We have been on vacation, which was lovely, and I want to tell you all about it (especially about traveling during a pandemic * shudder *) but I am going to ease back into blogging by sharing with you a marital misunderstanding.
PLEASE tell me that you and your spouse / roommate / co-habitant have similar misunderstandings from time to time, because this is the kind of thing that makes me feel like perhaps my husband and I have been living COMPLETELY SEPARATE LIVES.
I mean, HOW, after living together since 2003 – which means our co-habitation is ready to go off to college! – can we still so drastically misunderstand one another??? Shouldn’t we KNOW each other by now? Shouldn’t we LISTEN when the other person says things or expresses preferences or suggests rules? Are we simply two strangers, living side-by-side???????
Despite the all-capsy nature of the previous paragraphs, this is a very low stakes misunderstanding. At least, from my perspective; my husband may have a COMPLETELY SEPARATE OPINION.
A few years back, our washer died, so we got a new washer. (And a new dryer, because our old dryer was ancient and SURE to collapse the instant we didn’t buy a new one, and plus my husband and I like Things That Match.) The new washer was – unlike the old top loader – a front loader.
I was Deeply Reluctant to get a top loader, because I have heard horror stories about mold and smelliness. But it seemed like they were really the only option. And, more importantly, we needed a washer and dryer that opened a specific way, and were a specific size, based on the layout of our minuscule laundry room. So we got this pair and they have been Fine.
I remember discussing, at great length, the mold/smell problem with my husband. I remember this CLEARLY. And the solution we came up with was to always, always leave the washer door open. As the person who does laundry 90 percent of the time in our household, this is the method I have always, always used for all the years we have had this washer.
The other day, Carla spilled something. As she usually does, she stood over the spill exclaiming, “Oh no!” and I said in exasperation, “Go get a towel and clean it up!” We have a towel in the laundry room for JUST THIS PURPOSE. It is on a small hook attached to the washing machine, and I use it to dry my hands when I use the laundry room sink, and Carla knows (supposedly) to go grab it if she spills something.
My husband was AGHAST.
“That towel isn’t for SPILLS,” he said with quiet and horrorstruck urgency. “That towel is for wiping the inside of the washing machine.”
But… it ISN’T for wiping out the inside of the washing machine, because I have literally been using it to dry my hands and Carla has been using it to mop up spills. (She is eight; spills are frequent.) (I hope you understand that we replace the towel once it has been used. It hasn’t been the exact same towel hanging there, collecting hand water and floor spillage, for years on end.)
“No….” my husband was clear. And clearly appalled. “It is for wiping out the machine. That’s WHY it is there.”
He was under the impression that I had been wiping out the inside of the washing machine – including under the rubber seal that attaches to the door – Every Single Time I did the laundry.
Well. That has not happened once. Not one time. Because the towel was for wiping up spills. THAT’S why it was there.
My husband pointed out that we had purposely purchased a Command hook and attached it to the washer and hung a towel on it… for wiping out the machine.
Please imagine, if you will, a man who loves you deeply and yet who is so completely gobsmacked by your inexplicable behavior that all he can do is stare, his expression a mix of bewilderment and horror, his mouth open in a half-formed “why???????” while he tries to swallow the urge to howl in whatever word appropriately conveys the strongest form of exasperation known to humankind.
I have done laundry twice since and have used the towel for its intended purpose. Time will tell if I continue to do so. After all, not once has the washing machine molded or smelled in all the time I have been misusing the towel.
YES we have this kind of misunderstanding from time to time, and it almost always makes me want to SCREAM. The other day we had one, and I half-wish I could remember what it was about and am half-glad I can’t, but after a pause I said to him “I’m feeling actually ANGRY about this” and he said “I know.”
I think my husband could have said the same. (And would be justified in feeling that way, I think? I mean, I am not too mucked up about the whole thing but could imagine being the one in his situation and being SO MAD.)
YES that happens here as well, where I will wonder what happened over the last 22 years to have my husband so completely misunderstand me (or vice versa). Also, I have a front loader and I have rarely, if ever, wiped out the machine. Like you, I just keep the door open and only when someone closes it (i.e., one of the boys) does it have a smell.
Well that really drops my desire to continue wiping the door to almost zero.
I love the thought of a front loader – but prefer a top loader; particularly since our laundry is in a hall closet and the doors wouldn’t close if I left the washing machine door open. And yes, even with a top loader, I leave the lid open.
And yes, we have misunderstandings like this all the time. I’m usually left looking at him and thinking, “It has been 30 1/2 years! HOW did you not know this?!” and I’m sure he’s looking at me and thinking the same.
I guess that’s the spice of married life – they constantly surprise us.
YES. So many surprises.
Oh yes! A couple years back, my husband saw me brushing off mushrooms with the toothbrush we keep in the brush holder by the kitchen sink. He gasped and said, “That’s my toothbrush!”
Well, it might have been nice if he’d TOLD me he had decided to put his toothbrush in with the dish brushes at the KITCHEN SINK, instead of using the toothbrush holder in the bathroom. I thought it was just an old toothbrush!
I just laughed and told him he was lucky I hadn’t used it to clean the grout or the toilet. And promised to stop using it for mushrooms, now that I knew. Ha!
HA! Oh my goodness – so many questions, especially WHY did he brush his teeth in the kitchen?!?!
I recently learned a fact about my husband that made me question HOW we have lived together this long and it had never come up.
I have so many thoughts on top/front-loader, most of which comes down to I HATE OUR FRONT LOADER. It came with the house and mostly works, but it is gross and dirty and the door has to be open and it’s in one of our bathrooms, so I bump into it all the time and you can’t open the door to either the washer or dryer with a laundry basket under it and I HATE IT SO MUCH. I’m tempted to throw a load of bricks in it for a wash cycle and “accidentally” break it.
Rant over.
I am NOT a fan. Our laundry room is so tiny that there is barely any room for a person in there when you need to switch the washing stuff to the dryer – you have to squeeze in between the doors and it’s awful. So. I am in favor of the bricks plan.
One of my husband’s misunderstandings was that he was nearly 6 ft tall with long arms and I am barely 5’2″. When he wanted me to help lift something, he couldn’t understand why I couldn’t raise the object high enough. I used to just look at him and think….what????