Crime is Stupid, But Not As Much as My Wife

There has been a slight up tick in crime in our area lately, specifically car break-ins. Accordingly, our neighborhood association sent around a letter with tips to prevent them.

One of the tips is to always park your car in the garage or at least as close to the house as possible.

Coincidentally, I am currently doing some work on the house, so half our garage is now devoted to tools and my work area. I cannot park my car in the garage.

Here's where the trouble starts.

I usually just park up close to the house next to a light post next to the drive way like this:

This way, I can walk out my front door and easily around to the driver's side while making sure the car is well lit.

This is unacceptable to my wife. The letter clearly stated "as close to the house as possible". So she does just that whenever she drives my car:

She will even move my car closer after I get home from work. I have told her repeatedly that this is both unnecessary and annoying. In this position, I have to walk through the dirt or wet grass to get around to the other side. It also blocks the sidewalk from anyone walking up.

It does not matter. She will not be deterred from her crime fighting.

My Wife, the Luddite

I've mentioned before that my wife is afraid of computers. This fear apparently extends to all electronics.

Example 1. We keep getting letters from our local electrical utility offering us a free, digital thermostat to replace the old, ugly rotary one we have. I'm all in favor of this, but my wife will have none of it.

"What's the big deal?", I asked, "It works the same and looks better."

"But I want to be able to control the temperature!", she barked.

"You still can; you just use the buttons to put in the temp you want. Plus, you can program it to change the temperature when we're not home."

"No! I want to do it!"

"You still can--"

"NO! I JUST DON'T LIKE THEM!!"

Example 2. We don't have cable, so I had to get some of those digital converters to use on the TVs and mount an outdoor antenna. I think the picture looks great, but she hates them.

Because you have to turn the TV on with one remote, and do everything else with another now.

That and sometimes the picture goes a little "pixelly".

On the upside, I'm slowly talking her in to getting cable. I can't wait to show her how a DVR works.

Too Cold To Think

With the recent cold snap, my wife is conflicted by the desire to stay warm and her paranoid belief that we are spiraling into financial doom. She has been keeping the thermostat very low to keep our gas bill low. She finally relented, though, and turned the heat up a bit:

"I noticed that when I turned the heat up, it got a lot warmer!", she told me one evening.

You think?

It's the Most Idiotic Time of the Year

We have have a small tree in our front yard that we hang ornaments for Christmas. The tree is getting bigger, obviously, so my wife got some more ornaments for it. No problem so far.

When I got home from work one day, she asked whether I could not put those up on the tree as well.

"Not right now.", I said.

"Why not?", she asked indignantly. She immediately assumes any refusal of work on my part is due to laziness.

"Because it's dark out.", I replied.

"So?", still indignant.

"I. Can't. See. The. Branches.", I said.

"Oh."

I've Got a Secret

My wife wasn't necessarily being an idiot on this one; rather, this is an issue that probably exists in most marriages.

My job allows me the flexibility to work from just about anywhere. I am paid very well for what I do, but there is often a cognitive disconnect for my wife between the lifestyle we enjoy and what I have to do to sustain it.

In particular, she is particularly maddened by the time I spend on the computers. During the evenings, after the children go to bed and everything is buttoned up for the evening, I gravitate toward toward our home office. Sometimes I am working; sometimes I am not. Were you to look in on me, you would be just as likely to see me working on a report for work, or surfing the web. I am able to manage my time with this pretty well. During the same period of time, my wife will either be sleeping or watching TV, but it has always bothered her greatly that I was in there.

She will actually yell at me to "get off the f***ing computer!", to which I will respond "and do what?". Her answer is usually "I don't know!", "Anything!", "Work on something around the house!", or something equally helpful.

So the other night, I decided to just sit with her and go slack-jawed watching TV with her instead. The result was amazing.

She began to talk to me. Really talk to me. She is anxious about our money given the state of the economy and what she hears on the news (we're actually doing okay). She wonders if we will be able to making the big, necessary purchases coming up (we will). She eventually drifted off to sleep, and I went back to the office.

What's so amazing about that? Through all her griping and screaming, her real desire was being drowned out: all she ever wanted was to to talk to me; to have me reassure her and let her know that I had a confident view of what we need to do as a family.

