Does anybody, besides me, get exasperated with husbands who can’t
find a goddamned thing? If
I hear, “Honey, where’s the juice?” one more time, I just know I’ll wind up
sitting at a table with my defense attorney and trying to plea bargain down to
a life sentence.
With
subtle variations, my day starts off like this: I’m sitting at the kitchen table,
toothpicks holding my eyes open, slurping down my first cup of coffee and
missing my mouth (if you can believe it), most of time, while watching the
birds packing it in at our feeder just outside the window. The Zen-like tranquility of this
quiet, sunny morning is about to be broken.
“Honey,
where are my boxer shorts?”
“In the
drawer, where I’ve been putting them for the last ten years.”
“Which drawer, though?”
At this
point, I heave a sigh audible on the 50-yard line of the nearest football
stadium, stomp down the hall, open the drawer and hand him his shorts.
“What
would I ever do without you?” he purrs.
“You’d
be pretty chilly,” I reply.
I go
back to my coffee. I have
just resumed my chair, when . . .
“Honey? Where are my loafers?”
“In the
closet.”
“Where in the closet?”
“On the
floor!”
“I don’t
see them.”
I pray
for restraint and stomp down the hall, yet again, open the closet, bend down,
pick up his shoes, and hand them to him.
“What
would I ever do without you?” he asks again.
Without
me?! I’m starting to
question the fact that he even lives here!
Then he
comes out to breakfast, open the fridge and . . .
“Honey?”
“Yessssssssss?”
“Where’s
the orange juice?”
“It’s
behind the milk.”
“No,
it’s not.”
Grinding
my teeth to nubs, I stomp over to the refrigerator, move the milk aside with a
dramatic sweep, and indicate the orange juice, much the way a German
Shorthaired Pointer would indicate a duck.
The
sarcasm is lost on him.
Now he
has the orange juice container in his hand and looks me right in the face and
asks, “Honey? Where are the
glasses?”
I hand
him his spectacles.
The
sarcasm is lost on him.
“No, I
mean to put the juice in,” he whines.
That
finally does it. Still in
my bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, I put on my coat, get in the car, and drive
away.
If you
happen to be passing by, you might want to drop off a gallon of orange juice
for my husband so he doesn’t get dehydrated.
Just
don’t put it behind the milk!
