Its like I woke up from a work-induced, late-night funk and came back to reality. Six days and no post. I have all of these things I want to put from fingertips to keyboard, but its all this muddled-jumble of diapers and computer screens. But earlier today, I had salvation. Salvation in the form of high-definition and cookies-n-cream ice cream. I have been reading for the past week or so on the interwebs that Toshiba is planning on dropping the price of their HD-DVD players to $99. That's right. NINETY-NINE DOLLARS.

I've also been reading that Walmarts around the country will have indefinite supplies of these items, as well as Best Buy. So, 11 days after the un-advertised "sale" went on, I decided to trek out, daughter in tow, to the local outlets to test my luck. (BTW, I had also been reading that people are close to throwing punches at Walmart because of the scarcity of these discontinued items. Another good reason to wait. I don't need my daughter witnessing her dad freak out and kick an old man in the stomach because he tried to snatch the last hd-dvd player. But I digress.) Walmart is sold-out. So is Best-Buy. And Kmart. And Target. I had one last hope, a local place called Baillos (pronounced "Buy-yos"), a local electronics/ appliances store here in New Mexico. Thankfully, all of these places are within 2 square miles of each other, so it only took an hour to go to all these places.

I enter Baillos and see from across the store, on a table, in a box, a Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player. Holy Christ. I look around to make sure no one else is looking at it. I needed to be sure that no geriatrics were eyeing me from the shadows. With Adriana in arms, I casually sprint to the box and open it up. The box was only closed half-way. There is a player inside. With a manual. And cords. And a remote. The salesman sees me looking at it and says "I was boxing that up for a guy that was supposed to come back a while ago, but hasn't shown up."

My response:  "I'll buy it right now, with cash."

His response: "You got it. $80 plus tax. This was a display model, so its kinda dusty, but we have so many players and it was barely even turned on."

I almost shit myself then and there. Luckily, I keep wipes in the car for these electronics-induced bowel movements. 80 DOLLARS. He sits me down at his desk and begins to ring me up.

"You have a beautiful daughter." he says.

"Thanks, we're gonna go play outside after this as a reward for being so good for the past hour and a half while I drove around town." I respond.

"I hear ya man. I am always trying to get too many things done on my days off. Are you a veteran?" the salesmen inquires.

I, for the first time in a long time, am speechless. I am dumbfounded. Why do I have to be "off work" to be out with my daughter in the middle of the day? I'm a stay-at-home-dad! This IS my job man! And don't get me started on the whole "army of one" issue. Damn!

"I'm a stay-at-home dad. I hang out with this one in the day and work at night or early in the morning. I'm no veteran." I respond.

"Oh....well...that's cool. I wish I could stay at home all day and hang out with my kids." Now I know he probably meant it like he wished he could, but it came out like he thought it wasn't hard. SAHD's, and mom's for that matter, have a very difficult job. Not only are we caring for small, accident prone little people, we make dinner, do laundry, go to the park, read, take naps (wait...leave out that last part ;o) Then a lot of us work into the wee hours of the morning.

I kept my mouth closed for the remainder of the sale, another first. I came back home and had a wonderful time pushing my daughter around our living room in an empty box. Then we played with rocks outside. So for any of you who think that SAHD's don't have a real job, that's okay. You're just jealous anyway.