I just poured corn oil into the dishwasher’s soap dispenser. I refuse to take full responsibility for this even though I have taken two Benadryl, and enough Sudafed to clear the shnoz of a Clydesdale, because I suspect my wife has alphabetized the contents of our kitchen cabinets.
This reminds me briefly of a childhood friend’s grandmother who once sprayed Lysol in her hair thinking it was hairspray. This wasn't nearly as strange as his other grandmother who would say the word “grandma,” after everything she said. “Put on a coat, I’m cold. Grandma.” “What’s the matter with you crazy kids? Grandma.” She somehow felt the need to announce who had just spoken. As if we hadn’t just seen her lips move. Great, in one paragraph I've just insulted the two grandmothers of a good friend whom I have not heard from in some time, but next time I do will probably punch me in the nose. But I digress.
Alphabetized the cupboards? Trust me, this would not even make the top ten list of oddest household behavior in this family. To explain, I must unfortunately begin with my wife's mom. My mother-in-law is the NICEST WOMAN ANYONE HAS EVER MET, and I LOVE HER, and these aren’t ALL CAPS just because I may want to be intimate with my wife again one of these days, but she is truly a wonderful, very intelligent, very sweet, Christian woman. It’s just that there are a few little, let’s call them quirks, that you would never be aware of – unless you stumbled across the calendar on her refrigerator.
Well, you might pick up on the neatness thing, simply by visiting the house or opening her car door and wondering if it’s only been seconds since somebody removed the shrink-wrap. Or if you ever saw her diving off a chair and reaching out like Derek Jeter at short-stop to catch a minor crumb before it hit the floor – or the way she sets up a small tent around the children when they eat in the “dining room.” I don’t think she gets why they call it that. But the neatness thing, that you’ve seen before – this…you haven’t.
There is really no way to set this up any funnier than simply listing some of the daily entries for the month of June. Keep in mind, that some of these will become the reasons she may not be available on these days – also keep in mind that her beautiful daughter, grew up to become A THERAPIST!
“Mom, any way you can come watch the kids for the day next Saturday?”
“Oh honey, I don’t think so. I’m going to be very busy.”
Calendar entries:
June 15th – Rotate the couch pillows. June 16th – Change vacuum cleaner bag. I am not making this up…Well, the exact dates are fabricated – just in case, you see her at the grocery store when she should in fact be…Changing the shelf paper…which would be the June 19th entry or Dust the Lampshades on June 20.
Now, I could go on, but I don’t want to be cruel - I am just making the point, that my wife could certainly be alphabetizing the groceries.
There’s more. My father-in-law knows what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for the whole month. His wife has posted the daily menu for the next thirty days on a sheet of paper on their refrigerator.
Now, my mother-in-law is a wonderful cook, and he’s a lucky guy for this, but this man knows that three Wednesdays from now for lunch, he will most definitely be eating Turkey Henny Penny leftovers from Tuesday night’s dinner.
If you’ll recall, your school lunch program posted the hot lunch schedule and you likely posted it on your fridge. Well that was 20 school days - just lunch…….THIS IS 90 MEALS! Breakfast, Lunch AND Dinner scribbled IN PEN, 30 days (COUNT ‘EM THIRTY). I am not making this up. It is very possible that my wife has placed the Corn Oil “C” next to the Dishwashing Detergent, “D.”
To be fair, my wife doesn’t exhibit this behavior…. most of the time. She does however fly into some weird nesting ritual once every couple of weeks where she’ll suddenly just look up from whatever she was doing and decide that right now, at this very second, the hallway floor must be mopped or somebody will die. This will usually happen when I am fully engrossed in work email, but can actually happen any time that mopping the kitchen floor or brushing the toilet rim is not on my to-do-soon list.
Also to be fair, if my wife had in fact arranged items by letter, they would not have ended up in the correct order. I have here in front of me our telephone address book. Some time ago, she admitted that she somehow started on a wrong page and so continued with the entries, one letter previous.
Therefore if you were looking for Casey, you would look under “B.” But it gets more complicated. If you are looking for Doctor Ray Ellis, you can forget about the name, assume it’s under doctor and then of course, turn to “C.” Some of the babysitters are under “A” unless of course their names begin with “A” in which case, they’ll be under “R” for “Sitter.”
Sometimes I think I’ve got the hang of it, but then I’ll find something like this…I just noticed, that my neighbor Tori Catz (not her real name, but first name T, last name C) is in fact under “H” because her dog’s name which is written in quotes next to hers, is “Hershey” – no, I stand corrected – her name is under “J” because her dog’s name is “Hershey.”
So my wife is a little confused with the alphabet, but that has never caused much public embarrassment. It’s her confusion with the calendar that can be an issue. I once stood all dressed up next to her, as we rang the doorbell of new neighbor at precisely 8PM, holding a cheese platter the size of a Ford Explorer when the door opened and the young couple told us we were a week early.
“We’d have you come in and share all that beautiful cheese, but the party’s next week and we’re off to take my mother to get her feet scraped.”
What’s the etiquette?
I have a big dog, two cats, a rabbit and a hamster, a wife and three kids. I like the rabbit the best. He doesn’t even have a name – Well, I’m pretty sure it’s a “he” … because it doesn’t give me any trouble. When the dog is out or caged, he’s a “free-range rabbit, free to walk around the house. I suppose he’ll taste better this way.
The cats generally lead their own miserable little lives showing up at the end of the evening to sleep in my wife’s hair. One leaves for days at a time. I suspect he has a time-share somewhere or he’s had a spat with the other cat and then spends a few days drinking beers from my neighbor’s garbage, returning once he’s sobered up.
The hamster spends 23 hours a day standing up holding the same two metal bars like some rodent Gitmo prisoner chewing to get free. The difference is that this little rat won’t end up in Bermuda when his term is up.
None of these animals were my idea. My wife is a therapist.
Come to think of it, none of the kids were my idea either.
I ponder this, as I am alone in my own house in what feels like and may actually be the first time in almost 14 years. The boys are at grandma’s enjoying sitting on the newly rotated couch pillows, my wife is with my daughter at the hospital, I have sent the large dog to puppy camp, the outgoing cat is probably off on a binge somewhere, the auxiliary cat is licking his balls, and the rat is asleep.
My friend the rabbit looks up at me and stops twitching for a brief moment as if to say “Listen. No screaming, barking, crashing, fighting, no chaos. Just peace.”
For a minute, I feel like I can really breathe. And I smile thankful that I have no idea yet what I’ll be having for breakfast tomorrow.
