by Cathy
I had the luxury of having a girls night out recently. It's funny but although our kids are getting older and need us less, we have somehow become less available to our friends. So this night? This was rare and much needed and we were all enjoying each other's company until....
RING RING (K's cell phone goes off)
Below is her side of the convo as heard by us:
"Hi sweetie, you okay?...OK what is it....a what?...honey you know I'm not home, why are you calling me? Ask your father...he's the one who's there!...Goodbye!"
Exasperated, she hung up the phone. "WHY is she calling me about going to a sleepover when I'm not even home?"
We all nodded in agreement and proceeded to share our stories about when something similar had happened to us. We laughed, we commiserated, we vented. And then, this happened:
RING RING (K's cell phone goes off, again.)
"Hey babe, what's up?...What do you mean, what time?...Why don't you ask her?...Just talk to her and ask her what time...I don't know, you're there...I'm not...figure it out!" She clicked her husband off the line.
"Oh. My. GOD! He's calling me about what the plan is for Katie's playdate tonight. Why doesn't he just talk to his daughter and straighten out the plans for the night instead of calling me to ask me what the plans are?!"
Then it was as if the floodgates were ripped wide open because that convo morphed into these convos:
J: "Men are totally clueless. You want to know what happens at my house? I was in the middle of cooking four things at once and asked my husband to get me the cheese grater from the cabinet.
He: "Where's the cheese grater?"
J: "In the cabinet next to the colander."
He: "What the hell is a colander? And what cabinet is that in?"
J: "What?!"
Now granted, eight out of 10 guys would not know what a colander is. Hell, I didn't know myself up until a few years ago. I just called it a strainer. J picked up momentum and continued her rant.
"Then, one other time, we were getting ready to go out and he was looking for his dress shirt."
We all rolled our eyes because we knew what was coming.
He: "Hun, uh, where's my dress shirt?"
J: "In the closet where it always is."
He: "Is it ironed?"
J: "Why don't you check it?"
He: "What about the collar tabs?"
J: "What? In your sock drawer where they always are. DO YOU LIVE HERE?!"
As we screamed with laughter, K blurted out: "I once had twelve texts and four phone calls from my husband about picking up our son from after school care as he sat in carpool line! Um, hello! Do You Live Here?!"
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| Steven Wright knew what he was talkin' about |
As we held our sides, now stitched with laughter, and wiped tears of hilarity from our eyes, we grappled with catching our breath and realized...that was it, in a nutshell. We all live with our significant others but do they truly live in the same house as us? Some are highly involved in house happenings, storage, organization and cleanliness and others are well, are just passing through each day, it seems. I think my husband's cousin, a 19-year old guy who came to stay with us for six months last year, knows our house better than my husband does.
We wondered....our husbands have run their own businesses, managed teams of people, wheeled and dealed client contracts, run national accounts, are well traveled, well-spoken and quite capable of holding down titles akin to chief operating officers. How can they not manage a school pick-up, a playdate, scheduling kids' appointments and most frustratingly, can't find their own things in their own house, specifically, collar tabs that go only into their shirts?
As it seems, on and on the gender gap wheel will spin, in the same universe that holds both Mars and Venus. We may be from two different planets but we're stuck in the same solar system, and most importantly, in the same house. Let's remember where we live.
