My Husband's Nothing Box
Dear Richard,
I know you might read this and you know I can’t not write about the note you wrote to yourself so you’d remember Junior had a dentist appointment on Saturday.
I love you,
The Nag
The Nag
The Nag is the person I never want to be. She’s ugly, haggard, and has snaggly teeth. She’s a Harpy and the last thing I want to be is Richard’s Harpy. But there are times when I have to remind my darling husband of events, appointments or some happening that is going on because he needs to know. Most likely because it requires him to be there or drive Junior somewhere. And sometimes, Richard needs to contact his ex-wife and let her know Junior has something going on and that he’ll be staying with us for the weekend.
Granted, it would help if there was a schedule so that The Nag (me) would know when Junior is with his mother. But since there isn’t, appointments get made, life gets scheduled and The Nag deals with the confuzzlement that sometimes follows. There’s very rarely a dull moment when life and schedules collide.
The Appointment
For the last 10 days or so, I’ve been reminding Richard that Junior has a dentist appointment on Saturday and Richard’s 3 older kids are coming over for his birthday dinner on Sunday. I told him that his ex-wife thinks she has Junior this weekend and for him to please call her and let her know that this weekend is not good.
He even wrote it down and put it in his wallet on Wednesday night.
When I got home from work on Thursday, I heard Richard talking to his ex-wife on the phone. After he hangs up, he tells me that she’ll pick Junior up Saturday morning and return him to his sister’s on Sunday (because sister is coming over for Richard’s birthday dinner).
I looked at Richard and asked, “So, who’s taking Junior to the dentist on Saturday?”
He looks at me like I have three heads (Before I have coffee, yes, I have three heads).
We don’t argue or fight but we do have a very strange discussion. He’s a guy. He can’t multitask or think of multiple things at the same time like I can. I asked him to look in his wallet…
And there’s the note he wrote to remind himself to call his ex-wife and let her know about The Appointment.
Just Cancel It!
Richard’s frustrated and he just wants to cancel the dentist appointment and make it go away. I told him I canceled THURSDAY’S dental appointment and kept Saturday’s because he asked me to. And to cancel a Saturday appointment I need to do that a week in advance. I see him dig in his heels and square his jaw, “Cancel the appointment.”
OK. Not much The Nag can do about it, right?
The Art of the Half Smile
I have this half smile on my face that he can’t figure out because for once he can’t tell if I’m upset, angry, happy or don’t care. Hell, I was just trying to remain neutral while he figured this out by himself. He asks me to talk, say something…so I do.
“Babe, I don’t want to sound like The Nag or a broken record, but I’ve been telling you for a week about this appointment. I told you that when I found out through The Pregnant One (Richard’s youngest daughter) that your ex-wife thought she had Junior for this weekend and that you needed to call her and tell her he had a dentist appointment.” And I added, “If we knew when she wanted to see Junior, we could schedule around it, but we don’t.”
Richard replied, “That’s too much like work.”
Uh…well…YEAH. And I responded, “Families are work.”
Maybe it’s because I’ve been a mom since I was 20 years old or maybe it’s because I live by my calendar or a combination of both, but this isn’t that hard, right? Even in a blended family it’s not that hard…for me.
Well, for women it’s super easy. For men, it’s not so easy. But it is funny, especially if you’ve got Mark Gungor explaining it to you. Put your head phones on and watch this hysterically funny explanation of why a dentist appointment can be so confuzzling to the male brain!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuMZ73mT5zM]
Well…long funny story short, Richard called his ex-wife back and said, “Junior has a dentist appointment at 1PM, it’s easier if I just keep him for the weekend.”
But The Nag would still like a schedule…
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