Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Bad Day 14--Mad As I Wanna Be

This is why I love my children: when I wake up cranky in the morning from lack of sleep caused by Skyping Husband late at night, I find a note on my mirror that says "Wake me up! Pick me up and put me under the faucet!!" Child 3 wanted to get up earlier. So I woke her up earlier and then she just moved to a different room to sleep. She is falling asleep on her feet right now, but maybe she'll go to bed on time tonight.

I had dinner last night with my friend (whom I'll call Artemis) and her husband. Artemis is an amazing friend, the kind of friend that I'll sit down to type her an e-mail and while I'm typing, a new one from her will pop up.  She called the other night to see how I was doing and I started sobbing, so she invited me over for dinner. Artemis and her husband have the perfect marriage. They are so in love, even after years and years together, and their marriage is so perfect that you could hate them, except you can't because they're too nice. Anyway, Artemis' husband was sent to all kinds of war zones last year for months at a time. It was hard for both of them, but I learned two things last night from listening to them that made me really, really happy. When Artemis' husband took the job that sent him to war zones, she was mad at him, even though she had encouraged him to go. And when he came back to visit, sometimes she found his presence annoying. So see, Husband? It's not just me! Lots of wives get mad at their husbands for going to Afghanistan and leaving them with all the responsibilities and then get annoyed with them when they come home. Artemis and her husband successfully weathered the storm of deployments, so maybe I can, too.

Husband doesn't understand why I need to be angry, but sometimes, I do. Being a crying, distraught mess makes me incapable of doing anything but sit in bed watching bad Lifetime movies. But anger is productive. Also, when I'm angry, I clean. One time when I had a fight with Husband who was then only FiancĂ©, my roommates came home to find me scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. "What happened?!" they asked. "He said (scrub, scrub) he didn't like (scrub, scrub) the way I dressed!" Scrub, scrub, scrub. Some women wash men out of their hair, I scrub mine out of the floor or the sink. Fury makes for a very clean kitchen. It also helps me cope and gives me a reason to get out of bed. (He wants to live in Afghanistan?! I'll bet their kitchens aren't this clean in Kabul!) And also, back to the earlier fight with FiancĂ©, I have a great sense of style and Husband was wrong about the way I should dress, and no adult woman ever looked good with a big bow in her hair, even if it was the 90s and I looked HOT in that green suede mini-skirt.

So maybe tomorrow will be a better day, and maybe I won't need to be angry. And at least I know that my day won't be as bad as this guy's.

FILE - In this May 23, 2012 file photo, a fire burns on a nuclear submarine at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. A civilian employee working as a painter and sandblaster aboard the submarine has been charged with setting a fire that caused $400 million in damages to the vessel in May, and a second fire near it in June, Navy investigators said in a complaint filed Monday, July 23, 2012. (AP Photo/WMUR, Jean Mackin, File) MANDATORY CREDIT

He wanted to go home early, so instead of pretending he was sick like everyone else, he set a nuclear submarine on fire! And caused $400 million in damages! That is way worse even than the guy who drove the BMW into the harbor. So thank you, Mr. Sub Worker, for reminding me that no matter how bad my day was, at least I have never set fire to a nuclear submarine.

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