A few weeks ago, my beautiful wife bought a new DVD player. One that’s supposed to play DVD-RW discs that we’ve recorded from our other DVD recorder/player. (We’ve yet to figure out how to play those DVD’s, but that’s another matter.) With this DVD player came a small remote control. This remote is essential as the only buttons on the actual DVD player is the ON/OFF button, the PLAY/PAUSE button, the STOP button and the EJECT button. No fast forwarding, no choosing scenes, no viewing the menu on a standard DVD.

Well, TheMonk took a liking to this remote control, laying claim to it as soon as he saw it. “MY REMOTE!” he’d tell anyone who listened.

Needless to say, TheMonk lost “his” remote. One day it was there. The next day (and subsequent two weeks) it was not. This posed a problem. We looked high (counters, tables, drawers). We looked low (under coffee tables, couches, play pens, in shoes). It was nowhere to be found.

We feared it had been thrown away as TheMonk likes to throw things away in the trash. Since we really did need a remote, I went online and ordered a replacement. With shipping, it cost more than half what my beautiful wife paid for the entire DVD player. We are currently waiting for the remote to arrive via the U.S. postal service.

Today, it was a beautiful Southern California day. Not too hot. Not too cold. Not a cloud in the sky. A perfect “head for the beach now that the tourists are gone” day. So we loaded up a picnic lunch, grabbed a blanket and the diaper bag and headed out the door to Del Mar’s Powerhouse beach.

Upon arrival, we laid our blanket out on the green lawn overlooking the Pacific Ocean and prepared to eat before turning the kids loose on the playground that overlooks the ocean as well. Beautiful wife, realizing the kids needed sun screen, rummaged around in the diaper bag for the tube stashed away in one of the many pockets. Reaching deep within, she grasped something odd, yet vaguely familiar. As she pulled it out of the bag she let out a laugh. TheMonk, seeing what was in her hand, shouted out…

“MY REMOTE!”