Me: *see husband in office booting up Linux*
Him: *stands up to open blinds*
Me: *sneak up behind him*
Me: “I’m going to squeeze u titties…” [grab his boobs]
Me: “AND U-BUN-TU!!” [grab his butt]
Me: “Get it honey? Get it?! Come on. I need more for this one. That was genius.”
Him: *sighs the sigh of deep despair and regret* “God.” *sigh* “Yes. You’re horrible.”
You can almost hear his soul breaking.
The husband just upgraded his speakers. Which I am insanely jealous of, though I proceeded to waste exactly no time in putting the empty speaker boxes on my appendages and roboting around the house. (Present for him, present for me.)
(I don’t know what he thought was going to happen when he handed the empty boxes to me — what was I going to do, put them straight in the recycling like a grown-up? PFFFFT! What did we, just meet?)
The speaker boxes reminded me of one of the greatest childhood memories ever, and that is the memory of the empty refrigerator box. Explaining it to the hubby only drew a blank look (okay, a blank look and a smile), but I can’t be the only one who did this.
The Greatest Toy Ever you could have as a kid was the giant empty cardboard box from a new fridge. When I was a kid, I guess a lot of people on our street had to replace their fridges. Because empty refrigerator boxes were pretty plentiful in my corner of suburbia. A neighbour would put an empty box at the end of the curb, and you would RUN to get it and put it in the backyard.
Because.
With an empty fridge box, what you do is this:
1. Put the box on its side, lengthwise, on the ground.
2. Crawl in the box to the very end.
3. Heave your body against the sky-facing side of the box.
4. The box will tip a little skyward.
5. Repeat.
6. Repeat.
7. Repeat until the box suddenly hits the “tipping point” (LITERALLY! ZOMG!) and rights itself on its end.
8. You are now sitting at the bottom of a tall box, looking up at the clouds.
9. Magic.
I would spend hours in those boxes. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep in one more than once. I have a vague memory of trying to negotiate bringing a blanket and pillow out to spend the night out there. Bottom of a box, tunnel to a square of sky. Peace.
Goddamn I wish I had a refrigerator box right now.
Preface: The husband is having difficulties feeding himself today. This morning started with him texting me re: the current location of the last scone, which he couldn’t find. I was, at the time, about a kilometre away, so it is interesting that he thought I’d somehow be able to save him in this search.
Me: *Watching Brian Cox talk about the Large Hadron Collider.*
Him: *Suddenly appears dead centre of my office doorway.*
[Standoff]
Me: “Yes honey?”
[No response]
Me: “Quickly baby, I’m watching science here. There is science happening and I’m missing it. It’s science hour and I’m learning about science. Talk fast.
Him: “I WANT MY LUNCH!” *bangs sides of doorjam* *jumps up and down*
Him: *I-just-did-something-bad-face*
Me: “I see.”
Him: “LUNCH!”
Me: “And what would you like for lunch?”
Him: “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what I don’t want, I don’t want duck and green pea.”
(This is a reference to the cat’s current tin of food. As she has been a bit of a fuzzy little bitchface about her meal options lately.)
Me: “Yes dear.”
Him: *lies down in hallway outside my door*
Him: “I’ve seen this work for kitty.”
Resolution: We decided to go out for sandwiches. (Kitty stayed home. Last seen staring dejectedly at her duck and green pea breakfast).
FIN.
Me: *knocking on husband’s home office door*
Him: “Yeeees?”
Me: “The spa I go to for waxing has a new service called ‘The Cracker Jack’, where they wax your bum. And I think that’s a great name, but I think it would be better if it was called ‘Crack is Whack'”.
Him: “I’m glad you don’t own your own spa.”
IT WOULD BE THE GREATEST SPA EVER AND PEOPLE WOULD ASK FOR FRAMED COPIES OF THE SERVICE LIST.
Part of the beauty of working at home is that random weird crap can be spliced into your day.
But if your husband is also back to working at home, that random weird crap may suddenly be “observed” in a way that you have grown unaccustomed to. (From the proverb: If you don’t wear your pants in a forest, does anyone see?)
If you have been with your husband for 11 years, his knowledge of you can also border on “eerie”.
See this morning:
When I was looking at the bathroom door: “Don’t do a pull-up on that door frame.”
When my chair spun around and I almost put my foot through my laptop: “Is everything alright in there?” (how did he know?)
I’d start working in cafes more often, but they don’t let me do pull-ups on the door frames either.
So at this point you’re probably thinking to yourself “Hey, Chayday, if I was married to you, what sort of text messages could I expect to interrupt my otherwise highly productive day?”
Well, gentle reader, I shall tell you.
Sometimes I like my text messages to be:
a) multi-part, and
b) themed.
Take, for instance, my recent decision to make up and send HORRIBLE jokes to my husband.
These are especially excellent if you know that before The Husband, I was not huge on bodily function humour. (Which explains his response to Joke the First.)
Ahem.
Yesterday, 3:50pm:
Me: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
Him: “I dunno.”
Me: “Because he farted. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Him: “What have you done with my wife?”
Yesterday, 5:05pm.
Me: “Knock knock.”
(Weirdly, he didn’t reply to this, so I had to save it for today.)
Today, 2:51pm.
Me: “Knock knock.”
Him: “Who goes there?”
Me: “The chicken. He went outside to fart and forgot his keys.”
Me: “Can you believe I JUST came up with that?!”
Him: “Pure comedy gold.”
Agreed.
ETA:
Wednesday, 5:03pm.
Me: “Why did the chicken light a match?”
(long delay)
Me: “I ASKED YOU A QUESTION.”
Him: “Why?”
Me: “Because the power went out and he couldn’t see his Sudoku.”
Tuh-wist!!
