He also puts tomato sauce on grilled cheese sandwiches, which is the worst thing I've ever seen
March 29, 2012Did you know that Scott and I not only live together as man and wife, we also both work from home? Home being a two-bedroom apartment? With no adjoining office or anything? It's amazing that I still find him adorable. I'm pretty sure he likes me, too, but I don't want to put words in his mouth.
We handle this mostly very well, because Scott's work requires him to hole up in the bedroom with a pair of headphones, so I can pretty much pretend I'm alone.
Except that I'm not, and sometimes I want to visit with him and chat. And he is LOST TO ME. Lost to his work. I have been known to take my top off and dance around. This always gets his attention. On the day that it no longer does, I will hang up my tassels.
Scott, on the other hand, is always at his most social right after he's dropped off Henry at school, which is the time of day I prefer quiet focus and not, say, someone comically belting Blood, Sweat and Tears at me, or loudly exclaiming over NPR.
Scott's main beef (ha, I said "main beef") with me is that I leave a trail of detritus and flotsam wherever I go. This is especially a problem while I'm working, and I can't deny it. I am as baffled as he is. In the course of making myself a nice lunch plate, I will scatter wrappings and baglets all over the counter, open (and leave open) every drawer and cabinet, and somehow coat the floor with ground pepper. I don't realize this because I have turned away from the mess and therefore it no longer exists.
Then while I'm in the next room reading Twitter and making num-num noises over my food, Scott will enter the kitchen to make HIS lunch and get all huffy I-am-a-better-person-than-you as he picks things up and closes things and whatever. And I'm all "JUST LEAVE IT," not because I know what kind of mess I made but because I have learned to recognize the tenor of his complaints and assume they are mess-related.
Don't tell Scott this but yesterday he was working at an office, so I was home alone, and I became annoyed with MYSELF over the messes I was leaving. It was like a poltergeist had gotten loose. I mean, who forgets to close a cabinet? Honestly. By the time Henry came home the sight of the kitchen was making me cry, and I thought I had cleaned up some of it. I could be wrong about that. So I think Scott actually cleans up after me almost as much as he makes all those mouth sounds? It's possible, is all I'm saying.
On the other hand he spends far too much time in the bathroom, so I say we're even. (We're probably not even.)
Reader Comments (21)
You are an incredible writer, and I have loved every post you've ever written, but I have to say: THIS IS MY FAVORITE. If you take out "Scott" and replace it with "Jack" and replace "apartment" with "house" and "Henry" with "Maria and Johnny" and pretend I wrote this article, it could be about me and my husband!!!
I laughed out loud and will be reading this to said husband tonight, over dinner, where I'm sure my place setting will be much messier than his...
Too funny! I don't know how you guys do it. That's a modern day love story if there ever was one!
I do believe my husband would say many of the same things about me and my messy habits. However, I don't work at home so he is mostly spared.
I just had my husband read the "main beef" paragraph to see if it sounded familiar. He cracked up and said yes, yes it does.
We grew up eating jelly on our grilled cheese. Feel better about the tomato sauce?
OH GOD WOMBAT WHY
My son's name is Henry! I do the same thing with the cabinets but my husband is constantly leaving packages open and empty beer bottles on the cabinet directly above where we keep the trash can... drives me nuts!
I didn't know this! Oh my god! I can't even imagine. How are the two of you still married? You need to write another book about marriage b/c if the two of you can make it through the day without throwing each other off of the balcony, you've definitely got some tricks!
"The child psychologist who thought she had all the answers to parenting until she became one herself." www.themommypsychologist.com
I'm trying to imagine what type of work your husband does wherein he is holed up in a bedroom all day wearing headphones. A translator of foreign read-aloud books? A whale call analyst? The person who writes notes on pop-up video? (he'd have to listen to the songs in advance and write all the tidbits...) Really. I'm stuck.
Haha, I love this! Also, am super jealous of you being able to work at home with your husband. I swear, we are the only couple left on the planet that actually wish we could work at the same job (or, like in your case, at the same location at least!). And, yes, I completely identify with having a husband clean up after you in the kitchen... although, in our case, we both make the mess, then wait about 3 days, and he cleans it up finally. I don't know what I will do when I can no longer blame the tile floor hurting my pregnancy back when I stand too long on it...
Oh, no. This makes me feel better- I'm the horrible, untidy, paper-piling mess of a woman in my household, so my husband would relate to this. Although I'm also the one who eats my grilled cheese with ketchup. MMMMMMMM
Tomato sauce on grilled cheese is almost like pizza. Brilliant! The best part is that grilled cheese by itself is totally decadent, but tomato sauce makes it healthy. Optional: use fresh tomato slices instead of tomato sauce. Forget the pickle. And oh yeah, emotional and parenting difficulties acknowledged.
I'm with both Scott _and_ WombatCentral on this one -- I eat grilled cheese sandwiches dipped in ketchup (if it's cheddar or american cheese) or with a good spoonful or two of jam grilled right into the middle of the sandwich (if it's a fancier, salty cheese). Hooray for condiments! (Full disclosure: something I still occasionally do, even now as a for-real adult person, is eat macaroni & cheese with some ketchup on it, also.)
wow i swear that just YESTERDAY i was telling my friend that i always leave all the drawers and cabinets open and my husband always yells and asks if we live in the 6th sense movie!!
The very best thing to dip grilled cheese sandwiches in is sweet mixed pickle juice. Get him to try it and the catsup will disappear.
I just read your article in Ladies Home Journal and was a little disappointed to learn you are just another professed woman dog lover that gets pregnant and then wants to throw the dog that you wanted to adopt forever out of the bed.. Because of "the baby"... It always makes me laugh how the dog is always the one that gets tossed out.. When the "dog" is always the one used to get the husband accustomed to having a baby in the house. God bless Charlie, let him live a LONG life for what he has gone through in his past life....
I just read your article in Ladies Home Journal and was a little disappointed to learn you are just another professed woman dog lover that gets pregnant and then wants to throw the dog that you wanted to adopt forever out of the bed.. Because of "the baby"... It always makes me laugh how the dog is always the one that gets tossed out.. When the "dog" is always the one used to get the husband accustomed to having a baby in the house. God bless Charlie, let him live a LONG life for what he has gone through in his past life....
That's hilarious, you've got a packed house there.
I like my grilled cheese sandwhiches just how they are, no dipping sauces!
I loved this post. My husband and I both work at home and most people can't understand how we a. get anything done and b. don't kill each other. I think it works out great, but I totally feel the same way about being lost to my husband. He's so focused and disciplined and I feel like I haven't seen him in forever even though we're both home all day together.
Oh man, I am still working on actually throwing out wrappers and the little plastic stuff you take off the top of new bottles of things, or when you open a new shredded cheese package and have that strip of plastic. In fact, I made dinner two hours ago, and you just KNOW everything is still hanging out on the counter waiting to be put away.
Oh, man. This rings a bell. My husband and I both work from home too, in a 2-bedroom townhouse, with our 7-month old. He's the whirlwind in the kitchen and I make the huffy sounds in our relationship. hah.