Extreme Marriage: Our Edition
(It’s a long one, so grab your coffee and get comfortable.)
It all started with that idiot family who hoaxed the whole world a few weeks back with the balloon thing. It’s all over now and I hope that whack job dad sits in prison for the rest of his life for what he put everyone me through. But, before all that…
…I was working away, minding my own business, doing all the Very Important Todd Things I do everyday, when my neighbor knocked on the door and, opening it, met me with this: “Turn on your TV.”
Okay…”turn on your TV,” since 9/11 has no other potential meaning besides Something Very Bad Is Happening Right now, and my brain went immediately into BioNuclearWhereAreTheKids mode. So turning on the television, I saw what the rest of the country saw: that stupid balloon FLYING across the sky with (as far as I and every other parent watching at the moment was concerned) MY SIX YEAR OLD SON INSIDE.
And that’s all the attention I’m giving that lunatic fringe family, because it only served as reason to throw a cocktail party. Which went like this:
Very Cool Friend on Phone: “Are you watching this?!”
Me: “Yes!”
Very Cool Friend: “I can’t take it anymore!”
Me: “Neither can I! It’s high time we threw a cocktail party!”
Very Cool Friend: “Yay!”
And so we did. In fact, we even put it on the calendar right then and there instead of letting it slip away into one of those Oh Let’s Get Together Sometime things which we all say and never mean (but usually do mean them when we say them), we just mostly never actually follow through and do the actual getting together, no matter how great an idea it is when we say it.
But this time we did. Right on the spot. Because we were amped up and Parent-Panicked and in need of good friends and all the light-hearted banter and good clean fun that comes with cocktail parties.
I sit here now, coffee very close at hand, recalling with amusement the day and a half of preparation for the party, as well as the party itself (which I haven’t yet figured out how or even if I’m going to be able to write about) (it was that good). And I’ve been wondering for several days if I could actually pull off writing about what it’s like to get ready for a party when your wife would like to wrap you in razor wire and set you on fire.
Because I sort of forgot to tell her that I told a few people we were going to have a little get together. And by ‘sort of forgot to tell her’ I mean I completely forgot to tell her for about four days. And by ‘about for days’ I think I mean about a week. I can’t really remember and I don’t see the point in remembering, because by ‘a few people’ I mean I decided phone calls and hand-written invitations are for sissies and decided I would just go ahead and invite Facebook.
And by ‘invite Facebook’ I’m happy to report that I actually mean exactly that: I invited Facebook. Which I thought was brilliant but which a few people remained unclear on the brilliance of such that I had to revisit the invitation on Facebook and explain why a few people couldn’t find their names on the guest list. And that went like this:
Me: “Oh.Well…that’s because there is no guest list.”
Smarter Person Than Me: “A ha. No guest list. I see. And…um…exactly how does anyone know if they’re invited?”
Me: “Because I invited them in Facebook Land. And I decided that ‘if I like you in Facebook Land, then I probably like you in real life,’ so just come on over at our hou—okay, you know, these aren’t big words I don’t see why this is all so confusing. It’s cocktails, not theoretical math.”
Smarter Person Than Me: “Ewwkay. And what’s Jane had to say about all this?”
Me: “About what?”
Smarter Person Than Me: “…your upcoming funeral.”
So, I somewhere after all that, got around to mentioning to Cute Redhead that a few people would be stopping by on Friday night. Which she actually thought was nice and light-hearted and oh-maybe-I’ll-make-a-little-something-to-nibble-on and all that. And I just knew this was going to be a really fun evening with nice music in a nice setting practically carbonated with really cool people.
Until she asked me how many people would be coming over and at what time and how many kids should we plan on and I need to know exactly who can’t eat wheat because I’ll make chili and cornbread but it will be gluten-free and what about the so-and-so’s did you invite them and I need to know right now who has RSVP’d and we have to clean the house and wash every plate and dish in the county and what in the hell do you mean you invited Facebook?
And things sort of…well…unraveled from that point on. Because it was Thursday afternoon and we were officially in Get Ready mode. And I’m a guy so I didn’t quite appreciate the critical nature of Get Ready mode enough to satisfy Cute Redhead’s level of National Security which had taken over her brain. And her ovaries.
Because I apparently decided to throw a little get together at the same…um…time…that she felt more like throwing me and all other human males into a tree shredder. And I’m really, really hoping that’s as far as I have to go in trying to say, without actually saying, exactly what sort of um…mood…she was in during Get Ready mode.
And Get Ready mode, I now know, involves cleaning everything. Twice. In the exact order Cute Redhead has clearly outlined. Three times. On paper. Because she even wrote down, on paper, exactly what she needed taken care of before the ‘little get together.’ Which I am not writing about here because you’re just going to have to be patient until I can write out that whole other You Are So Making This Up (which I won’t be making up).
So…I began cleaning. Everything. Because the little get together has now ballooned into numbers tipping the scale into No Fire Marshall In The World Could Sign Off On That Many People In One Building (thank you, Facebook). And I was full-tilt in Male Limbic Brain mode and I had music cranking all over the house while I began cleaning: the bathroom, the kitchen, the basement, the floors, the dishes…
…while….
…seeing to it that Alpha Male and Beta Male sat down and got their homework done or they could kiss goodbye anything they thought they’d be doing until that homework is done young man an—DON’T YOU ROLL YOUR EYES ME BUCKO! and all that…
…while…
…she took the Princess of Pink Nails and Sparkles to Costco to get all the Things You Have To Have For Parties.
