This is me.

Saturday Todd and I ventured out to the Happiest Place on Earth – Home Depot. We needed spackling paste and I wanted to buy paint for the guest room, which I ended up not being able to decide on because there’s 50 shades of the color I like. I stood in front of the paint chips display feeling dizzy, and just started grabbing cards like a 3-year-old. And I was giddy as a 3-year-old too.

The place was crawling with orange-aproned people who were so damn happy to see us I was beginning to wonder if we’d fallen through a worm hole and this was Disney in disguise. I swallowed the pill that morning that slows my internal world down from rabbit to the Zootopia sloth, and I was strolling the aisles clutching Todd’s arm while he commandeered the shopping cart – because we can’t go anywhere without pushing a giant shopping cart – and smiling like a bride on her wedding day.

Every single Home Depot employee greeted us at every turn with a huge smile and a hello and a how-are-you? Which began to feel enormously funny to me and then suddenly I was smiling stupidly at everyone and everything. It was like the whole place was infused with laughing gas and they let me, and only me, in on the secret. Because Todd wasn’t laughing. His mind works at a mind-numbing pace so that he is constantly thinking about this thing and that, what he’s doing later, or on Tuesday, or next weekend, or what programming changes need to be made, or home projects, or whether to buy a new Mustang or a pickup truck because he’s sick to death of being without something to lug big stuff around. If I had to live one second inside his brain, I’d probably spontaneously combust.

Anyway. We strolled the aisles together and then I’d wander off to see something or other. We have many plans for the house so much of the tour is about pricing and planning. And as I wandered slowly alone, another employee would smile and say Hello! Some of them greeted me twice, which was really funny. One of them was pushing a giant I-don’t-know-what-you-call-it full of merchandise and miscalculated the turn and slammed into a pole in the aisle next to us, and he started laughing then so I was enormously grateful that I didn’t have to suppress my own laughter. I was sniggling to myself for over an hour in this place.

Finally, Todd took me out of there clutching my handful of paint chips and a package of Reese’s peanut butter cups – and we continued on our journey. We stopped at the liquor store to shop for wine and he loves me. He bought me a new bottle of my favorite vodka, which I’m not going to name so you don’t try to take it when you come to my house, and I was so excited because it came with two crystal skull glasses.

Last stop on the most awesome Date Day ever was the grocery store. Because, food. We just had a few staples to pick up, but Todd grabbed the big cart because, I guess, he’s a man. I don’t get to push the cart, and I’m glad because it lets me be the free spirit I am and wander aimlessly away from him while he “shops.” Seriously, this man can shop. He will stop and look at everything. All you ladies out there whose husbands hate to shop – eat your heart out. You will never see mine sitting alone on one of those plush chairs in department stores trying to blend in with the scenery.

So we’re in the grocery store planning dinner when my appetite was ruined by two girls walking past us, one of whom took her hand away from her mouth just in time for the vomit to escape to the floor in the seafood department. While I was grateful of the reminder that I’m not cut out to be a nurse, I was appalled that they kept going and told no one. So, of course I told someone, and continued through the store feeling nauseated, which is a good thing because that made me think of soda and so I turned the corner of the soda aisle and walked right into Elvis.

Which, if you don’t know by now, was THE highlight of my day. And I know what you’re thinking and NO, I was not hallucinating. He was in disguise though, in regular street clothes, but the sideburns gave him away. I stopped dead (no pun intended, really), not really sure what to do, and Todd goes and says hello to him! And he says hello back and says something totally un-Elvis, like hey man, how ya doin’? And then Todd asks him when he’s appearing again and he doesn’t know, man, since the casino is renovating the bar/restaurant and it’s not supposed to be done til March and it’s under new management and he’s not even sure IF they’ll have him back. I’m like, WHAT?! That’s just wrong. Elvis has a huge following, and the casino will have a riot on their hands if they don’t have him back. I’ll start the petition.

And all this totally happened, because WE have Elvis in OUR town. He lives here. Except he goes by an alias, so we kept it on the downlow when we parted – Todd, Tara, and Ted.