Laundry Mishaps

I've explained before how my wife is directionally challenged. This is on takes the cake.

My wife had the occasion to have to go to a laundromat to wash one of our large comforters. I found her a laundromat fairly close to the house that i knew she could reach easily.

Or so I thought.

Me: "Okay, I found a laundromat. Do you know where the Uptown Cafe is? The laundry is in the same shopping center. It's called Roundabout Cleaners." (It's just a couple of miles from our house)

Her: "Yep!"

Without much fanfare, or directions, she left. Some time later, I get the phone call I knew was coming.

Her: "Where is this place? What's it called?

Me: "Roundabout Cleaners. Where are you?"

Her: "I'm on Swan Creek Road!"

Me: "Um, why? That's no where near the Uptown Cafe."

Her: "I thought you said Swan Creek Cafe!"

This was a quick lie by her. What really happened, I think, is that she had just been to that part of town the previous day. Muscle memory took over and she drove there without thinking.

Her: "How do I get to the laundry?!"

She can get to places from our house, but has trouble connecting one to the other directly. So I stayed on the phone with her, guiding her to her destination, turn by turn. Once she found it, we hung up.

Five minutes later, the phone rang again.

Her: "I forgot my laundry detergent."

My Wife the Goldfish

My wife will excuse some her apparent stupidity on self-diagnosed ADHD. In short, she gets distracted very easily and can't track well in a normal conversation. Even one she started.

Her on the phone with me: "Okay, I'm leaving to pick the kids up and take them to the park."
Me: "Okay. How long are you going to be there?"
Her: "Up where?"
Me: "The park. How long are you going to be at the park?"
Her: "Oh! I don't know."
Me: "I was just thinking I could meet you there after I get off work."
Her: "Meet us? Meet us where? Just come home; I'm not taking the kids back out after we get home."
Me: "I. Know. I mean I could meet you guys at the park if you were still there when I get off work."
Her: "Oh."

Duuuuh...Which way did he go?

I recently joined a gym so I could go running regardless of the time of day. I usually run in our neighborhood, but it's dangerous after dark, since we have very few street lights. Now I run at the gym exclusively.

One evening, as it was getting dark, I was dressed in my gym clothes and said to my wife, "Do you mind if I go running?"

She said no, but perhaps I should have been more clear.

At around 9:30 PM, I had just finished a four mile run when my phone rang. It was her.

Me: "Hey! What's up?

Her: "OH MY GOD! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Me: "I'm at the gym. I just finished my run."

Her: "OH MY GOD! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! I ALMOST CALLED 911!"

Me: "I told you I was going running. Remember?"

Her: "I THOUGHT YOU WERE RUNNING OUTSIDE, AND IT WAS DARK, AND YOU'VE BEEN GONE FOR AN HOUR! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

Me: "But I never run outside at night. You know that. That's why I joined the gym."

Her: "I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

I make sure to tell her exactly where I am now.

Me-PS Part 2

I have mentioned at length in other posts that my wife becomes incredibly frazzled behind the wheel of a car. This is especially true at highway speeds.

We live in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area. My wife recently had to drive downtown, and naturally, she came to me for help.

Her: "Okay, how do I get downtown?"

Me: "The same way as always. Take I-XX west into downtown."

Her: "I thought that was closed?"

She was correct, to a point. Part of a major interstate is temporarily closed where we live for major road work. Through traffic is routed around the closure, but one can still access the downtown area since the closure is on the opposite side of the city from us. I explained this to her, just as I have every single time she has to go downtown.

Her: "Are you sure?"

Me: "Positive. I go that way all the time."

Her: "Okaaay."

Ten minutes later, she calls me from the road.

Her: "I missed the exit onto I-XX west. The sign said the road was closed."

Me: "Did the sign say the road was closed past downtown?"

Her: "Yes."

Me: "Then it was okay to go that way. Just like we discussed."

Her: "Oh. So what do I do now?"

We spent the next twenty minutes on the phone as I guided her, turn by turn, to her destination.

Lots of gift, but math's not one of them.

My wife recently got a gift card from someone, and she asked me to look up the balance online.

Me: "It was ten dollars."

Her: "Cool! I have another one for the same store for $20, so that's like 35 bucks!"

Me: "Thirty."

Her: "Oh. Right."

Hello. What?

My phone rings. It's her. As usual.

Me: "Hello?"

Her: "Oh, hey. I forgot why I called you. Let me call you back." Click.

She never called back.

The Education Train Stops Here

My wife and I both acknowledged when we had children that they would reach a point in their education where my wife would no longer be able help them with their homework. It would seem we have reached that point with our oldest child.

My wife is frequently baffled by his homework, and she must ask me whether he is doing it correctly, even while he is explaining it to her.

Our oldest child is in the second grade.

Don't Do Dish; Do That

My wife and I go through this little dance every couple of months.

Since I stay up later and get up earlier than she, I will usually load and run the dishwasher before I go to bed. How it gets unloaded is another story.

Her: "Thanks for running the dishwasher, but can you put the dishes away before you leave in the morning. It would save me a lot of time trying to get get the kids ready."

Me: "Sure, but I thought you said the noise woke the kids up too early?"

Her: "I don't care about that. I just need some help."

A few weeks go by...

Her: "Thanks for putting the dishes away, but just let me do it. The noise woke the kids up way too early, and they were driving me nuts."

Me: "Okay, but I thought you said you were too busy to mess with it?"

Her: "I don't care about that. I just need some time to my self in the morning."

