

She: You’re dumping out all that vinegar? I need that vinegar for washing my clothes!

[He stares at His reflection in the bathroom mirror. His eyes are tearing and bloodshot. His tongue feels corrugated. His throat burns like that time when He was a kid and clumsily tried siphoning gasoline from a canister for use in a go-cart, and the fuel ran down His esophagus.]

He: I just drank vinegar, and laundry is what you’re worried about?!?

She (calling out his name): You don’t understand! I needed that vinegar for my clothes! And that little bottle was the perfect size for a trip — I’ve never seen vinegar in such a small bottle! Now we have to go back to that store for more!

[He fumbles about for a breath strip, for a second and a third breath strip. He swallows, downs a fourth breath strip. His forehead is beaded with sweat. His eyebrows will probably return to their normal altitude by evening. His throat will burn for a couple days, and He will be awash for that long in inescapable olfactory memories of dyeing Easter eggs.]

He (weakly): Okay, okay… Let me go down to the lobby for a luggage cart. Then I’ll get the car, and then we can go the store for more vinegar and then we can do whatever until it’s time to check in at the Airbnb.

She: I just really can’t believe you drank my vinegar! Jeezus!

Last night we arrived in Wilmington, NC, for just the one night at a Hampton Inn. (We’ve since relocated to an Airbnb closer to the shore for a few days after that.)

But two nights ago, ah yes: the stuff of which memories are forged:

We were spending our second night at a Sleep Inn in Charleston, SC. At 5:00 AM, I was awakened by The Missus, beating me (lightly but unmistakably) on the shoulder. Of course both my hearing aids were on the night stand, but she at least had had the presence of mind to turn on the light there, too. Result: I could at least see her lips forming a one-syllable word starting with F, followed by I—

“Fire?!?” I exclaimed, fumbling for the hearing aids. She was already donning some kind of wrap but yes-yes-yes, she affirmed, waving me to hurry. I donned one hearing aid (the main one) and an overshirt, not stopping for my phone, laptop, camera, or anything else. On my way to the door I saw The Missus emerging from the bathroom and I thought, Good idea. I ducked in there myself, “drained the keg” (as the saying goes), and then, finally, made my way to the door behind The Missus.

It was open partway, and we could see people milling around in the hallway looking very confused and tired. And then I looked down, and realized I was just in the overshirt, my undershirt and undershorts. NO PANTS. I backed away from the door, turned to one side and the other, started to walk back into the room—

And then The Missus was back. Never mind, she said, False alarm.

So, not really a Big Story. But it might’ve been. We’re just glad that for once, recently, drama passed us by.

Admin Note: please be careful how you respond to this post — at least, here on the site. As this is, for now, publicly visible, I’ve intentionally omitted many details of the “pause.” If a comment crosses the line into territory that I’ve avoided, I’ll delete the comment without asking for permission. (I will, though, let you know via email that I’ve done so.) Naturally, all comments about the “pause” — or anything else — are always welcomed with gratitude, from any of you… via email, text message, etc.!

As it happens, we’re staying put for a while more, here at the House o’ Canines. Not of course what we planned, especially in the wake of the earlier pause *shakes fist in Elsa’s direction*. But I don’t really want to talk about that stuff, because we are, after all, still Taking It Easy — and who wants to ruin things when you’re in a soft-rock frame of mind?

Besides, there’s so much more, well, important stuff to consider while we’re cooling our heels. Stuff like:

But the pictures? What about the pictures?

Since The Missus got me the “real” camera three years ago, amplified especially by the pandemic lockdown, I’ve spent a lot of time taking what might be politely called “still lifes”: photos of everyday household objects and such. So yes, I think I’ll have plenty of opportunity to continue and expand on that practice.

Taking deeeep breaths; trying (?) to develop some good, healthy habits

Without many of the comforts and conveniences we’ve gotten used to, we’l be forced to improvise new (preferably better) habits and patterns in our daily lives. I speak of comforts and conveniences like:

• Doing whatever the hell we want to, within decent limits, without worrying about other folks’ schedules and needs of the moment.
• Waking up in the middle of the night and staggering down dim-lit, familiar hallways to the darkened kitchen “just for a snack,” knocking over empty plastic containers and other noisy objects on the counter… In The House o’ Canines, even if you yourself drift like the wind, you might as well be leading a brass band at 3 AM in the morning.
• Watching hours of fitness videos instead of actually, y’know, getting fit. (“But the fourth or fifth rewatch of the original Star Trek series is even better than the third or fourth!”)

…while solidifying some bad (but at least trivial) ones

You cannot even imagine how many TV series and films I’ve been wanting to watch for the first time… you cannot imagine how many TV series and films I started but lost track of in the flurry of all the other stuff… and how many of those long-open pop-culture chapters of my life I can now close.

We’ve decided to postpone leaving the House o’ Canines until Thursday, and skip the side trip to Tallahassee. This may or may not complicate the medical appointment issue. (Our physician offers telemedicine appointments, but we have no idea if they’ll do that for what is essentially our “exit interview” from their care. Unfortunately, we won’t know the answer to that question for another couple hours.)

So, bottom line: we’ll head out from here on Thursday, going straight to The Jacksonville Sis-in-Law’s place. Then we’ll just proceed as planned: a few nights with her, then a brief jaunt south to The Keystone Sis-in-Law’s home for a few nights. And then, finally, we will proceed to view Florida in the rear-view mirror!