11.20.2005

While you're kicking the crap out of my ego...

Boy, was I put in my place this evening. This is the weekend and as every weekend since we moved up here dh puttered around and did his thing...fixing this, tweaking that, but not exerting himself in any way. I was doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the floors, making the beds, cleaning the mirrors, dusting, etc. The same normal freaking menial labour that I do every day of my life.
Dh took dd out to do his errands this morning. He left around 10:45. I couldn't go with them. He said he was going to do his Christmas shopping. Plus, he was going to go to Lowe's and then the grocery store. Target was his destination. He was back home at precisely 12:00. With the Sunday traffic I imagine he spent 15 minutes per store to get his shopping done.

Anyway, back to my ego...
At 3:00 it's happy time. He parks his ass in the beach chair and pops the top on a cold one. He urged me to join him so I got a cup of coffee and headed out. We waited until the sun dipped behind the trees and the temperature dropped. We go inside, play a game of cards and complete a geography quiz in the paper. At that point he packs everything up and begins his evening personal chores. I go outside to fill the chicken's food pan, make sure they have water and shut them up for the night. Then I have to get the two chicks into their pen and bring it in the house. Then I have to break down their daytime camp, get them scratch and water and set them up for the night. Then I have to sweep the library floor since dh did the bulk of his puttering in there today. I have to bring in any plants I have outside since it'll freeze tonight. Then I have to get dd's backpack loaded for school tomorrow. Meanwhile, dh is out of the shower and he draws dd's bath for her. I unload the dryer and fold the clothes. Then I get dd's jammies ready for her.
Time to cook supper. I had thawed out a lb. of sausage. I had planned on cooking up some angel hair pasta but the pan and the strainer needed to be washed. Dh was now ensconced in the lazyboy recliner, the remote in one hand searching for sports of any kind and his crossword puzzle in the other.
"Hey 'dh', could you help me?" I needed to chop up some peppers and onions. Since he didn't put in 8 hours at the office I felt it was fair that he help make dinner. "Can you wash the spaghetti pot and strainer for me?"
"Don't you have another pot?" he asks.
"No, I always use that pan."
Blah blah blah. So then he decides that there are enough leftovers in the fridge that I don't have to cook except maybe a little something for myself. Somehow the argument turns really bad. He suggests that I don't like to cook, that he's never asked me to cook, and won't ever ask me to help him because he knows I don't want to. I guess that means I shouldn't have asked him to help me.
So he paints me as a lazy shiftless bitch. I shouldn't have asked him to wash a damn pot because he wouldn't ask me to do it. Logical.
I got a cup of tea and sat down at the computer. Suddenly he wants me to cook the spaghetti. He offers to wash the pot. "It's too late now. You said I didn't have to cook." Dd calls from the bathroom for her daddy. I fight the urge to go check on her. Finally dh asks me what she wants. "I don't know. She's calling for you." He checks on her and then tells me she just asked him a question and I should have gone and answered it for her. "She wasn't calling for me." I replied. Dd calls me to help her dry her hair and I fix her up while dh is getting their supper ready. I take my shower right after. When I get out dh has washed all the dishes. He apologizes.
It still stings tho. I told him it wasn't fair that he gets to quit at 5 everyday (3 on the weekends) and I never get to. Not until after he's fallen asleep in front of the tv. Some nights I'm still tending to laundry at midnight. He said that I was sitting down at 3 also. "But," I said, "I have to go back to work. You never do." If I got a job outside the home I'd still be working when I got home.

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