I woke up early Sunday morning, stumbled downstairs to our bar fridge to grab a sparkling water and reached into an empty bottom shelf…sans bottled water (or anything else for that matter).
There were a couple of bottles left when I went to bed, so this was odd; unless you’re married to my wife. After I headed to bed the night before, my wife stayed up, drank the last two bottles, and headed to bed herself, leaving behind an empty refrigerator…knowing that I start my day with an ice-cold bottle of sparkling water. What is that?
Making the quandary more of a conundrum is the fact that there was, only by happenstance, an entire case of Perrier just five feet away from the refrigerator, near the front door, having been brought into the home and left to rest there until it could make its’ way to the pantry. So, in other words, Christina could have literally taken two steps, grabbed a bottle or two of water, taken two steps back and plopped them into the fridge, and insured that there was cold water waiting for me. But alas, no cold water for me. What is that?
Lest you think I am in any way suggesting that my wife is inconsiderate or not in tune with, nor passionate about my needs, see yourself out. Far from it. This is just one of the many adorable quirks that makes Christina such a joy and adventure to live with; a favor I am certain that I return to her many times over. She’ll have to get her own soapbox for that.
Over the weekend, we recorded that latest episode of the properly titled pROBcast (a podcast hosted by a guy named Rob…get it?), in which you’ll get an earful about all things Robstina (That’s Rob and Christina mashed together…get it?). We touch on some of these “adorable” qualities, and maybe because of that, my subconscious allowed me to wake up ready to identify so many more…things that literally make me say aloud as I identify them…what is that? In other words, how can my incredibly intelligent, highly educated, passionately caring and sometimes doting wife do some of the things that she does? It’s like I’m living a “Family Guy,” skit that always ends with “That’s just Christina!”
After laboriously grabbing warm temperature water and heading to the kitchen to pour it over ice, I walked past the dogs’ water bowls only to see they were empty. No problem, I’ll just grab the empty plastic pitcher that we ALWAYS keep on the windowsill of the kitchen sink and use it to give them a refill. Oh, wait…Christina apparently used it to water her plants last night and now Rob gets to play “find the water pitcher,” by trapsing around the house, barely awake at 3:30 because my wife tends to just leave things at whatever spot she’s at when her task is done. What is that?
After spending far more time than it would have taken to simply pick up the water bowls and take them to the kitchen sink for a refill, the water pitcher was discovered in the bathroom…where there are no plants. What is that?
At this point, I just wanted to slowly wake up as opposed to diving straight into the day so I made my way to the living room sofa and began one of my favorite pastimes at Williams Manor; trying to figure out where my wife may have left the TV remote control. We have a coffee table with a basket that houses the various remotes, yet the basket is always empty. What is that?
And so the game begins…Could the remote be wrapped up in the blanket she was using last night? Maybe it’s in the console between sofa seats, of perhaps on one of the dog kennels…nope to all. I know it’s not in the cupholder that I use whenever we’re on the couch together because, like usual, she’s loaded that up with her various garbage from the night before like candy wrappers, tissues, and toothpicks. What is that?
Speaking of cupholders, the other one (the one she uses) is, as usual, occupied by a can of Sprite. Sometimes it’s Gatorade or the aforementioned Perrier, but one thing that’s always a constant is that whatever the beverage is…it’s barely drunk. My wife has this need to open a drink, take a few sips, and then leave it sitting out to warm, rot, go flat, and become a waste product. I’ve never kept track but I’m pretty sure we throw out more liquid beverages than we actually consume. What is that?
AH! The remote…there it is! On the almost always un-used side of the sofa near the window, as though she ended her evening by turning off the TV and then chucking the remote in the most random direction possible. What is that? Side note…there have been times that I have not found the remote and had to go elsewhere in the home to watch TV until her scrambled egg brain can remember where she left it. I’m pretty sure it was in the oven once. What is that?
The oven reminds me of the kitchen again, which makes me smile as I think about Christina’s need to always take her leftovers home from the restaurant which literally NEVER get eaten. I’m pretty sure I understand why she takes them, it’s to make sure the restaurant knows she did actually like the food, she’s just a light eater…but the need to then put them in the fridge, knowing she’s never going to touch them again…what is that?
She’ll do the same thing with foods she makes too much of. Out of nowhere, probably monthly, she’ll make an enormous batch of egg or tuna salad…something gross. She’ll put it in a Tupperware and eat it for a few days and then she’ll grow tired of it. Fine…I’ll ask, once observing the consumption has stopped, if I can throw it out and will get a resounding “NO, I’m still working on it,” even though I know that’s not true. And then it will sit in the refrigerator until it turns color, at which point it’s now too gross for her to deal with, and she calls in 1-800-gross-remover, AKA, her husband. What is that?
Similarly, my wife is incapable of ordering only what we want on Doordash. The other night, we wanted a pizza…and only a pizza…and we both knew that we were only going to eat pizza, but because she feels bad for the restaurant and the driver, she buys a salad as well, knowing it’s going to Scout the Labrador. What is that?
As I write this, I just lived a husband’s dream; the wife mea culpa. It’s a rarely talked about and even rarer experienced phenomenon in which the wife actually circles back to a previous disagreement in which she was wrong from the beginning, never acknowledged said wrongness, and then suddenly comes around. I’m sitting at my office desk typing, and in walks said gorgeous creature, having returned from the backyard where she’s been running and swimming the dogs. In her hand is a cell phone charger…MY cell phone charger which I knew she took from me weeks ago and never returned, leaving me charger-less. You see, we have about a dozen of these cordy creatures, and yet they all slowly disappear at the hands of my wife, never to be seen again. I’ve started hiding and carrying with me my one last known charger, only to have her swipe it in a moment of weakness, leaving me with a dying battery and a Defcon 1 level of frustration, leading to one of those really stupid marital arguments in which she swears up and down she never took the very thing I gave her…only to have her return, just now, giving me back the very thing she never took and apologizing. If I had time to orgasm, I would have.
So, the answer to the question, “what is that,” is multi-faceted. It’s my wife, it’s marriage, it’s fun, and it’s life. She drives me nuts, as do I her, and we love it.
As we discuss on the pROBcast, my wife and I argue and we disagree, and that’s healthy and normal. If you’re not arguing and disagreeing with your significant other, you’re doing it wrong. Fighting needs to be limited to almost never, but spirited teasing and disagreements are to be expected…and if what you’re arguing about is cell phone chargers, water pitchers, and remote controls, you’re on pretty solid ground.
I just took a break to head to the kitchen and refresh my drink…and sure enough, I’m reminded of my wife by one her classic calling cards. We had groceries delivered earlier which Christina was nice enough to bring in and put away…except for 3 totally random things left on the counter; hamburger buns (which have a drawer and we’re not having hamburgers tonight), a bottle of floor cleaner that goes under the sink, and a CVS sized receipt which goes in the garbage…all left out as if to be a flashing neon sign that says “Christina was here!” She does the same thing when she cooks…she’ll clean up and put away everything except for a few random things, as if she just couldn’t be bothered to put the halved onion in a Ziploc bag into the refrigerator, or throw away the empty can of tomato sauce, even though every single other thing she used has been cleaned and/or discarded.
What is that?
