Finally, my goddamn birthday came. Nothing freaky happened in the morning. My wife and I both got ready for work like usual. She did give me a nice long smooch as we climbed into our cars and then she told me to get home from work as soon as I could.

Of course, it was an incredibly shitty day at work. Worse, traffic sucked on the way home. Fridays are always the ugliest where we live. It was after seven o'clock before I even pulled into the garage.

I had to step over a huge, unfamiliar duffle bag packed with dirty clothes laying in the laundry room. The spiffy new...