I was furious this morning. As I mentioned yesterday, I was nearly dead this weekend and needless to say, was severely lacking energy this morning. During one of the two times I managed to sustain an upright position for more that 30 seconds yesterday, I went downstairs and decided to sweep and mop the kitchen. Mr. Incredible didn’t see the necessity. He swore he would take care of everything by the time he left for work in the morning. I reluctantly went back to bed and stared at the cobwebs on my ceiling.
Back to this morning. He left for work after taking #2 to school, which was helpful, but when I made it downstairs, it looked like a bomb had gone off. I did what any self-respecting woman would do. I called him and ranted hysterically.
“Did you not see the mess? Everywhere, it’s everywhere. There is nowhere I can go to escape it. I’m sick and exhausted and you expect me to watch your kids in this disaster of a house. I can’t do it anymore!!!” (Always throw in the word “anymore” to these conversations. It gives the illusion that the situation is so dire that you may actually call it quits for good.)
And then I hung up, but I still didn’t feel better. I didn’t get the impression that he knew what I was talking about. So I got out my phone and began taking pictures of the chaos and emailing them to him in rapid succession, which definitely got his attention.
He called and said he felt horrible and would come home if I wanted him to, which wasn’t the fight I was looking for. It just made me feel bad. So now I was sick-ish, in a messy house, feeling terrible about being so mean, so I did the only thing I could. I sucked down a Gatorade and got to work.
I re-rearranged a room he had rearranged without my approval over the weekend and cleaned and mopped and picked-up until the downstairs was perfect. And then I collapsed in a pile on my bed and felt thankful the kids were napping. I had for sure overdone it and to prove nothing to anyone other than that I’m a raging lunatic when I’m mad.
And then he came home. Early. He creeped up the stairs, and I smiled, not so much a happy-to-see-you-smile as a smug grin that said, I won a game that only I was playing. He wisely said the house looked great.
“Anything else?” I inquired.
“Immaculate, actually, and it smells great too,” he cautiously and optimistically replied.
“YOU DIDN’T NOTICE ANYTHING ELSE?!”
I could tell he wished he had noticed something, but at that moment, staring into his desperate and slightly frightened eyes, I realized he wasn’t rude, he was honestly and completely oblivious. I had rearranged an entire room and the foyer, both of which he passed by on his way upstairs, and it didn’t even register. If that didn’t catch his attention, then there is no way I can expect him to notice the million little things I started off the day being mad about. I just wished I had known all that before I worked so hard.
Not to sound like some sort of fist-banging-feminist, but honestly they’re all the same. Every last one of them. Except yours offers to come home, and that’s HUGE!
They don’t notice what’s out of order, what needs to be done, or what we’ve acccomplished, but it’s not out of spite. I’ve finally figured out, they just don’t care until they run out of food or don’t have clean socks.
What is it with the rearranging of furniture?! I left for a weekend and Brandon had changed the direction of the living room rug, put the couches in a V, (that’s right a V!), and stuck the end tables in…corners? Weird. He was so hurt when I used my anger-induced super strenght to put it “all back to normal, like a sane person would arrange it.”
Bless their hearts.
Thank you for starting my day with a laugh!
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