“I want you to really, fully absorb what I’m wearing right now. Check this action out, head-to-toe.”
Earlier in the day the husband and I went out for lunch. He kept commenting on how nice I looked, though I felt quite “dressed in the dark” chic. Then I realized that I’d come straight from a meeting to lunch, and so was still dressed for work. As in, grown-up clothes.
I posited that just maybe I didn’t actually look that nice at all, but because he’d been coming home a bit late recently, he was only ever seeing me in Home Office Standard. That I had inadvertently calibrated his expectations to mismatched cargo pants and tank top as an “outfit”.
He, sweetly, denied any such thing and insisted I just looked really nice. Until this evening.
When, as we were chatting about why the cup he found on the counter was full of candies (I have my reasons), I suggested he take a minute to really, fully, look. To drink in the full extent of the mad style I treat him to around the house.
I will tell you what I was wearing. But first, hear it through his eyes:
“Oh… Huh. Maybe you’re right — maybe I am dazzled by you wearing normal clothes. Right now you look sort of like you found a pair of pants in the garbage, and you threw on a gunny sack [he’s half-Scottish so he sometimes he uses made-up words], and I don’t even know what to say about your feet… Your hair looks kind of nice.”
Here is the actual inventory of the visual feast I was providing: I was wearing the floopy bamboo chemise-y thing I was planning to sleep in, overtop of my rolled up cargo pants that I wear every day (because I got half-changed and then walked around the house for a while, as is my wont), and on my feet: my cow socks. My hair did look kind of nice.
So, though I think we can agree that what he meant to say about my feet is that they looked AWESOME, I rest my slovenly case. In the adorably love-is-blindspot of his eye.
In a not atypical evening, the wandering husband texted me to say he’d be taking the long way home (via music stores. le shock.)
I texted back with the wise suggestion that he take the long way home, with a pitstop in the township of roti. Population: us.
He concurred, and asked what I wanted. I said I didn’t care, so long as it involved meat.
He said his phone was running out of juice, and in the last gasps of his battery we said an overly dramatic farewell. “I’ll keep you in my heart always!” “I loooooooove youuuuu….*click*”.
When he took what my Hunger decided was too long (about 20 minutes), I followed up with a “FEED ME!” text. (<-helpful) He arrived home to find me sprawled in fake-corpse mode on the bed (I had died from hunger, obvs.) It was double strength fake looking, since I'd been standing by the front door when his key turned in the lock and I had to boot it down the hall to get in position.
“Nice top”, says he.
“Thanks”, mumble I into the sheets. (Tonight, I died belly-side down). I then suggested I was probably still alive enough for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
We ate rotis while watching an episode of Babylon 5 (this one starred Grima Wormtongue — what is up with the guest actors on that show…). At the end of the episode, Captain Stingypants decided not to dole out another one. “I still need to get some work done” says he. “I don’t care about what you need!” says I. (<-class) He then asked where I had put his socks. Or, more specifically, he said "King of Socks, what did you do with the socks?" He used my full title as I have taken to, on finding orphan articles of his clothing on the floor, putting them on my head and declaring myself the King of them. See also: "I am the King of Socks." "I am the King of Tshirts." And so on. (He'd watched the coronation vis-a-vis these particular socks shortly before the B5 credits). I informed him that I had put his socks in the hamper, as well as thanking him for using my full title (he also called me "majesty"). He then suggested that "you could come work on the floor of my office." (Me: "Um... thanks?") "If you're quick. Kitty might beat you to it." (She did, but I pulled the ol' nip toy bait'n'switch. Sucker. Every time.) En route to my floor office, we ended up in something couples with more "spacious" houses miss out on: a full-body hallway wrestling doorjam-bracing-knee-hooking-waistband-grabbin' tussle to see who gets to use the bathroom first (answer: me). Then I made him tea. Because I love him. The end.
When we moved here, I rolled our (motherfuckin’) stockpile of laundry quarters and loonies. A housewarming accomplishment gift to ourselves. No more schlepping laundry up and down 3 flights of stairs, instead we would have ensuite laundry and (motherfuckin’) espresso on-demand.
Oh. yeah.
The espresso machine is, quoth the husband: “The greatest thing we have ever purchased.”
But one espresso machine later, and I find myself still in the habit of separating out quarters and loonies. They are “special” change, and I just can’t mix them in with those plebby nickels and dimes.
So I’m still compulsively putting them aside. Dimes and lower go into the R2D2 piggy bank (no, really). And quarters and loonies go into the little plastic coin roll beds that sit beside it. To be filled and thwacked shut and taken to the bank, for who knows what adventure?!
The husband is on board with my sorting. But we had to balance out whether or not I take the change from his office. Since no one likes to find their stockpile of change suddenly missing. Our arrangement was that he will put quarters that are “ready to go” on the top of the laundry shelf. Done.
But on our way to bed one evening, he noticed me walk past the laundry shelf without picking up the quarters. “Sweetie? Didn’t you see I left quarters on there for you?”
Me: *pause*
Him: “Bunny?”
Me: “Um. Yes, I noticed.”
Him: “And? I thought you liked finding them there?”
Me: “… well, the thing is.. I was saving them for the morning.”
Him: “You were… what?”
Me: “Yeah, well… I really like finding quarters. They’re like a little surprise. So sometimes I save them until the morning. I like discovering them. It’s like a tiny treasure hunt.”
Him: “I see.”
Since this conversation, I have started to find quarters everywhere. Beside the printer. On my bookshelf. Beside my water glass. Balanced on the lamp’s switch. Placed perfectly on the round ends of the shelving unit.
And damned if it doesn’t make me incredibly happy every damn time. It’s like the whole house is a plum pudding, but without the troublesome pudding bit.
Man I love that guy.
