Doug and I rarely argue. Oh, we get on each others nerves from time to time and may have to blow off a little steam. But for the most part we both go happily about our business and enjoy each other’s company. Our biggest arguments the last few years have been silly and really don’t matter much. It might be over a movie we are watching. One of us thinks an actor in it was in another movie while the other one thinks that one has lost their ever loving mind. The use of the imdb website solves most of these disagreements.
I get on his nerves frequently because I have a tendency to drip water all over the kitchen floor when I’m putting up dishes. You know that plastic stuff never really dries in the dishwasher. I do take a dishcloth and try to dry it off. But invariably a drip will drop and there I am standing in my kitchen with Doug glaring at me like I just spilled paint on the floor. Plus I’m a klutz and he is always telling me I should be more careful. I do try to be careful, but I’ve come to the conclusion that a klutz is just going to be a klutz.
Now he’s not perfect either. Like him, I work all week. On Saturday I spend most of my day cleaning my house. On just about any Saturday evening I can go into my bathroom and find tiny little hairs all over the bathroom sink where he has trimmed his moustache. I find socks balled up all over the place. There are other things too, but I don’t want to be labeled a nag.
He has worked at Lockheed Martin for over 30 years. Like any one who works in a manufacturing plant for years, his hearing is starting to go. Plus his right ear is stopped up with ear wax, but he won’t go to the doctor to get it irrigated. His primary doctor that retired several years ago told him to put drops of Colace in his ear at night and that would loosen it up. But he says that’s silly and so here we are. He tries to tell me that my hearing is bad too. Maybe it is, but I don’t think so. I’ve suggested that we both go together to get our ears check, but since this makes way too much sense, we haven’t been.
Monday evening on the way home I received a phone call from my nephew Kennith who is in the Air Force and stationed in England. Now I haven’t been able to talk to him in a while and was very excited to hear his voice. I had a little trouble hearing everything he said. I think it’s my phone and not my hearing though. When I hung up I called Doug to let him know I was on my way home. I’ve always been very close to my nephew and sometimes refer to him as “my Kennith”. So I told Doug “My Kennith called me.” He said “Your dentist called you?” I heard him say Kennith, so I said “Yes, my Kennith called me from England.” Doug heard dentist and yelled at me “Why in the hell is your dentist calling you from England????” Again I heard Kennith and replied “Because he loves me and he misses me!!!” We were disconnected, but I thought the call was dropped. I didn’t realize that Doug had hung up on me.
When I got home, Doug was totally silent and wouldn’t talk to me. I thought to myself, “He must have had a really bad day at work. I’ll just leave him alone for awhile.” I asked him “What do you want for dinner?” He told me “You just worry about yourself, I’ll get something in a little bit.” When it was time for bed he just rolled over on the very edge of his side of the bed. Man, I wondered???? What in the world did I do that made him so mad? I racked my brain, I couldn’t sleep. I finally decided it was because of the dropped call and I didn’t call him right back. Silly man, I thought. Just be mad.
Morning came and he got up and started getting ready for work, still not speaking to me. So I said to him “I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but I apologize.” He replied to me “Don’t worry about it, you just do what you want to do.” Okay goofy man, this is a weird reply. As he was gathering his lunch and stuff for work, I got up and went in the kitchen and said to him “I know you are really mad at me and I have no idea why. I don’t think you should leave without telling me what I’ve done. If something happened to either one of us today you know we would feel bad about leaving like this.”
Standing there with his lunchbox in his hand he said “I just don’t understand why your dentist is calling you on the phone?” I said “Dentist!!!! It wasn’t my dentist it was Kennith!” Relief flooded his face and we both started laughing so hard. He told me “I thought you were going to run off with your dentist. You said he loved you and he missed you” I said “I can’t believe you would think I would tell you I’m running off with the dentist and then come home and ask you what you want for supper.”
I can’t blame this all on him. I really thought he was saying Kennith. I think I need to set up an appointment with an audiologist ASAP.