Marriage Illustrated with Crappy Pictures (11 page)

Only when it reeks is it laundry basket–worthy. As I mentioned in Chapter 2, even then it doesn’t go
in
the laundry basket. Just next to it.

THE SUITCASE

When Crappy Husband returns home from a trip, he puts his suitcase next to his dresser. A day goes by. Another day goes by. More days go by. More. The suitcase just sits there. Annoying me.

For two weeks.

I refuse to clean it out for him. This is totally not my job. I’m not going to touch it. The suitcase eventually gets hidden in the corner of our room.

Several months later he has to go on another trip and gets his suitcase, which is still full. His last trip was months ago!

UNDER WHERE? UNDERWEAR

If you want to know if a couple is married or not, just look at their underwear.

When we were dating, I wore matching bra and underwear sets every time we were together. I acquired quite a collection. And a large credit card debt to prove it.

Now I have one pair of “good underwear” and one decent bra for special occasions only. And they don’t match.

He, on the other hand, still has tons of pairs of underwear. They are the same ones he was wearing the year we met.

They all have holes, saggy elastic and are see-through now. But hey, that just makes them sexier.

GROWING OLD TOGETHER

When I was single, I wanted to “find someone to grow old with” and I had visions of sitting on a porch swing together with gray hair sipping lemonade.

That was a terrible goal. If I were smart when I was young, my goal would have been to “find someone to stay young with” because getting old isn’t actually very much fun. And we don’t even have a porch swing.

We do, however, sit on our patio and sip wine (it’s like lemonade) and this is what it is really like to get old together:

We can also have entire conversations determining who is more tired.

(Apologies to the person who is older than I am and is now all bent out of shape after reading this. Sort of like how I get annoyed when I hear people in their twenties sweating turning thirty because they’ll be SO OLD. I know. It’s all relative. How old am I right now? Well, I’m the oldest I’ve ever been. So really, how could I know any better?)

APPENDICITIS

I’m eight months’ pregnant. I’ve also fractured my metatarsal, which means I have to wear a huge plastic boot on my left foot. This adds a limp to my waddle.

One night we go out to eat at a new Chinese restaurant and afterwards Crappy Husband says his stomach feels weird. We blame the food. But it continues to feel weird and in the wee hours of the night Crappy Husband determines that he might have appendicitis.

I drive him to the hospital. When we arrive in the emergency room, we’re yelled at by various staff members and well-meaning passersby that we’re in the wrong place. Labor and delivery is somewhere else.

After finally getting the message across that we are not here for me, Crappy Husband is seen by a doctor. It turns out he does indeed have appendicitis and his appendix needs to come out immediately.

Surgery goes well and he has to spend the following night there to recover. I decide that I want to stay over too.

Early in the afternoon, I ask for a cot. No cot comes. I ask again. None. I ask again. And again. All the nurses keep telling me that one is coming. It is just that they are very busy and all the cots are being used. I’m not angry. I’m just tired. And uncomfortable.

At midnight, I give up and fall asleep on the cement floor on an extra sheet from the closet.

At about 3:00 a.m. a nurse comes in to check Crappy Husband’s vitals and finds me there:

But even she can’t source a cot. She finally steals a few sofa cushions from the staff lounge for me to lie on. They smell like ass but feel like heaven.

The next day, Crappy Husband is discharged and starving, so we head to the market to get some groceries. He is very sore, so I urge him to stay in the car but he wants to come in. Looking at him, you’d never know he just had surgery.

I buy several bags’ worth of food and start to carry them out. He can’t lift anything, of course, and certainly not heavy bags.

Just then we realize how ridiculous this must seem to others.

He looks like such a lazy jerk, making his hugely pregnant and injured wife carry everything! I fought the urge to announce to everyone that he had just had surgery.

I took pride in the fact that, despite being hugely pregnant and having a fractured foot, I was the stronger one between us at that moment. Of course, a month later, he had healed and our son was born, and then he carried the groceries.