It’s a little after noon on the  Friday after Thanksgiving, as I am typing this, and it’s quiet.

Not too quiet, but quiet just the same.

Our 20-year-old daughter, Emma, is upstairs asleep and my wife is in the living room sorting through her catch.

The reason Emma is upstairs asleep and my wife is in the living room sorting through her catch is because the two of them woke up at 6 a.m. so they could go shopping.

The reason I know this is because I also woke up at 6 a.m., then I went back to sleep.

I can’t think of any reason I would wake up at 6 a.m. if I didn’t have too. When I worked in radio I was required to be at work at 6 a.m. so I got up early, but even then I managed to be late more often than not.

But I write a newspaper column from home now so I seldom need to get up at 6 a.m. I mean, when was the last time you heard someone say, “Quick! We need a mildly amusing newspaper column. NOW!”

So after telling my wife that she was crazy, I went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until the crack of 9 a.m.

Then I came downstairs, made coffee, grabbed the newspaper, sat down on the couch and began to enjoy the morning.

About an hour later, my wife called. She said she and Emma had returned from Joplin and were now on the square in Carthage shopping at a wine store.

“Do you want to come join us?” my wife asked.

I wanted to say, “No. No, I do not. I’m enjoying a quiet Friday morning alone.”

Instead, I said, “Gee, I would love to but I’m not really dressed well enough for that.”

My wife thought about that for a second and said, “Right. I should have thought about that.”

I don’t how it is for other veteran husbands but whenever I tell my wife that I’m not dressed well enough for something, she automatically takes me at my word.

My wife could call and tell me that she was in the process of gutting a fish and if I said, “I’m not dressed well enough for that,” she would agree with me.

I need to stress here that in all of the years I have known my wife she has never called me to say that she was in the process of gutting a fish. In case you were wondering.

About an hour later, my wife and Emma came home. Emma, because she didn’t fall too far from the tree, immediately went upstairs to take a nap while my wife took a mess o’shopping bags into the living room.

I should point out that the only time it is permissible to use the phrase “mess o’shopping bags” is if you woke up at 6 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving to go shopping.

I don’t know what my wife and Emma bought this morning and I don’t want to know, but at one point my wife set a shopping bag on the floor next to me.

“Here,” she said, “you don’t know this but you bought this for me for Christmas. I need you to take it upstairs and hide it. Then, later, I need you to wrap it and give it to me for Christmas.”

Did I mention my wife is crazy?

After my wife is through sorting through the mess o’shopping bags she will commence with undecorating and redecorating of our house. First, she will take down our Thanksgiving decorations, and then she will put up our Christmas decorations. My wife says doing that makes her happy.

As for me … I think I’ll take a nap.