So why did she not just ask me for what she wanted? Men have pondered this for generations, and there is only one answer: insecurity. To come to me and ask to speak to me would somehow debase her, sublimate her. What if I said no? Who am I to deny her? Husbands and wives are equals. She shouldn't have to ask. I should just know. And this is something wives have struggled with for generations.

To the women reading this, don't be afraid to ask for these things. He is, after all, just another human being. He deserves the same respect you would give anyone else. If your family is like ours, your husband is wrestling with the responsibility of supporting an entire family. You may not understand his priorities, but he does have them. Don't be afraid to boost him up. My wife once told me that she rarely complimented me because she did not want me to "get a big head". Why? I suppose she thought it would elevate me above her in the marriage. But marriage is not a battle to see who is better; it is a relationship and you are a team. Boost him up, and he will work even harder for you.

And husbands, listen to your wives, not just what they say but also what they don't. Just let them talk, and the truth will be revealed.

Sometimes, It's Not So Cute

A lot of these stories are funny.

This one is not. My wife often lacks the ability to appropriately prioritize things.

I was spending the evening with the kids recently when my wife was working a part-time job. I was trying to help my daughter change into her pajamas when, in the process of trying to escape, she slammed her face into my knee.

She started crying so I picked her up to calm her down. That's when I noticed the blood. I quickly surmised it was coming from her nose so I trotted over to the bathroom, grabbed a wet washcloth, and held her head back while applying some mild pressure.

She calmed down, and I cleaned her face and hands off (she had been instinctively rubbing her nose during this process). Within twenty minutes she was back to normal and playing happily. Both kids went to bed without incident.

When my wife got home later, I started to recount the story.

"...and I looked up and saw the blood on her face, my shirt, her clothes..."

"Whoa", she interrupted, "there's blood on HER NEW OUTFIT?!"

"Well, yes."

She starts to simmer and make exasperated noises.

"Wait, you're not mad at me are you. Are you saying it's my fault that her clothes are stained? Don't you even care how she's doing?", I continued.

"Just shut up.", she replied.

She spent the rest of the evening cleaning the few drops of blood out of our daughter's clothes.

Square Peg, Round DVD

The other day, I turned on the stereo for the kids to listen to in their playroom. I noticed there was already a disk inserted, so I figured she had already been listening to something.

The player refused to start however. Upon ejecting the disk, I realized she had been attempting to play a DVD in the CD player.

I supposed I could chalk it up to confusion, since we sometimes play CDs on our DVD player, but this particular stereo is about seventeen years old.

Scary Technology

Recently, my wife and I stopped off at the grocery to pick up a few things. She was just picking some stuff up for herself, and I was tagging along.

As we approached the checkouts, she breezed past several of the kiosks where you can check yourself out, and chose to wait in line elsewhere, even though she only had a few items.

"Why don't you just go to one of the self-checkout things?", I asked her.

"Those things scare me.", she replied.

I could understand this if we were in our eighties, but we are quite a bit younger.

Missing the Onramp to the Information Superhighway

I've spoken before about my wife's fear of computers and technology in general. Specifically, anything designed in the last twenty years is like kryptonite to her. So our conversation last night surprised me.

She has managed to somehow join a social networking site (ala. Facebook or MySpace) run by her college sorority.

"Could you put some pictures on my site?", she asked casually.

"Huh?"

"Could you put some pictures on my site?", she repeated.
"A lot of my friends have pictures of their kids and stuff on their sites, so I want to put some on mine."

"I can help you get started, but you will have to do it.", I replied.

"Why, can't you get to all my stuff on the computer?".

This is a persistent misconception. She has her own account on our computer, and she is convinced that I have unfettered access to everything she has or does. I have told her repeatedly that if I wanted to I could, but I do not, in fact, know her password, so I cannot get into her e-mail or anything else. Furthermore, I explained, I do not have access to her site.

She sighed disappointedly. You just can't have it both ways.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along

I actually have it pretty good. My wife and I do not fight about a lot of things. We agree on budgeting, how to raise the kids, religion, politics, etc. But there is one thing we do not see eye to eye on.

Time.

