This may come as a surprise, but I’m not a very observant person. If you don’t believe me, just ask my wife.
A typical conversation between us is likely to go something like this:
She: Are you saving that pile of newspapers for a reason?
Me: What pile of newspapers?
She: The pile in the living room that your sons have been hiding behind during their game of hide-and-seek.
Me (looking into living room): Oh, wow…I never noticed it before.
She: And?
Me: It does make a pretty good hiding place.
Or something like this:
She: I love that you folded the laundry, but I think you’re ready to move on to putting it away as well.
Me (lying on our bed watching t.v.): What? I forgot to put it away?
She: Uh, yeah. You’re lying on top of it. Or hadn’t you noticed?
Me: No I’m not--er--that’s where my argyle socks are. I was looking for them earlier…
Now, after twelve years of marriage, my wife has grudgingly arrived at the following conclusion: If I don’t see something, then it doesn’t exist in my world.
Not that she’s happy about it, but she’s learned to adapt.
For instance, if she wants me to do something (say, clean the bathrooms, which always look fine to me), she knows she is better off asking me to do it than expecting me to notice the problem and break out the cleaning supplies.
Yet, even though she has achieved this major breakthrough (and without professional counseling, I might add), she still likes to test me on occasion, as if hoping to find that I have undergone a sudden, unexplained transformation. Sort of like Spiderman’s Peter Parker, only without the tights and superpowers.
Just last week, she left a sponge and a bottle of Tilex on the floor in front of the shower. Apparently, she expected me to spray the inside of the shower and scrub away the mildew that had started to form on the tile and grout.
Well, I just stepped around the items getting in and out of the shower. I did this on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Of course, I probably noticed the bottle and sponge in passing, but it simply failed to register that they had been set there for me to use to clean the shower.
By Friday morning, the love-of-my-life couldn’t take it any more.
She: You see that bottle and sponge by the shower door?
Me (looking over): Yeah?
She: Did it ever occur to you to use them to clean the inside of the shower?
Me: Why -- is it dirty?
She: Yes.
Me: But how can it be dirty if there’s hot water and soap splashing about inside?
She (dragging me by the arm): Come here.
After picking up the sponge and Tilex, she opens the shower door and points at one corner.
She: You see that brownish stuff on the grout?
Me: Yeah.
She: That’s mildew. It needs to be cleaned off every once in awhile.
Me: So why didn’t you just ask me to clean the shower?
She: Because I shouldn’t have to ask you. You should just--
Me: Read your mind?
She: No.
Her tone wasn’t very convincing.
Me: In case you’ve forgotten, it’s pretty difficult to read another person’s mind. In fact, I challenge you to tell me what I’m thinking right now.
At this point I learned a very valuable lesson: Don’t patronize your wife while she’s holding a bottle of Tilex. Unless, of course, you need some mildew cleaned off your face.
Copyright 2003 Marc L. Prey
All rights reserved.
Derived from the comical life of the author -- a fairly typical husband and father who just happens to be a humor columnist.