A few more weeks go by...

Her: "Thanks for running the dishwasher, but can you put the dishes away..."

I swear we have gone back forth on this six or seven times just in the last couple of years.

Using the Me-PS

My wife decided to take our kids on a little trip to a children's museum a couple of hours away. The problem is that she left with no map, no plan and no clue, other than to ask me how to-sort-of get there. That part was actually easy for her.

The problem was that she could not get home. The city she went to is composed of some one-way streets, so she could not return exactly the way she came. She could not comprehend the directions she was getting from the locals, so she proceeded to call me every few minutes as she inched her way back. I was in meetings all day and could not talk her all the way through. At one point, she even left the city successfully, but was headed in the complete opposite direction.

She ended up arriving home some two hours later than expected. I mentioned getting a GPS, but she said, "Oh, that's too much trouble."

May Quickies

From a phone conversation just now:

"I just saw a cute top I want to get. Oh, and our daughter has a 104 fever and probably needs to go to the doctor."

Nice priorities there.

And later:

"So the dog was really whiny and crying earlier, and I couldn't figure out what his problem was. Then I realized I clipped his leash to his ear instead of his collar."

How do you miss that badly?

Quickie: Bonehead at the Bank

She just called me this morning to explain to her how to cash a check at a drive-up ATM. I had to walk her through:

1. Putting her card in.
2. Entering her PIN.
3. Putting the check in the envelope.
4. Putting the envelope in the right slot.
5. Doing a new, second transaction to withdraw money.

The Temperature's Low, But Higher Than Her I.Q.

Another result of my wife's ongoing paranoia about our finances is our fighting over the thermostat. Right before she goes to bed, she will lower the thermostat to the low 60's to save energy overnight. There is only one problem; I typically stay awake about two hours longer than she. To combat this, I often turn the dial back up to the high 60's. As a side note, she is also deathly afraid that our furnace will break in the dead of winter, and we'll all freeze to death.

One night she got up around 10:30 and noticed the furnace was running and looked at the thermostat.

She. Freaked. Out.

"What are you doing?! You can't turn it up that fast! You'll break it!" she screamed.

"Break what?" I replied.

"The furnace! You have to turn it up gradually just until it turns on!"

"Do you know how this works? It's not going to make the furnace come on 'harder'. It just turns the furnace on and leaves it on until it reaches the temperature and then turns off."

"Yeah.", she said slowly.

"But that's not what you said. You thought that the furnace would blow itself up trying to get up to temperature. They aren't designed that way...", I explained.

"Whatever.", she fumed.

Close Minded

My wife had just finished doing the Facebook thing on our laptop.

"Okay, I'm going to bed. How do I turn the computer off", she asked.

"Oh, just close the lid. That'll do it.", I replied.

She paused. "I don't know how to do that."

Her Brain is in Park

My wife and I went into the city to visit one of the museums with the kids. As usual, she drove, and I navigated since she usually has no idea where she is going.

She pulled into a parking spot in a garage next to the museum, but the car was a little cockeyed, so I hopped out of the car to help her get lined up. She started waving at me frantically and pulling on the gear shift.

"It won't go out of park!", she yelled.

I climbed back in the car, glanced at the dash, and told her how to fix the problem.

"You need to turn the car back on."

See, It's Not Just Me

A member of my wife's immediate family recently underwent an extended hospital stay for some lengthy procedures. Prior to their admission, the family was briefed on what the stay would entail.

"I'm really pissed off right now.", she said one day, hanging up the phone.

"What's up?", I asked.

"It's my family. They won't tell me anything about [her family member]."
She continued. "My mom even said I wouldn't understand all the medical terms. It's like they think I'm an idiot or something."

"Hmm.", I replied.

She Needs to Go With Him...

Our son recently started back to school. My wife was telling me about how the first day went.

Her: "Oh. And I added forty more dollars to his lunch account. He only had seventeen in there. I don't how much that is."

Me: "..."
Me: "Fifty-seven."
Her: "Oh."

The Key to Stupidity

"Have you seen my car keys?", she asked me the other day.

"No.", I answered wearily. One of my wife's never ending frustrations is her inability to find her personal items. She has wasted countless hours searching for things. I have suggested frequently that she pick a spot to put her things, and force herself to put them there when she gets home. But in her ADHD-like fog, she just drops them at random.

"Did you look in the car?", I asked. I will admit she will often drop her purse and keys in the passenger seat of her car to avoid this dilemma, but it causes an obvious problem. And yes, I have had to unlock her door for her when her locks unexpectedly.

"Oh!" She dashed to to the garage and returned.

"Well, I found 'em. They were still in the ignition, and the car was on."

Let's review.

She left her keys in the car.

In the ignition.

On.

Now I should point out that the engine was not running. She had just left them in the accessory position. So at least she had not poisoned us all.

Yet.

Do As I Say, Not As I Duh.

The other night, things were just calming down. The kids were in bed, and I was settled in to watch some TV in our home office. As usual, I had my laptop in front of me but wasn't using it.

My wife came waltzing into the room.

"Get off Facebook!", she said, half-joking.

"I'm not even using the computer; I'm just watching TV.", I replied.

"Well, good. People that are on Facebook all night are really pathetic."

My techno-challenged wife recently upgraded her online repertoire to include Facebook along with her 10-year-old Hotmail account. After her outburst, she left to go to bed, or so I thought.

Just a couple of minutes later, she came in again. To update her Facebook status.

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.