More to the point, my wife has a distorted view of it, especially how I spend mine. Basically, if she does not understand what I am doing, or has no interest in it, it must be a waste of time.Here is my typical day:

5:30 AM - 6:00 AM - Wake up, shower, get dressed.
6:00 AM - 6:30 AM - Eat breakfast, read the news, check e-mail, etc.
6:30 AM - 6:45 AM - Brush teeth, comb hair, etc.
6:45 AM - 7:00 AM - Pack up, leave for work.
7:10 AM - Noon - Work (talk to customers, meet with coworkers, write reports).
Noon - 12:30 PM - Lunch (soup at desk).
12:30 PM - 5:00 PM - Work (see above).
5:00 PM - Leave work.
5:20 PM - Arrive home.
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM - Prepare, serve, and clean up dinner for everyone.
7:30 PM - 8:15 PM - Put children to bed.
8:15 PM - 9:00 PM - Help wife with whatever she needs, unless she just wants to watch TV.
9:00 PM - 11:00 PM - My only free time during the day. Work on home improvements, watch TV, browse web, play a game on the computer (rare).

Pretty normal, right? Here is how my wife, the stay-at-home mom, perceives my day:

4:30 AM - 6:00 AM - Wakes up, showers, gets dressed very loudly.
6:00 AM - 7:00 AM - Plays on computer.
7:00 AM - Abandons the family. Wakes up children on the way out. Leaves garage door open to tempt serial killers.
7:30 AM - 5:30 PM - Arrives at "work". Plays on computer, chats with friends, eats at expensive restaurants, goes shopping, plays on computer, watches movies, naps, plays on computer.
5:30 PM - 6:15 PM - Overwhelmed with guilt, decides to return to family. And his computer.
6:15 PM - 7:30 PM - Grudgingly feeds something to children. Otherwise ignores them and watches news, wishing there were a computer in the kitchen to play on.
7:30 PM - 7:40 PM - While playing on the computer, yells at children until they are too frightened to leave their rooms.
7:40 PM - 1:00 AM - Plays on computer. Listens to the gentle sound of the house falling apart.

Based on the above, can you guess what we argue about the most?

Suffering From Withdrawal

One of the greatest inventions of modern society is direct deposit. I have used this in just about every job I have had. For part-time jobs that didn't have it as an option, it was a huge annoyance to have to deposit my paycheck manually.

For my wife, it eats into her life.

My wife still works the odd babysitting job because she is convinced we need every extra penny possible. She is also convinced that she must go to a teller to deposit her checks. This causes no end of turmoil.

It's Friday. I'm just coming home from work.

"I have to run to the bank before they close!", she will blurt out.

"Why?", I'll ask. I know why.

"I have to deposit my checks!"

"So? Just deposit it at the ATM.", I reply.

"But I need some cash back!" She's getting nervous. The clock is ticking.

"So? Just withdraw some from your account at the same time.", I calmly reply.

"No! I can't do it that way. It's my OCD!", she admits. I don't know that she has ever been diagnosed with OCD. That is just what she calls this behavior.

This is what annoys me the most. She has occasional moments of clarity. She knows that she does things that don't make sense, but she refuses to address it most of the time.

Can't Make The Connection

A recent storm finally took its toll on one of the older trees in our backyard. One of the larger limbs broke off one morning and knocked out our cable and phone lines.

My wife called me later in the day fuming.

"What is wrong with this #&%@#! computer!"

"What's the problem?", I replied.

"I can't check my @#$%! e-mail!", she continued to scream.

"We have no phone service right now.", I calmly stated.

"So?!" she shot back.

"That's how we get the internet.", I finally said.

"Oh."

Piece of (Cup)Cake

My son recently had a birthday, so my wife decided to get this really cool cake of cup cakes. Basically, the bakery takes a bunch of cup cakes, arranges them together, and decorates it like a sheet cake. The one my wife picked out had this neat, and somewhat elaborate, toy placed on top as part of the decoration.

So far so good.

She asked if I could pick up the cake on the way home from work. When the lady behind the counter handed me the cake, she also handed me the toy, disassembled, in a plastic bag.

"You'll have to put the decoration together yourself, since it is too big to fit on the cake with the cover on.", she said.

"No problem!", I replied.

When I got home, I explained this to my wife.

She. Freaked. Out.

"What?! I don't know how to put it together!"

I opened up the bag and looked at the parts. There were four pieces.

"Is there a picture?! Are there instructions?!"

There weren't instructions, but the way the pieces were shaped made it fairly obvious how it all fit together.

"Did you see what it looked like?! I don't remember! You need to go back up there and have them put that together and hurry! I don't know how long they're open tonight!"

