Jeff tells me daily that I need treatment for my computer addiction. This time I’ve buried my head in Matt’s laptop, and I’m checking on my audible.com credits, when I hear Karen say, “Michael’s missed all the excitement.”

I’m hunched at the dining room table with my back to the kitchen and I keep tapping away until then I think, okay, let’s see what she’s yapping about. I turn around to see Jeff slouched in a chair, his skin four shades of weird, scary red. Karen is staring intently at him and next to her, on the counter, is a used EpiPen.

I get up and ask, “What happened?”

“Jeff had an anaphylactic reaction to an insect bite, and I gave him a shot and some Benedryl,” Karen answers.

Now I can assemble all the pieces of visual information, none of which make sense in the context of this happening ten feet from me. There’s the how can I be so out of touch with the world, and how can one couple be so casual about something so life threatening.

Jeff is holding a paper towel over the puncture wound on his thigh and complaining about feeling disoriented, and I’m pushing future world without the EpiPen out of my mind.

“Look, I’ve got to understand this. Jeff almost dies, you administer some ad hoc home remedy and then you call it a day? On the one had I’m staggered by your frontier spirit, but on the other I’m alarmed.”

“Oh, this has happened before,” Karen answers. “I gave him the epi early and neither the epi or the Benedryl can hurt him.’

My stomach settles on that point, but I wonder if this is enough. We’re going to let this hivey, rudy-red hulk carry himself up to bed?

At which point Jeff stands up and says, “I’m going upstairs to read a book.”

Karen asks for reassurance that he’s okay, and he says he is, but about two minutes after his climb up the steps he lumbers back down alarmed by the swelling around his pelvis.

“We’re going to Deaconess,” Karen states firmly. “Jeffrey, should we call 911?”

Jeff says “No,” and I think I didn’t listen to my father the other night, why should we listen to Jeff now? I guess because he’s always right and he and Karen are Epi-veterans.

My truck is parked a few blocks away on Bellemeade, and as I climb into the back of their truck Jeff says, “You don’t want to get stuck in the emergency room. We’ll call you from the hospital. ” Again, I take his advice and climb out of the truck. As Karen and Jeff drive off I think to myself, You’re right, Jeff, I don’t want to get stuck in the emergency room, but I’m damn good at CPR.

In the emergency room I learn about the time Jeff had a similar reaction on a long bike ride. He needed two shots, and then, because he didn’t want to disturb anyone’s recreation, Jeff drove himself home. “I could hardly keep my eyes open,” he said.

Perking up.

*Note to all: Jeff’s ER doc said, “If you need a shot of Epinephrine, you need to come to the hospital.”

In the center of Jeffrey’s basement floor is a drain. Like the one in the center of mine, it works fine when, say, the washer overflows. However, during hard rains the drain regurgitates. My floor and walls are porous so the drain contributes minimally to my then wet basement. Jeff’s single leak is that drain, and yesterday we drove to Home Depot in search of the square nut we needed to lock the drain down, to keep water from backing up.

Jeff doubted we’d find anything but your typical hexagonal nut, but I remained convinced we’d have our pick of sizes. I was wrong. Long metal shelves of every conceivable size of nut and bolt, but not a single square one. I sidled up next to an older gentleman, tall, skin like tanned cow hide and a John Deere hat.

“You know where we can find square nuts.”

“On the other side of this aisle.”

“Been there and there’s not a one.”

“Rural King. They sell them by the pound.”

I thanked the guy, happy that we’d end our search at our next stop. As Jeff and I wove past backed-up stop lights he asked, “Do you think Rural King will have them?”

I could hardly hear his question. I’d picked out a man with THE answer. In my mind, I’d climbed that snowy peak in Tibet and prostrated myself in front the shiny-domed cross-legged guy with the beatific smile.

“What do you mean, ‘Do I think’? I’ll bet my truck on it.”

Rural King reminds me of the old Spags in Shrewsbury. They have everything and everything is cheap. I stopped in the jeans aisle first, tried on a single pair of jeans to make sure they fit and bought four pairs at 9.99 each. We then found our way to the hardware corner where all the square nuts would be lined up in bins.

“Look, that thing I said about my truck… .”

Embarrassed, I found another customer, this one with an Allis Chalmer’s hat, glasses and hands permanently curled from a lifetime of tractor driving. I asked him where I might find square nuts.

“Not here,” he said.

“I don’t get it, “ I said, “When we were growing up square nuts were everywhere.”

He laughed and said, ”And all you needed was an adjustable wrench.’

At that moment Jeffrey walked up to us with two sizes of square nuts in his hand. He’d found them in a specialty bin three aisles away.

On our way home with square nuts in a plastic bag sitting between us, and my new jeans resting in the bed of the truck, I said, “I have trouble finding jeans my size. The labels often mean nothing. Now I’m happy to have four pairs that fit.

Jeff answered, “No, you have one pair that fits. The one you tried on.”