And when she came back the bathroom was CLEAN. And the dishes were CLEAN. And the basement was CLEAN. And I happen to know all of these things were cleaned because
I. CLEANED. THEM.
And I remember cleaning them because when I *sat down in the chair in the living room to clear my head of the fragrant afterglow of 409-SoftScrub-Windex-Tilex-PineSol-Cascade-Murphys-Oil-Soap-Gun-Powder-Jet-Fuel, which by now had sent me on a mind-shattering magic carpet ride (that’s how dizzy I was, and right here I’d like to recommend that if you ever undertake cleaning any room with any of this stuff, you remember to either open a window or turn on the fan thing in the bathroom or they’re going to find you half in the bath tub and half out, passed out and drooling all over yourself, positioned in such a way that, should it be photographed, will ruin any future hopes of a congressional appointment.)
Okay. Get used to those little asterisks I recruit now and then, because when I use them like I just did, I mean to come back to them and explain something. Something like this:
*Sitting down in the chair in the living room to clear your head for a quick moment after three hours of non-stop cleaning somehow equals “You know what, honey? I don’t like you. In fact, I hate all your outfits, you have no taste in music, your hair looks like you styled it with a blender, and and I’m not even sure the kids are mine.”
The ensuing ‘conversation,’ brought on by my sitting down so that I could catch my breath, is not publishable important. It involved accusations thoughtful suggestions and maniacal histrionics intelligently articulated and ordered lunacy logic from her both of us, and eyes wider than a rabid yorkshire terrier considerate glances accompanied with really not nice name calling cute little things we call each other that only we get.
Because we disagreed about super-glueing a broken pencil.
Please read that again.
We disagreed about super-glueing a broken pencil. Which came about 35 minutes before I sat down to catch my breath because I was higher than a kite from the cleaning solutions tripping through my brain like I was three days into a weeklong jaunt around the Northwest with the Grateful Dead. Which came after I went outside to figure out why the parking lights on Cute Redhead’s car wouldn’t turn off. Which Cute Redhead asked me to investigate. Which I was investigating on the internet because the internet has been known to afford something akin to a clearing house for answers to all sorts of random questions like ‘why in the world are her parking lights not turning off?’ Which was interrupted when the Princess of Pink Nails and Sparkles broke Beta Male’s big giant Mickey Mouse-shaped pencil (I’m not making this up) because she thought it looked “bendy.”
Now, if any of that wasn’t clear I can’t help you. Because I’m not revisiting it. Ever again. For the rest of my life. Because I’m this close to crying all over again right now. It was that scary.
Because when I *sat down in the chair in the living room to catch my breath* I fired enough brain synapses to reach for my laptop and Google: “Dear Google gods, you are most high and lofty and to be praised. Please, may your lowly servant request an audience and plumb the depths of your all-knowingness and know the secret to turning off the parking lights in a (certain make and model)? Thank you, O Google gods, may you live forever.”
And I got my answer. At the same time the Princess and Beta Male gave me another opportunity to earn my honorary degree in criminal justice. Because we had on our hands a Crisis and a broken Mickey Mouse-shaped pencil had just been brought before the grand jury. Which Beta Male is an EXPERT at convening when pretty much anything certain things don’t go exactly his way pan out in a way that’s fair to all involved parties. At which point Cute Redhead and I disagreed about the necessity of looking for and finding RIGHT NOW the Krazy-Glue® in order to (I am not making this up) glue
GLUE
a stupid pencil back together.
(Official Disclaimer): Okay, in Cute Redhead’s total defense, I get it. Even though it was ‘just a pencil,’ and hunting down the Krazy-Glue® seemed, to me at the moment, the biggest waste of energy and time and over-nurturing I have ever seen in my life…I get it.
Like this: There really is going to be a lot of really hard things in their lives we really won’t be able to fix. But this we could fix. So. Krazy-Glue® for a broken pencil.
And for the record, it worked, so she more or less won that one.
Not that any of us married people ever trip all over ourselves to need to be right about anything. Or win. Anything.
(End Official Disclaimer)
Now. Poor Male Limbic Brain wasn’t firing all 96 cylinders at the moment. So it hadn’t partitioned off the atoms necessary to understand why *sitting down in the chair in the living room to catch its breath while looking for the answer (and finding it) to why the parking lights wouldn’t turn off, while helping siblings not kill each other outright, invoked the following comment from Cute Redhead, who happened to pass through the room at that very moment.
And here’s the comment: “Are you going to help me at all?”
And that’s when I lost it. Okay? I lost it.
So this is me, admitting right in front of God and everybody, that I lost it. I had been (whine whine whine) for THREE hours straight while (whine whine whine) so that the kids could (whine whine violin music whine) so that this (colorful metaphor) cocktail party could sustain (all the people on Facebook) and I had (whine whine whine) pretty much hit my limit of how much…
…mood…
…I could cheerfully absorb. As in “absorb the momentum of,” I mean. As in the tone, force, and…mood…of her seemingly benign comment had a lot of unseen moving parts. Beginning with this:
(God to the heavenly host): “Yall know what? I’m *yaaAAAaawn* feeling kinda bored. Hey I know! Watch this! Clary is about to get his— hee hee hee, okay I’m not going to ruin it just watch.”
And it devolved from that moment forward for the next hour while Cute Redhead and I sat down. And talked. And resolved it.
And *apologized.
Cute Redhead: “…okay, *maybe I overreacted.”
Me: “…okay, maybe the Titanic hit the iceberg.”
And then all that eclipsed whatever reason I originally conjured up for a cocktail party, because now I thought it high time we celebrate another award-winning episode of Extreme Marriage: Our Edition.
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