To Even The Score

Today was my 28th wedding anniversary! After ranting about Mike on the really bad, no good, horrible day, I feel sort of bad about announcing that I was plotting to kill him in his sleep. We have had two whole consecutive days of peaceful productivity on the renovation site and so to even the score, it is only fair that I even the score by listing some of the not so nice things about living with me that drives him to plot my demise from time to time. In all fairness, he probably has more just cause to do me in. (I may just be feeling a wee bit sheepish, now that my red oak floor is down and he is taking me out to supper for our anniversary) So here are some of the little details that drive him right up the wall...

1) I have never filed our income tax on time since the first year we bought the roofing company (1983 to be exact). I only do bookwork when threatened with jail time or when the banker calls and asks for a deposit. I hate paperwork! I think that if I was allowed by Revenue Canada to scrapbook our income tax, I probably would get more excited about it. But since they will not allow a picture of the John Deere tractor with a very cute, distressed tag (with an even cuter co-ordinating eyelet and fibre) that states the price we paid for it or a photo of the fertilizer truck going around in our field and excellent heartfelt journaling about the outrageous price we had to pay, I am doomed to a life of filing at least three to four months past the acceptable time.

2) I do not believe that when a gas tank is sitting squarely on "E" that it is empty. In my world "E" stands for "enough". You can almost see the veins pop in Mike's neck when he jumps into a vehicle that I have been driving and he notices that it is running on fumes. Some day this theory is going to get me into trouble, but I have never had to walk yet. See, it works!

3) I really irritate the hell out of him when I innocently ask "What's the plan?" when we are about to start something. To my way of thinking, a quick discussion about an action plan is in order whenever something is going to happen that I am not quite prepared for. A few minutes of getting everybody on the same page would be better that fixing the mess that I can create when I don't know what in the hell I am supposed to be doing. One would think that after 28 years, this simple question would not ellict the response that it is sure to bring. Funny thing is, I can not stop myself from asking! I have stood in the middle of the cutting chute, many a time, and debated in my head if it was worst getting run over by the pissed off mother cow, or asking Mike what the plan was. Actually, the cow laying me flat probably could not have been much worse than having Mike leap off his horse and come at me like a gorilla because I let the wrong cow through the gate. In my defense, most of our cows are black baldies and how was I supposed to know that you meant "that exact" black baldie (you dumb ass).

4) I color my hair - so what? Who would have ever thought that a simple trip to the hair dresser could cause such a ruckus. Yes, I admit it is not cheap, but I do not have fake boobs, plump lips or liposuctioned body parts. I just color my hair. Well, my dear husband has figured it out that at $100.00 per session, every five weeks for the last six years, I have spent $6240.00 on my hair and it was absolutely not necessary. Who in the hell do you think gave me those grey hairs in the first place????? (At least he has not figured out that price does not include all of the fancy shampoos and conditioners that I have bought to keep the color from fading)

5) Not thinking about what I am going to cook for supper until it is 6:00pm also gets me into alot of hot water. Nothing irritates him more than having to remind me what time of the day it is. Hey, who made me the chief cook and bottle washer? Where in the wedding vows did I state that I was willing to do all of the cooking and all of the bill paying? I'm too busy scrapbooking. Why don't you thaw something out if you know that I am not going to do it?

6) Crying in the bathroom is another no no. That is my go to place when I am feeling misunderstood, overwhelmed or mad. At least I go away. Crying in the living room would be so much better??? It reminds me of my most favorite movie "A League Of Their Own" when Tom Hanks bellows "There's no crying in baseball!" Maybe for some husbands, a sobbing wife would ellicit some compassion and an apology. For my husband though, it is like waving a red flag at a bull. Actually, as I have "been in the bathroom" several times during this renovation episode, I have developed another reason for going there. Where else can you get even by dipping a toothbrush in and out of the toilet?

7) Putting away just about anything that is Mike's that is sitting out is sure to cause havoc. I am known as "Mrs. Clean" and I must admit that I do earn that name. I can't stand to see a glass sitting by the water coooler, shoes on the mat in front of the door, a piece of paper on a table. It just bugs me. So I put it away. Again and again and again. I know that it has become a game in my house. Megan will put the pillows upside down on the couches, zipper side up just for the pleasure of seeing me turn them around. As soon as I leave the room she will flip them back. I have a photo frame in the hallway with shutters that close over the photo. She will close them. I will open them. She will close them. I have tried not to react and actually made it about one hour (after noticing that the shutters were closed), but that is as long as I could make it. I once had a rug in front of the front door that had tassels on the ends. Everytime someone would pass through the foyer, they would get out of line. After watching me one evening, straighten the tassels for about the fifth or sixth time, Mike got up from his chair, opened the door and threw the rug outside into the driveway -didn't say a word and went and sat down. From the look on his face, I knew better than to go and rescue my rug. Okay, so maybe I am "slightly" OCD, maybe I do press a few of his buttons occasionally.

I guess that living with me can't be all that bad. We have made it 28 years so far with out any domestic violence charges being laid. Possibly, could it be because I don't own a pick axe?