Patience Grasshopper!!

One of the biggest challenges in a marriage is having patience with your spouse.  As  easily as my husband can fly off the handle with other people's driving and a number of things he often gripes about that drive him mad he is quite patient with me.  I have an irritating tunnel vision once I set my mind on something getting done.  You see, I often mention my desire to do something/chore "some time soon" and will talk about it  for days, put it off for a long time until I drive myself crazy and must do it IMEDIATELY!!  Right then and there!  No more procrastinating, must get it done before my feet dragging comes and bites me in the butt! Of course my must do it NOW (or freak out moment) usually makes my husband suffer! Being the smart man that he is he knows it is best to jump on board during those nutty outburst than to become a casualty!

Take for instance the carpets being cleaned this weekend.  They have been looking pretty bad for a couple of months!  I had every intention of cleaning them before hosting our last gathering but there was no time to do it.  Since I have talked about renting a machine and cleaning the carpets ourselves.  We've had a number of things going on every weekend and during the week there is no time or honestly ENERGY to take on any "project" around the house. 

Yesterday afternoon I finally snapped! We have invited family over for dinner next weekend so it was NOW OR NEVER time!!   I pestered my husband since early in the afternoon about running to pick up a machine but he didn't get around to it until later in the day.  He belly ached for EVER about being Sunday, and tried to "reason" with me in to leaving the chore for a Saturday, basically the usual stalling to any  house work.  I am not a clean freak, I have to make myself keep up with house chores and unfortunately when it comes to house cleaning I must take the lead because my husband can ignore/put off things far longer than I can.

Anyway, he finally brought home the rental carpet cleaner and offered to work the machine himself in an effort to keep me from injuring my poor back (I've had a pain free couple of months).  Well, the good deed was too good to be true.  I am convinced that either my husband had really never worked a carpet cleaner before or he suddently asked himself "how the heck did I get stuck doing this?" Without going in to more details I ended up cleaning the carpets. 

I won't imply that he wiggled out of doing the carpets, it was more of me taking ownership of my disfunctional need to DO IT RIGHT!  I was very concious not to nag him about doing it "como sus patas" (a half assed job), and just took over.  He did help by emptying the dirty water and refilling the machine for me, but that was another "patience grasshopper" moment for me.  He first staretd to head to the kitchen sink to dump out the water and I asked him to dump it in the bathroom afraid to clog up the sink aside from the ick factor.  I didn't think I would have to give specific instructions (he squints his eyes at me and I swear he is thinking "I am squashing your head" as his eyes become thin slits), but I was wrong!!  My HUSBAND dumped the water in to the bath tub.  Hello??  How is that different from the kitchen sink??  I had thought it would be without saying that the water should be dumped in the comode but I was wrong!!  Of course I didn't notice what he had done or the damage until late at night, past our bed time, when I tryed to take a quick shower after all the dusting, vacumming and carpet cleaning that evening. 

I confess to wanting to "colgarlo del palo mas alto!!" (hang him from the tallest pole!) I drew the shower curtain and found a black tub with all sorts of debry.  I did manage not to  scream too loud!!  Again, I won't reveal what was said only that I had to excersise all the patience I could at 11:30 p.m. I ended up spending a good 20 minutes scrubbing and as I feared unclogging the drain.  Yes, my husband insisted he would do it but I was so angry that I chose to do it myself AGAIN and this time I had to also get him out of my sight by closing the door on him before I lost it!  I knew if I let him do it he would try to do it quickly just to get to bed and I would probably go crazy wondering if he disinfected the tub well! 

When I asked him why he didn't dump the water down the comode his responce was, I didn't think about it!  No disrespect, but truly an Aggie moment!!  I had to calm myself down and remind myself of  how I didn't think about it either the time when I threw some dried up flowers down the garbage disposal   In my mind it was a grinder, an "indoor woodchipper" and never did the thought of getting the garbage disposal stuck cross my mind.  HE was very patient then!  So I scrubbed the tub and sucked it up, because I was not going to spew angry words and make a bad situation worse by turning it in to a monster fight!  Patience Grasshopper!!!