The Hand That Rocks the Cradle....

If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, then the brain that
files the details rules the house. When did I become the database
for every item and activity in this family? Can't find it? Ask me. Oh,
I don't want you to...but that is what happens around here.

Lose your GameBoy? Here it is, in the couch. Your report card?
Right there in the box, where I told you and you said you looked.
The 2004 personal property tax receipt? Why look! It's in the
drawer where I have placed it every year for the last 10 years!

Is this a man thing? Do we not hold our boys responsible for taking
care of themselves? Are we such caretakers that we want to attend
to their every need?

Yesterday morning, Hubby was off to a family reunion. One of his
relatives (duh!) had called to tell him two weeks ago. He was out
getting gas or some lumber or a haircut or a load of rock or the oil
changed (translation: soda and a donut), so I took the message. I had
just stepped out of the shower, so I didn't write it down. But I told
him as soon as he got home. I figured my job was done. But nooo....

Ten minutes before it was time to leave for the reunion picnic,
Hubby says, "Are you sure that it's today?"

"Well, let's see...two weeks ago she called and said it would be in
two weeks. You said that would be at the end of your vacation
week. Like today. I didn't think I'd have to remember it."

"But they always have it the last Saturday in July."

"Which is probably why she called to tell you."

"Well, in my calendar, I always mark it the last Saturday in July."

"Is it written in there?"

"No. On my calendar at work, I wrote it for today."

"OK then."

Good gracious! He didn't even know my birthday for the first ten
years we were married. Oh, I got a card and present on time. Then
at one of the Christmas parties at his boss's house, a secretary
let it slip that she always had to remind him when it was.

And this is from a man who says he can still remember people's
license plate numbers from when he worked in a gas station in his
teens. Great. Congratulations. In what freakish universe would this
be remotely useful?

This is the man who volunteered to go to the grocery one time when
I was pregnant with #1 son. I gave him a list. He came home minus
$35 and with not one thing on the list. But we had a lot of cookies
and ice cream. He said he lost the list. Between home and the store,
a trek of about 3 miles. And the reason he went ahead and spent
$35 was because he thought of calling me to ask what was on the
list, but decided against it, because he knew I would yell at him. As
opposed to what I'd do when he came home with nothing on the
list and $35 worth of junk food.

OK, I'm done complaining for today. Hubby is good at killing
spiders with his bare hands, and cleaning up vomit, and picking off
ticks, and BBQing, and lawnmowing, and getting rid of dead
possums, and changing light bulbs, and taking out the trash.

And yes, the reunion was yesterday, and Hubby and #1 son had
a good time.