I have been with my husband for 15 years. Some of those years have been magnificent, some have been poo and some have been a nice background of smooth sailing with the occasional tidal wave. One thing we can agree on is that we are constantly learning how to navigate this whole “living with another person” thing. Throw in two kids and the insanity and frustrations are inevitable.
Every now and then (read: every 3 to 4 days) something comes up that convinces me that I should start an adult learning centre for men and offer courses so they don’t drive their spouses bananas. I say this along with full admission that he could very well write his own course book about me, but this is MY blog and I rarely allow guest writers, soooo …. My guess is that his seminars would include such topics as “How to Find Your Car in ANY Parking Lot,” “How NOT to Piss Your Pants When You Jump on the Trampoline With the Kids” and “Nagging … Art Form or Nuisance?”
Below would be coursework for Semester 1 in the “How to Live With a Woman Without Driving Her Crazy” Diploma.
HT-101: House tour. Conducted every 2 weeks in the off chance that I completely rearranged the entire house while you were out playing soccer with the kids. We have both LITERALLY lived in the same house every day for the last 12 years, why is it that I’m the only one who knows where the Scotch Tape is?
DW-101: How to load a dishwasher. You know that enormous pot that you boiled eggs in this morning? It takes up a whack load of space and could very easily be cleaned by hand. Get it out of there and put in the four cereal bowls and four plates from last-night’s-dinner-that-are-still-on-the-table-because-I-worked-a-night-shift instead. This way, I only have to wash the pot and not those eight dishes. Yes, so that I don’t have to do that. K, thanks!
QA-101: Holding your Questions Until . . . This is a fun one! Bring the kids! Learn the most inappropriate times to ask me questions so that you can avoid encouraging me to lose my $h!t. For example: when I’m in the shower behind a locked door (yes, it’s locked for a reason), when I’m on the phone (no, you’re not the only people in my life), when I’m working and I explicitly tell you to wait until I finish writing my sentence (explicitly!).
HW-101: How to Complete Housework Without Expecting a Medal. We are a family of four. We all have responsibilities, even the kids have chores. If you’d like, we can make a column for you on the chore chart so you can get your own gold stars but I do NOT need a list when I come home from work or running errands detailing all the things you completed that day. I’m glad that the house is still standing and the children still have all appropriate body parts, but guess what? I work from home a lot, don’t have daycare for our toddler and I do these things too. Where are my gold stars? That’s right – in the bottom of my bottle of Cabernet. Make yourself a drink and get ready for tomorrow.
Please be aware that it is impossible to actually earn the diploma in “How to Live With a Woman Without Driving Her Crazy.”
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