Priceless

Ha.  Jack and Meg should try living with a nurse for three-and-a-half decades, and then see what they think.

RRRRIIINNGG  mid morning

"Hey Pops!  Did you know tonight's the White Stripes concert?  I think we should do it up, dude!"

Still able to get seats on the main floor.  Do I hate Ticketmaster? Those bastards.  Jump through their hoops, print out our tix.  Wife and daughter confer in low tones on "what's he gonna wear?"

Newly showered, dressed in my spiffies, stomach pulled in, hair strands carefully, symetrically arranged (I hope).

The lanky one picks me up just before five, "We got one stop to make on the way.  I need your help loading something into the Element from IKEA."  Like I didn't see that one coming.  About a half-ton of bookshelf boxes later, I'm sweating like a N'Orleans longshoreman and some of the bloom has definitely come off the rose.

We get downtown in plenty of time to walk to Tom's for an Amaretto sour and a piece of chocolate cake, and a cup of chili and a bottle of beer, respectively.

The concert was great.  Jack coaxes more incredibly tuneful smashmouth noises out of a six-string than anyone since Jimi.  His sister was, at best, a distraction.  A less skilled drummer I've never beheld, even in the old days of The Barbarians, and that's saying something.

There were two other guys there who may have been older than I, and several at least as bald, though their conditions appeared to be by choice.  Opening act The Greenhorns was lamentable, but the ninety minute set by the Whites was fabulous.