(I am a notoriously heavy sleeper, needing multiple cell phone alarms plus a digital alarm clock to help me wake up in the morning. My husband, on the other hand, wakes up well before his alarm and is often up an hour or two earlier than me due to his work schedule. One morning, I vaguely hear my alarms from the depth of my dreams and hear my husband stomping his way into the bedroom to turn them off. I bring it up with him later that day.)
Me: “Did me sleeping through my alarms this morning annoy you?”
Husband: “No, why?”
Me: “I heard you come stomping in the room like you were thinking, ‘All this f****** noise and she’s not even moving!’”
Husband: “No! I was rushing to turn them off because I didn’t want it to wake you up!”
Me: *staring at him in confusion* “You do… You do know what alarms are for, right?”
Male Customer: *browsing local-history book* “Look: in [Small Town] there used to be a one-bedroom schoolhouse!”
Me: “I hope you mean ‘one-room’ schoolhouse, unless your education was a lot more exciting than mine.”
Customer’s Wife: “Oh, you actually listened to what he said. I just ignore him!”
This awkward story was told to me by my grandfather.
Back when he was still working, a coworker of his unexpectedly died. Eventually, the widow came in to collect his belongings. Two employees accompanied her to his locker: the dead man’s supervisor and my grandfather to serve as a witness. The company policy was that neither of them could touch anything in the locker, just open it and visually confirm she took everything so they couldn’t be accused of stealing something.
The supervisor opened the locker, and they both stepped back to let the widow remove the stuff inside. The first thing she picked up was a stack of old pay stubs. At first, she stared at them, looking confused. As she flipped through them, she looked more and more disturbed. Eventually, she grew enraged and screamed in fury, “THAT B*****D! All these years, he told me he never got a raise and kept giving me the same money to take care of the kids and the house, and he’s been holding out on me all this time!”
Neither my grandfather nor the supervisor knew what to say, so they said nothing, just let her rant. I really can’t think of what I would have said, either!
(I regularly follow yarn-related workshops, mostly — well, always — attended by women only. Invariably, just before lunchtime, some phones are ringing and I witness the following conversations or variations thereof.)
Conversation #1: “No, I’m not home for lunch. I told you yesterday and this morning. You will need to take care of yourself.”
Conversation #2: “The bread is where it usually is. Yes, it is. I bought a new loaf yesterday. Well, you can put anything you like on it. The fridge is full.”
Conversation #3: “No, I won’t be home. That is why I left money next to the phone, so you can order pizza.”
Conversation #4: “Yes, you can eat the leftover soup. Use the microwave.”
(I wish I could say it was all teenagers calling, but the pizza money? That was actually the husband calling.)
(Unbeknownst to me, when my husband grabs lunch for our kids at a warehouse membership store, one of them doesn’t finish her pizza. He puts it in the fridge thinking I might want it. Again, I have no idea the generous gift of half-eaten pizza awaits me as I spend the next day preparing a roast, mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, and various other sides as a nice dinner to enjoy with his parents who are visiting. The next evening, this conversation happens as he fixes a plate of leftovers from dinner the night before and notices the foil-wrapped pizza in the fridge.)
Husband: “So, I guess you don’t want this pizza?”
Me: “There’s pizza?”
Husband: “Yeah, [Daughter] didn’t finish her slice from [Store].”
Me: “So… it’s from two days ago?”
Husband: “Yes.”
Me: “The dog can have it for breakfast tomorrow.”
Husband: “No, gross. I’ll just toss it.”
Me: “She always tries to sneak food out of the trash. She’ll be fine, and she’ll love it.”
Husband: “No, I don’t want her to get sick.”
Me: “Wait, two-day-old pizza is fine for me, but it’s not good enough for the dog?”
Husband: “That’s a very good point.”
(The dog was thrilled with her breakfast.)
