Our free-wheeling professions (adjunct professor and realtor -- it's okay - we don't need wool socks and money in the mail, yet) mean John and I have a lot of time at home while the kids are in school.
We often eat lunch together.
I send him a funny email and then yell in the direction of his office, upstairs: "Did you get that yet?"
He pops into my little study and inquires about my availability for romps of various sort. "Just checking. Just in case."
Rare.
He unloads the dishwasher. I yell various commands about housecleaning, which he generally follows.
Every once in a while we get really crazy and go to my favorite thrift store together. Like a hot date, digging through somebody's else's rejected trousers.
So we have plenty of time to talk. Converse. Convene and communicate.
Insert sound of telephone ringing, here. The time is 8:32 on a Monday morning.
Me: "Hello!"
Mother-in-law: "Hi Mary. Is John there?"
Me: "No -- he's driving the kids to school. What's up? I can give him a message."
MIL: "Tell him the thing today is called off."
Me: "What thing?"
MIL: "The wedding."
Me: "What? Who's getting married."
MIL: "Well, I am. Donald and I were going to renew our vows today in church. At 10 this morning. Didn't John tell you?"
Me: "Uh."
MIL: "But we're postponing because of the funeral."
Me: "Whose funeral?"
MIL: "Beth and Herman's oldest son, Fred. John's cousin on his Dad's side. Didn't John tell you?"
Me: "Uh. . . "
MIL: "But you're on board for Thursday, right?"
Me: "What's Thursday?"
MIL: "You and John are cooking for Ann and Dennis. She just started her six months of chemo. Didn't John tell you?"
Me: "Six months of chemo? What are we making?"
MIL: "A pot roast. With carrots and potatoes but no throwing in any of your fancy tricks, like peppers or yams. Better have John cook it."
After my substandard cooking skills have been more thoroughly discussed (particularly worrisome is my regular use of that exotic creature, the vegetable), I hang up--and give a small, ritualistic moment of silence to honor all of the weddings, funerals, family reunions, illnesses, emergencies, birthdays and pot luck suppers I will never hear about in this life time.
18 comments:
This would totally happen in my house!
The alternative conversation would be me saying, "Let's go the wedding now," and him saying, "What wedding?" The wedding I've told you about 17 times!
oh, i often get info from the MIL about things the husband has not told me about..... and we are both home most of the time as well -- plenty of opportunity.
That's great--I admire your fortitude in such situations. I also shrug and go with the flow. You have to or you'd go nuts-o.
Our husbands must think we acquire this sort of info by way of osmosis. Thank goodness I occasionally pick up the phone when my MIL calls or I'd be left in the dark forever.
"Why didn't you tell me (6 months ago, when you found out) that your mother's significant other has cancer????"
We own a business/work together, have lunch AND dinner together daily, etc. So it's not like we never talk.
Stop living with my husband!!!
*various romps* heehee.
Interesting how men function. Mine will tell me things, but leave out the details so I am driven mad with wonder.
Very frustrating but perhaps there's a bright side? You were never informed therefore you don't have to attend, cook, etc.! (Except you might miss out on the fun things.)
The P-Dawg had never tasted squash until we were married.
Did Merrick get his guns from the in-laws?
It's amazing the things they think that we should just know. And I second the comment about the reverse of that. My husband acts like I never tell him anything when, in fact, we have had several conversations about the subject. Conversations in which he contributed. "What? We have something going on this weekend?" "Yeah, remember when we discussed how we were going to get there for about 20 minutes, three seperate times?" "Oh, I didn't know that it was THIS weekend."
Gah!
hahahahaha we're married to the same man! (he didn't tell you that, either, did he?)
no, just kidding. but doug is the same way. great to talk to, but really lousy at any kind of gossip. i.e., information about other people.
wish we had your work schedule, though. i could do with a lot more time at home.
I'm calling my MIL now ...
Oh, come on, how about throwing a rutabaga into that pot roast when John's not looking...
I think my husband and I are the same. We tell each other things, or not, and then vaguely remember them, or not, until we are each reminded by the other. I think we are both equally bad, therefor, we never get mad at each other.
It is embarrassing when we are at our therapist and my husband can't remember the reason for why we are there. That's a whole different story!
You are so spot on. My hubby can visit with family and friends and when I ask the *important* questions, he says they didn't get to that.
Big stuff.
Wha?
Great post.
I have been to TWO family gatherings on my husband's side to discover THREE babies had been fully gestated and born. "I know I told you about them," he says. I think you know that he didn't. Because he didn't.
We draw straws here to see who gets the "blame" for not passing along info...LOL
My MIL and SIL's don't even bother telling him anymore, they go directly to me b/c they know the news will never get to me otherwise.
His famous defense: "I thought I told you that!"
It's the opposite that drives me absolutely crazy--when I tell him all the important stuff that's going on, and then two days later, when I bring it up and he looks blankly at me. And then has the nerve to insist that I never told him about it in the first place.
Ignorance is bliss, though...I mean, did you really want to go to the funeral or wedding? But then, when people start showing up at your front door, expecting to be fed...well, then there is a problem.
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