It's 3 a.m. Do you know where your husband is?

I’m still sorting through my vacation stories trying to determine what’s “funny funny” (i.e. Jeff’s encounter with the Lady Chablis in the hotel lobby) and what’s “you really had to be there funny” (i.e. busting a sales clerk asleep on the floor under the display cabinets of a mall kiosk), although it’s all hilarious to me.

First let me explain why we chose Savannah as our destination.  Since Thursday is our 10th wedding anniversary, we originally wanted to go somewhere really cool (as in out of the country), but the economy and my job in real estate have us spooked so we decided to lower our standards (which is fitting, since that’s what Jeff did when he finally agreed to marry me).   

Savannah was the obvious choice for one very good reason.  When you enter a bar in Savannah and order a drink, the bartender replies with the following magical words: “For here or to go”?  Oh, hells yeah people!  Those five little words put a song in my heart (and a stumble in my step).  In Savannah you’re not only allowed to gad about in public with an adult beverage in your hand, it’s practically required.   You can take your drink everywhere you go as long as it’s in a plastic cup.  It’s tragic that I’m not already a permanent Savannah resident.

The first night of our stay, it finally hit me what it means to be married to Jeff for 10 years.  Jeff was coming off a week of working the p.m. shift, so we knew he probably wouldn’t sleep well the first couple of nights.   I wasn’t at all surprised to hear him get up around 3 a.m.   We booked a suite for this very reason, and he went into the living area while I slept.  About 30 minutes later I was awakened by the strangest sound coming from the living area.  It was like a long, low screech and then a kind of a ripping noise.  It almost sounded like huge pieces of packing tape being ripped off the roll.  And it happened again and again and again.

Any woman in her right mind would be concerned by this noise.  But not me.  When you’re married to Jeff, you learn to expect the unexpected.   We’re 10 years in people.  Nothing surprises me.  If he was out there wrapping up a dead body in a spare blanket for disposal, I was sure he had a good reason.  So I did the obvious thing and went back to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I asked Jeff if he was making a strange screeching, ripping sound overnight.  His response?  “Yep.  I decided to shave but the cold air was blasting out of the ceiling vent in the bathroom.  I didn’t want to turn off the A/C, so I taped over the vent with packing tape.”

See?  Perfectly reasonable explanation.  Don’t all husbands take a giant roll of packing tape on vacation and get out of bed at 3 a.m. to tape over a ceiling vent and shave?  No?  Well, mine does.