Testosterone

My favorite husband has discovered the joy of BBCAmerica...or more importantly, Top Gear. In case you have never seen Top Gear, it's sort of like Motor Week, on steroids (testosterone). H first saw this wonderful show while we were visiting the elusive offspring in St Andrews. The hosts of Top Gear are three guys, of varying ages, discussing various cars (usually super-cars like Lamborghinis or Ferarris or Porsches, with the occasional BMW and Mercedes thrown in) and they even get to test drive these cars on a race track. Of course, there's another guy, the faceless (helmeted) Stig, a former Formula One driver who takes over where the three hosts leave off. He really makes those cars sing! I wish I could be driving them! No, no, wait, this is about my favorite husband: he wishes HE could be driving them. The neat thing is that Top Gear brings in guest drivers...like Helen Mirin and Dr Who (David Tennant or Bertie Crouch) and his assistant (Billie Piper)...and for the record, Dr Who was soundly beaten by his assistant. They also do such neat things as pit a Range Rover against England's top tank, the Challenger II. That was fun...you can watch it on YouTube:

In another episode, they pitted a Lotus Exige against an Apache helicoptor. This is on YouTube, too.

Anyway, when we get home from work and finish making dinner, we sit down to eat and watch the telly, as they say in the UK. And our choice of entertainment, after the nightly news, is BBC. It used to be that H would skip from channel to channel...never really finding something he wanted to watch. Or he'd say, "What channel is that XYZ show on?" or "Where do I find the ZYX movie?" You get the idea...I'm usually the channeler. But not now. Now, he grabs the remote as soon as we sit down and puts it on Channel 114 (the only station he knows now), and then sets aside the remote until Top Gear is finished...he'll even leave it longer, hoping against hope that there is yet another episode following. He doesn't mind watching the reruns either, even when they come on two hours later!

This weekend, we discovered a funny Brittish sitcom called Spaced...There was a six-episode marathon on Sunday while H varnished the new pocket doors in the dining room and I did paperwork. I love the quirkiness of this Brittish "Chuck" meets "Friends" sitcom. My husband, however, kept asking me questions while he had his back to the television, varnishing the doors: "So, is this a science fiction?" "No, it's just a show about a couple who have to act like they are married to share a flat together." Obviously, the alcohol in the varnish was having some sort of effect on H because he then asked "Are they time travelers?" Still varnishing with his back to the television. "No, that was Dr. Who. These guys are just a bunch of strange people in a flat in England." Finally, he got up and watched it with me for a little while. There was a wonderful scene where three of the characters (all grown men...I think) suddenly start finger-shooting each other in slow motion, complete with slo-mo sounds...bullets, grenades, splats, drawn-out "no-o-o-o-s. " They are slowly falling backwards and sideways as they get hit by the imaginary bullets, and eventually they all end up on the floor, not moving; then suddenly they get up and head out the door together, off to the pub. For some reason, that scene made me laugh so hard I could hardly breathe and I almost lost a contact lense from the tears in my eyes. Heaven only knows why was it so funny to me! My favorite husband gives me a goofy look and says "Men are all just big kids, aren't they?"

Well, yes, they are. While I know that H would love to have one of those Top Gear fast cars, secretly, he'd probably like the Apache helicoptor or Challenger II tank even better! So, these days I leave the remote next to his chair...this is a man who is really in touch with his inner little boy.