Behind Every
Angry Woman, Stands a Man Who
Has Absolutely No
Idea What He Did Wrong
- Random Facebook
Meme
I was wrong.
Correction: She
was right, I was wrong. Again.
Whew! Feels good
to get that off my chest. Call it pride. Call it ego. Call it hubris. Doesn't
matter. I finally manned up and admitted it.
However, on those
rare occasions that it is actually her and not me…well, I’ve come to accept that
there is an order in nature and no amount of willful stubbornness on my part will
ever change that.
For instance,
take the “double standard.” I get it. Not everything in a marriage is equal. It’s
the part about logic being irrelevant that I have always had a tough time
dealing with.
But it finally
hit me - and all it took was a single tube of toothpaste. Yes, that’s right
toothpaste – which she found sitting on my bathroom vanity a few days in a row
(twelve days, actually). Literally, it
was the only thing on my bathroom vanity.
When I politely – and ever so meekly,
approached her about the eyeliner, blow dryer, scrunchies, elegantly framed silhouette
of George Clooney, two empty tubes of toothpaste and crumpled receipt on her
own vanity, she said in that sweet voice I fell in love with so many years ago to,
“WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN #$%@ STUFF” and then stormed off to watch
reruns of E/R on Netflix.
Simple misunderstanding.
As you can guess,
she’s not the only person with whom I get things wrong. You can lump in practically
everything that I have said to the kids this past year into this category.
Like the time we were talking about our
evening plans with Avery, and I said (very innocently, mind you), "Mom and
I are just going to enjoy some Netflix and chill. You wanna’ hang with us tonight
and watch?"
The horror that
came over her face is forever burned into my brain.
Yes - apparently,
Netflix and chill is slang for “hooking
up”. In fairness to me, anyone that has
been married over twenty years would immediately have understood my real
intention (I just wanted to watch the Ocean’s Eleven
trilogy that was on).
Avery avoided us for weeks after that.
That said, at
fifteen - it wasn’t like we were having meaningful conversations anyway. Between
Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, she doesn’t really have a lot of time to talk.
Even on vibrate, the incessant flow of buzzing
and other noises spitting out of iPhones in this place is nuts. This
conversation frames it perfectly:
“Avery
– how is your (bzzzt) homework coming (bzzzt, bzzt, BZZZZZZZZZTT!!!!)
along?” (PINGggggg!)
“Huh, what’s that (bzzzt, ding)? Yeah, I’m good. My friend is
driving me.”
The only time Avery
or Jesse aren’t fully engaged in their mobile devices is when Shelly or I need
to reach them. Then it’s all…”Oh, sorry! We were studying and had our phones
off.”
Speaking of mobile devices – I haven’t
had much luck communicating on those things either. Take the night when Shelly
and I attended a charity auction – that one evening out where we weren’t wearing
sweatpants and baseball caps. I took a picture of Shelly and texted the kids with
the following caption:
Me: Check out mom all dressed up!
Serious Hubba!!, Hubba!!, right?
Jake: That is the creepiest thing you
have ever said!
Peyton: Oh my EYES!!
Peyton: Why Dad? WHYYYYY??
Me:
What? Don't you think she’s smokin’ in that outfit? Just thought you would be
proud.
Avery: Currently gagging.
Jesse: Did you get me anything?
At least Jesse
has some perspective. Of course at twelve, she’s not totally embarrassed by me
yet either. I think the other kids were more like fourteen when they filed
restraining orders preventing me from talking within 100 yards of their
friends. So I have that to look forward to.
But really, the
others clearly don’t get it. They don’t get what an enormous bullet they dodged
– solely due to Shelly’s overwhelming dominance genetically. I mean, can you
picture my giant nose plastered on Jesse’s tiny little face? Gives me the willies
just to think about it.
But I did manage
to pass on at least one trait, though - my aforementioned poor sense of
judgement and timing. Heredity can be so
cruel.
Entire books
could be written about some of the things that come out of Peyton’s mouth. For
example, she took a job soliciting alumni for donations at school. You know
those annoying calls you get during dinner from your alma mater? Well if you
happened to have attended the University of Wisconsin in the last fifty years,
you may be hearing from her.
She’s got some great stories in just
her first semester. One person said he was “too busy having sex to donate right
now.” Undeterred, Peyton called back four minutes later to ask, “is now is a
better time?”
That’s my girl.
Jake, who
graduates from Michigan in April and is set to take a job at Capital One, is
typically a bit more measured. But he ripped the title for the coveted David
family annual “Most Ludicrous Comment of the Year Award” right out from under
me with this one…
“I’m
pretty done with college. I can’t wait for it to finish so I can start my job.”
LOL - what a dope!! Makes you wonder what
all that money we spent on higher learning actually went to. One day – likely
very soon, he will look back on the absurdity of this statement and just groan.
Me…I’m just
looking to make it through January without saying something that will make
Shelly groan. One can always hope.
Happy 2017!!
Jon, Shelly,
Jake, Peyton, Avery, Jesse, Maggie and Cooper