So - The Reunion Committee had a final organization meeting the weekend of July 13th and 14th. First of all, so everyone in the family understands, WE ABSOLUTELY TALK ABOUT EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY. I am 100% certain that there is not a Spendley- Hayden family member that has escaped the “discussions” during these organization meetings. It is one of the reasons I will always volunteer to be on the Reunion Committee - because I want to make sure I hear what is being said about me!!!

On Saturday, we spent a good amount of time touring the facilities and activities. Although, I do need to tell everyone, that at every possible stop, my cousin Walter was focused on the nearest bar so we could also make sure the bar accommodations were satisfactory to the Spendley - Hayden Clan. Since they all served cold beer and some frozen drinks we determined they all met the test.

On Saturday evening, the Reunion Committee (or maybe it is a more fair statement to say that the women of the Reunion Committee), decided they deserved lobster for dinner. So off we went to a great place in the north part of Ocean City, the Lobster Shanty. If I recall correctly - the woman got 3 puns lobsters and the men got hamburgers!!! Only kidding - I think everyone got lobster and I had crab cakes - lobster reminds me of Boston and we all know what I think of sports teams in Boston.

As dinner was almost finished, I was having a discussion with Maureen about our calendar for the summer and how hectic it has been. I was telling her that I had told Marilyn to stop saying yes to everything so we could have a weekend of absolutely nothing to do (so far that hasn’t worked - we are booked solid for the rest of the summer). Anyway - Maureen chuckled and went on to say how she and Marilyn had connived their way to picking this weekend, knowing that this was one of the possible free weekends back in the beginning of the summer. It is at this moment that I made a critical mistake, a typical mistake made by men and truly one they don’t understand - I responded by saying “ It was Fine”.

The good news is Maureen is not very demonstrative when she hears something that she doesn’t want to hear - NOT!!!

She fist asked me if I knew what “it’s Fine”, really means. I quickly responded by saying - it means, it’s fine, that I didn’t have a problem with it and has been fun. Maureen proceeded to interrupt all conversations at the dinner table and quickly relayed that I didn’t understand the meaning of “it’s fine”. Basically what transpired is one of those unique aspects of life - the women totally understood what Maureen was talking about and the men were puzzled. We quickly were told that “it’s Fine” means “It’s not Fine”, it means that there is an unusually high level of dissatisfaction or even disgust behind the meaning of “It’s Fine”.

Well, stupid me, I decided to challenge that and said that must be a Spendley - Hayden thing and it didn’t mean that to all women. How quickly I found out I was wrong as Maureen, Marilyn and Robyn went around to the other tables nearby and to my dismay, all women (at least 100% of the ones nearby) agreed with the 3 Spendley women. At that point, I told everyone it was time to leave and surprising everyone listened.

What I don’t understand is how can women arbitrarily change the english language and expect men to understand all their needs - personally, I am still stuck on what a woman really means (okay - my wife) when she says, YES OR NO!!! Now I have to put in perspective that every time I sat It’s fine - she thinks something is wrong and every time she says it to me it means I am in trouble.

Why do woman make our lives so damn confusing - can we get a little help here and have some other Spendley’s stick up with me, or are you going to agree that woman are in charge, so much so they can unilaterally change the meaning of english language (I guess Webster’s dictionary was written by a man).