"Got it.", I finally said.

She stopped her tirade and stared at me. "How did you know how to put it together?"

"I just...did. I just, you know, looked at it and figured it out."

"No, I don't know.", she replied.

Story of her life.

I'm not alone

Just a quick one, but not from my wife.

The other day, my brother's wife (who has a bachelor's degree in business) asked me if she would need a passport to go to Hawaii.

A Loin By Any Other Name

I have mentioned before that I do all our cooking. Naturally, I also do most of the grocery shopping. When our schedules do not allow for this, she goes. Lucky for me, she had some time to go today.

That's when it started.

She has called me called me three times today within ten minutes with various food questions. But this one was my favorite.

M: Me, trying to work.
W: The wife, checking out the tenderloins.

W: "So what's the difference between these two? This one is called 'Beef Filet' and the other one is called 'Pork Tenderloin'."
M: "One is beef and the other one is pork."
W: "Oh."

A Sink is a Sink. Ya Think?

My wife loves working on our house. Check that. My wife loves it when I work on the house. She doesn't quite understand all the planning involved with this.

She decided one day that she wanted to replace the sink in one of our bathrooms. So she went out, found one she liked, bought it, and brought it home.

"What is this?", I asked.

"A sink for the bathroom. I was sick of looking at the one in there." (I agreed. It needed replacing.)

"How did you know what size to get?", I asked.

"What?"

"How did you know what size to get?", I repeated. "Sinks come in different sizes. We need a smaller one than usual since the cabinet is kind of small."

"Oh." This is the sound she makes when the light goes on in her head.

As I figured, the sink she bought was too big, so she had to take it back. I also had to stop the other work I was doing to go with her and find the right size.

Whatever You Want Is Fine...Unless It's Not

Me: " So, what would like for dinner tomorrow night? Grilled steaks or spaghetti and meat sauce?"

I usually have to ask my wife this since she is a very picky eater, whereas I will eat just about anything.

Her: "Why do you need to know now?"
Me: "So I can take the right meat out of the freezer to thaw."
Her: "Oh. What ever you want is fine."
Me: "Okay! Steaks it is."
Her: "Oh. Really? What about spaghetti?"

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Stupidity

I wrote a previous entry about the fact that my wife refuses to wear her glasses except when she is driving or watching TV. This forces to constantly search for them since she just sets them down when they become uncomfortable.

It finally happened. She lost them for good. We had gone out one day, and she did not realize they were missing until we got home.

We returned to the same place the following week. She actually wanted to patrol the parking lot and look for them. Obviously, we did not find them.

She has finally decided she needs new glasses. She asked me a question I did not expect.

"What do I do?"

"What do you mean?", I replied.

"How do I get new glasses?"

"Well, just call an eye doctor, make an appointment, get the new prescription, and then take it to LensCrafters or something."

"How do I do that?", she still asked.

My head began to hurt at this point. "Do what?", I said.

"Make an appointment." she said, matter-of-factly.

"Wha...How have you gotten glasses in the past? How did you see an eye doctor?"

"My mom made the appointment."

I remember when she got her last pair of glasses; it was about ten years ago. We were still dating, and she was well out of college. Yet she needed her mom to do it for her. What is even more bizarre is that she can make appointments for other things like doctor and dentist visits just fine.

Incidentally, she has needed a new prescription for a while, even before she lost her glasses. The only reason she has refused to go is because she doesn't like it when they perform the glaucoma test and puff air into her eyes.

Get a Leg Up

"Help!", she screamed. This could only mean that once again she had gotten herself into some inescapable predicament.

I tracked her voice to the top of our basement stairs where I was greeted not by my wife, but the bottom of a folding card table with all its legs extended.

We were preparing for a little Independence Day party and needed to bring some things up from the basement. Like the table.

She was leaning backwards trying not to fall while simultaneously keeping the table legs from scratching our newly painted basement walls. She found out too late that the table would not fit through the door to the first floor without folding the legs and was trying valiantly to wrestle it through.

As she held the table and I folded the legs down, I asked her why she just didn't fold the legs up first.

"That's too much work!", she barked.

High & Tighty

In the summer I like to get my hair cut fairly short. I told my wife this as I was leaving for the barber recently.

She jokingly meant to ask me if I was going to get a "high and tight" ala the U.S. Marines, but actually said "tighty-whitey" ala the underwear.