This morning, as usual, nothing was happening. I got up early, made the coffee, fed the cats, gave my diabetic-on-the-verge-of-a-heart-attack cat his insulin and heart meds, and then went to pour a cup of that strong morning elixir. I had just taken a seat on the couch to begin my morning prayer and meditation when my daughter pulled into the driveway with Liam. I got up, set my cup down on the counter and went to greet them. At 7 am.
Why is it that everytime I get on the phone, quietly sneak to the bathroom, or sit down with a cup of coffee, thinking I have five minutes of peace, certain people (husband, children, grandchild, cats) suddenly appear, seemingly out of nowhere. And they need something. They need it now. Not five minutes from now. Not five minutes before I sat down or got on the phone. Now.
Last night, I was on the phone, at my husband's behest, trying to iron out some difficulty with Quicken in setting up a business account to sync with the on-line banking system. So he tells me to get on the phone and call the bank and then he'll help me get it set up because, despite our mutual efforts without phone support, it just wasn't working.
While I sat there on hold, via speakerphone, listening to the options and pressing buttons as my husband called out umpteen times, "Press that one..," I got confused. I'm not sure if it was because of too many options, my husband yelling out his commands, or the fact that I'd eaten an entire can of soy beans for lunch, thinking it'd be good for me and I was having some issues based on the 36 grams of fiber in that can (which I didn't know about until I read the label after eating it) and a sweat was breaking out on my brow (which also could have been attributed to the fact that it was still 84 degrees at 9:30 and I have no A/C). I won't even go into the amount of estrogen I consumed in that can of soy beans and its emotional effects on me by this time.
Anyway, on the third try at phone support, I patiently waited as the recorded voice again walked me through my options. Just then, my husband decided he had something to tell me. Trying to listen to the recording, I began waving my hand wildly in the air to gesture, "Shut your freaking mouth or I will kill you." Alas, I lost concentration and had to hang up. Again. Giving my husband the death glare, I started over. Once again, as I got close, very close to paydirt on the options, he meekly whispered a suggestion. My head spun around so fast, I swear I thought it was going to keep going and I might start spewing pea soup and all kinds of vulgar words some people have never even heard of. "If you open your mouth one more time before I get a live person, you will regret the day you were born. I'm not kidding." "Well, maybe I already do," he snorted. I hung up the phone and started over. "I'm sorry to threaten your life like this," I said, "but you are really pushing my buttons." "The windows are open, you know," he retorted. "And you're getting loud."
After talking to one customer service rep who spoke in a strange Martian dialect and, since I didn't have my Martian-English, English-Martian dictionary handy, I hung up and called right back to see if we could possibly get someone with at least a Hindi accent. I was surprised to get a gentleman with no accent at all; he was merely rude. After he insisted three times that we must be putting in the wrong password and after us going to another window on the computer and to the website and verifying that the username and password were correct, I finally decided that he wasn't a live person at all. He was a recorded message who couldn't say anything else and, suddenly, I felt very sorry for his wife. We hung up again with no more information than when we started.
My husband, determined not to give up, sat down at the computer, mumbling to himself. I, thinking I was off the hook, went and did something else. As soon as I began cutting my soap (which I make and which is fabulous), he said, "Hey, c'mere for a minute." Naturally, this phenomenon of interruption didn't occur the full 5 minutes I waited before moving to something else - just in case I was going to be sucked back into this accounting vortex. Of course not. And I stood there, watching and listening, to see if I would be needed before announcing I was going to cut the soap.
Setting down my knife, I dutifully went to his side again and placed my hand on his shoulder. "Yes?" "Well, wait a minute now," he said to the computer monitor. "Just a sec..." Sighing, I went back to my soap.
When he stood up from the computer, I said, "My hairdresser loves my soap. She wants more of it and I told her I only have two varieties left which will have to last her the entire summer because when it's muggy like this, you just can't get a trace on the soap and it's really hard to make. So I'll probably have to wait until fall to make more." All the while, he is standing in the kitchen, contorting his face, slow dancing with himself in slow motion jerks, occasionally nodding his head and I realize he has done something big. Huge, in fact, at least in his mind. Indeed, he had gotten my account all hooked up.
"What are you doing with that soap?" he said, coming to investigate.
Moral of the story: If you want attention, get involved in something for yourself. It draws all kinds of living things to you and causes you to take attention away from yourself. I mean, how selfish can you be, thinking you have a minute to yourself anyway? Next, don't expect your husband to be able to remember one word you say. Ever. And occasionally use his lack of listening to your advantage: "I told you about this party over a month ago," (when you had forgotten) or, "I told you I sold the house and we are moving to the Governor's mansion as the new maid and butler...," or "I told you that I am going to live in France for the summer while you stay behind and manage things. What? Sorry. Too late. The flight is already booked and the cottage is already rented. Sure, you can come and visit. Call first."
Copyright 2009 liamsgrandma
