The party was in full swing. My wife loved throwing parties for all our friends. Of course most of us were still in our twenties with a few in in their early thirties. Kathy often had a lot of the girls from her office and as usual most of the women seemed to gather in the large kitchen while the men of the group were delegated to either the garage or the patio, depending on the weather and time of year.
"Hey, Pete," I heard my friend Ralph call, "is there any more of that queso dip. That shit is awesome!" I told him I'd check and grabbed the bowl from the portable table I'd set up for the goodies. I have a 56" flat screen TV in the garage and we'll watch sports or racing and at times even a little porn. As I walked down the hallway and stepped into the kitchen, the girls all became noticeably quiet.
"Kathy, did I interrupt something important?" I asked.
My wife's face was definitely red and a couple of the girls faces were obviously flushed when she said, "Why no dear. What do you need? That's the queso bowl, isn't it? Here let me refill it for you." My wife took out the dip from the fridge and refilled the bowl then microwaved it. She picked it up with a silicone pot holder and handed it to me to take back to the garage. Their sudden silence had me very curious.
That night as Kathy and I were cleaning up after our guests had left. I was washing and she was drying, I turned to her and asked, "Sweetheart, when I walked into the kitchen tonight, all of you girls suddenly shut up. Can you tell me what you were talking about that you didn't want me to hear?"
Kathy kept drying like she hadn't heard me so I tapped her on her shoulder and making sure I had her attention; I repeated my question. Karen's eyes looked towards the ceiling, back and forth as if to find an answer that might appease me then said with a half-hearted smile, "You know dear, it was just women's stuff. Things we don't like to talk about in front of our husbands."
Now Karen and I have been together for over seven years, married for almost five but she's always been open and honest with me so this was a little funny. I really was curious.
I often get junk email offering security systems and miniature 'spy' cameras only this time instead of putting it into the junk folder, I opened it up and checked out the site. I found they had a nice 12 pack of color remote motion activated cameras with night mode for $98.00 and free shipping so I ordered a pack. I was pleasantly surprised with it arrived only 4 days later. Karen was at the gym that afternoon so I set about placing them, two in the kitchen, two in our bedroom, two in our garage, two on the patio, one in the living room, one by the front door, and trying to decide what to do with the last two, I put one in each of the guest bedrooms. They would send a signal to a receiver that had a memory card which I could download to my computer or I could hook the receiver directly to my computer if I wanted. I secured the receiver in the attic and ran a cable from it down to my den, where I have my computer set up.
I was just finishing up installing the software when I heard Karen walking in. "What'cha doing honey?" she asked. I told her I was just upgrading some software. She said, "I picked up a pizza. I'm going up to take a shower. Would you please listen for the buzzer in case I'm not back in time?" I said I would and headed into the kitchen, pouring each of us a tall glass of wine from the large box on the counter. I couldn't wait for the next party.
A week later, our house was full again of our friends. As usual all our wives and girlfriends were in the kitchen and us guys were in the garage. We had the NFL highlights on the TV and besides the beer, Tim was passing around a large bottle of Patron tequila he had won off a coworker. I walked over to my friend Bob, just after he had taken a swig from the bottle. "Damn that shit's dangerous!" he said as he tried to hand me the bottle but I just passed it on. I knew it was going to be a long night.
I asked him, "Bob, would you do me a favor?"
He gave me a big smile then man hugged me and said, "For you good buddy, anything."
"I want to try a little experiment." I told him, "I want you to quietly walk down the hall towards the kitchen and when the girls are chatting away loudly, walk in and ask for something. I don't care, chips or cookies, anything. I just want you to notice if they all shut up as soon as you walk in."
He gave me a funny look and I gave him a little shove and said, "Just do it," and he headed in.
Soon he came back with a box of Oreos and said, "Pete, you're right. As soon as I stepped into your kitchen, they all shut up. It was like I had hit the mute button. Man it was really weird." I couldn't wait to see what my camera's had recorded.
That evening, after Karen and I had cleaned up, instead of going to bed with her, I told Karen that I was going to check my email. Once at my computer, I put in a new thumb drive and copied the video to it and put the new drive in a safe place at the back of my bottom drawer and turned off my computer and joined Karen in bed.
Sunday about noon, Karen told me she was going over to her mother's and that she was going to Costco with her mother and sister, asking me if there was anything I wanted. I asked her to pick up some steaks and burgers so she added it to her tablet. I waited for about 15 minutes before locking up the house and going to my computer.
I watched as the first half an hour or so was mostly the girls chatting about life and kids and it was really pretty boring. Then jackpot! Tina said to the group, "Say girls, anybody tap Jason, that hunk down at the Quick Mart? Penny, Ralph's sweet little thing of a wife, all of 4' 10" and 95 lbs. if she was soaking wet, raised the palm of her hand. I watched as several other ladies looked on stunned then Tina said "Really?" Penny nodded. Tina asked, "Tell me, how was it? Was it everything you thought it would be?"