The Bed's Too Big, The Frying Pan's Too Wide

We here at Scooter Nation have known for quite some time that this day was coming. We have been planning it, anticipating it, dreading it. We have been packing and making phone calls and sending emails. We have been fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack. We have been touring the facility and picking up slack.

And last weekend, we moved Expat back to lovely, exotic Small Town, Pennsylvania.

We did not want to do this. We are not separating or doing a trial separation or getting a divorce. We are, instead, getting a PhD. Well, Expat's getting a PhD. So I suppose in a round about way, I'm getting a PhD, too—for a husband.

We moved out to Madison 18 months ago for Expat to do research in the Wisconsin State Historical Society's archives. He is not nor has he ever been a student at the UW. He is, instead, a student at the Big State University in Pennsylvania. He had one paid year between a fellowship and banked teaching releases, but that was it. Last summer when he signed his contract renewal, he agreed to a research assistantship for the fall that would allow him to stay in Wisconsin six months longer. The catch? He owed Big State University two sections of teaching, payable this spring semester. Oh, and he couldn't graduate until he completed them.

This was fair, we figured. Big State U essentially payed Expat to sit in Madison, drink beer, eat cheese, and work on his dissertation for a year and a half. The least he could do was go teach a few classes. And at the time, Spring 2007 was as remote as the UP, eh.

Remote, that is, until last weekend.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, the drive to Small Town, PA, from Madison, WI, is 12 to 15 hours, depending on how the traffic is moving when you hit Chicago and depending on how many times you stop at the travel plazas with the Gloria Jean's inside for 16 oz. black and white mochas. You need to have about $20 in change and small bills for all of the tolls—Ohio is the most expensive stretch at $9.25 (they just raised the rates)—and be prepared to use at least three tanks of gas one way, which we definitely did. For a man who thought he “wouldn't need to take much,” the Subaru was packed solid front to back (the seats folded down, of course), side to side, and floor to about 8 inches from the ceiling. (Admittedly, two of the bags and one of the pillows were mine and I had insisted that we bring the air mattress for fear that, once we got to Expat's newly rented house, we would have no place to sleep, but nonetheless, the car was full of mostly-not-my stuff.)

The house Expat is renting for the semester is actually the house he was renting when we first started dating over four years ago. At that time, he had a roommate. At this time, he doesn't. In fact, this time will be the very first time that either of us had ever lived alone in all our almost-28 years. Ever. We both went from living at home to having roommates in college to having roommates in grad school to living together to being married. And now that we're married, we're single again for the first time. Well, of course we are. Why wouldn't we be?

At this point you may be wondering, “Why didn't Sparky go with him?” Ah, grasshopper, lest we forget, Sparky has a Real Job working for The Man. The Man doesn't let Sparky scoot off to distant college towns for five months on a whim. Nor does the Lease we're in with the Nicest Landlady Ever. Well, the Nicest Landlady Ever probably wouldn't care as long as we continued to pay her rent, but who wants to pay rent on an apartment they're not using?

No, I was definitely coming back to Madison once The Move was complete. The Move was going to be a quick thing—one day down, stay the weekend, one day back, lots of errands in between. Expat wouldn't have a car once I left, and his new/old house was in an Even Smaller Suburb of Small Town, which meant no grocery store or drug store or anything, really, except the Breakfast Diner and the Pizza Place, which were now in the same building, so you could get stromboli for breakfast or waffles for dinner. You know. If you wanted.

By the time we finished unloading, cleaning, loading trashbags, unloading trashbags, loading the stuff from our storage unit, unloading the stuff from our storage unit, cleaning again, buying and loading and then unloading all of the stuff necessary to reasonably outfit a house, and then cleaning some more, we were exhausted. I decided to stay an extra day. We went out and drank flavored martinis—well, I drank flavored martinis. Expat drank beer. We came Home and went to bed. Got up, went grocery shopping at the Fancy Grocery Store, came Home, unloaded, went to the Cheap Grocery Store, came Home, unloaded, realized we hadn't cleaned the refrigerator. Spent 2 hours and half a bottle of 409 cleaning the refrigerator (a feat worthy of another post). Did I mention that we're friends with the guys who rented the house before Expat? Maybe they thought that leaving us their food from May 2006 was a nice gesture. Anyway. Put the perishables away. Decided to toss the expired stuff in the pantry. Tossed everything in the pantry (canned pineapple from 1998—mmmm, Botulism). Reloaded the car with my stuff. Went to bed. Got up, got dressed, got moving. I dropped Expat on campus—kissed goodbye in the library loading zone—drove Home.

Home.

I used to think that Home was where my bed was. My bed is definitely in Madison.

Right now, Madison is definitely not Home.