These are two things that Abe loves: greeting me at the door when I come home and licking the remains off dinner plates. But, which does he love more?

When I came home last night, Sarah was finishing dinner. Abe was sitting next to her waiting for the plate. I opened the door and looked over at him. He bounced five feet towards me, stopped, turned around, and barked. He kept turning in circles and barking at both of us, which eventually turned into a pathetic sounding whimper, “Oh, why don’t you come over here so I can greet you AND get the plate?”

Sounds like a tie.

For lunch yesterday, I sent Greg to work with some leftover pork tenderloin and some applesauce. When he arrived home from work, he hadn’t finished the pork, so I put it in the fridge.

“You might not want to save that,” Greg said. “It hasn’t been refrigerated.”

“Then I definitely don’t want to save it,” I said. “You didn’t put it in the fridge after lunch?”

Greg didn’t respond. After dinner, we sat down in the family room and started reading.

“I don’t think that pork is good,” Greg said.

“Yes, I know it’s not good,” I said. “You already told me that.”

Greg rubbed his stomach and slid down on the couch.

“Oh, you mean it wasn’t good at lunch?” I asked. “It wasn’t that old. It should have still been good. Unless … Greg, did you not refrigerate the pork before lunch?”

“I don’t like walking into the break room in the morning,” Greg said. “But it only sat out for a half hour.”

“So you got to work at about 10, right?” I asked. “And then you ate that pork for lunch at 10:30?”

“No,” Greg said shyly. “12:50.”

“Greg! You let that pork sit out for three hours and then ate it?! Of course you’re sick! Why didn’t you put it in the refrigerator?”

“It’s too much work,” Greg said. I should mention that the refrigerator at Greg’s office is about 25 feet from his desk, which apparently is too far to walk.

“So you aren’t refrigerating anything I send to work with you?” I asked in disbelief. “Well, this is going to totally change what I give you for lunch. If you think you’re taking those Chinese leftovers tomorrow, you can forget it.”

“What? Why? I should get to take those!” Greg said.

“Greg, did your mother knock any sense into your head?” I asked.

“I don’t eat off the floor,” Greg said shyly.

“You should,” I said. “You would be better off taking the pork out of the fridge, dropping it on the floor, and eating it. That would be better than eating pork you haven’t refrigerated. Do you know how much bacteria was growing on that? Are you trying to kill yourself? You know you’ve eaten so much bacteria that you’re going to develop immunity. You’ll be like those guys who can drink cyanide without it affecting them.”

“I’m Superman!” Greg said.

Saturday night, Greg and I went to a birthday party for a friend of ours. The party, which was being thrown by a grad student, began at 9:30. First off, Greg and I thought it was insane that this party began so late. By 9:30 on a typical night, we are curled up on the couch reading or watching television, and wearing pajamas.

Back when we were young whipper-snappers, oh, about four years ago, we never went to a party before 10 p.m. When you’re in college, that’s when parties start. And things don’t really get going until 11. But things have changed. We are old now. We have “children” that wake us up at 6:30 every morning. We have a mortgage. And a Kitchenaid stand mixer.

I figured we would spend an hour or two at the party and still get home at a reasonable hour. We had a good time at the party, chatting with new people, drinking a beer or two. But we didn’t stay real long. As we left the party, clearing our heads of the loud music and smoky air, Greg asked me what time I thought it was.

“I’d guess 11,” I said.

“I’m going to say 12:45,” Greg said.

“No way,” I said. “We weren’t in there that long. It’s probably a little later than 11.”

We started the car. The clock said 12:43.

“Oh my gosh!” I said. “How can it be so late? Abe is going to wonder what happened to us.”

“We haven’t been out this late since we lived in Springfield,” Greg said.

By the time we got home, ate a snack, and chatted a bit, it was 2 a.m., so we headed to bed. The next morning, we awoke with a series of grumbles and moans.

“So tired,” I said. “Can’t get out of bed.” Greg just jammed his head into his pillow like an ostrich trying to hide in the sand.

We spent the remainder of the day moping around the house as if we had just finished an Everest expedition. I imagine in another year or two, we will have to start using walkers. So for all you young folks out there, you 24- and 25-year-olds, enjoy your youth while you can. Things will start to go downhill rapidly once you hit 26.