My Guy

Me, singing in a rather loud, operatic voice – ‘I’m going up to SHOOOOWWWEEEERRRRR!’

Joe, mostly ignoring me and continuing his email -‘That’s great.’

Me – ‘Well, that was quite less enthusiastic than the response I was hoping for.’

Joe, being the kind of husband that loves me – ‘Thaaaaaaaat’s GRRREEEEEEAAAAAT!’

Today is Joe birthday. He’s 37 and will always be older than me. And smarter than me in many ways, except playing Guitar Hero, loading the dishwasher the RIGHT way, cleaning the house the RIGHT way and never buying enough pairs of pants. My studies show every person needs at least 15 pairs of jeans and his side of the closet is severely lacking. But, that’s all ok because he changes light bulbs, generally always puts away the laundry (THE CHAIR LAUNDRY) and sings in an operatic voice when I need him to. He gets spiders down from the very high ceiling so I can sleep at night and cleans the hair out of the drain.

Joe also has a complete tool set of skills when it comes to deciphering kid-speak, which doesn’t come easy to parents who come into the parent game mid-stream. He hears, ‘No, I don’t have any homework.’ and now immediately translates that to, ‘I So SO do have homework, but I don’t want to do it right now. And if I say no, you’ll leave me alone. But then when I get a D on my test next week, I will blame you for not making me study so if you really love me, you’ll make me haul out my agenda book, with much protesting, and look over my shoulder while I pretend to look by running my finger down the page in a line as I fake check and then when you ask me what ‘Study for Test’ means in the third period slot, I’ll act all surprised and say Oh Ya! I guess I do have homework and I’ll most likely hate you instantly because I’m not getting to play Counter Strike with my FRIENDS ONLINE who need me to WIN THE BATTLE, DUH, but when I’m not working at 7/11 at the age of 28, I’ll thank you.’ He also knows that ‘I barely touched him!‘ means ‘I just smacked him upside the head but he deserved it because he touched my favorite golf putter – the one I stashed under the coffee table so no one would find it and HE TOUCHED IT.’ And, last but not least, teen girls that answer How was your day? with barely a ‘Fine.’ really mean ‘You are old and a man, a man that (eeewwww) has hair on his chest, so there is no way you could ever understand the deep, deep sadness I carry in my heart today when Tammy totally forgot to bring my sweater to school and I wore my white shirt with the long sleeves just BECAUSE she was supposed to bring it and the shoulders on it are weird without the sweater and all day I had to just wear that stupid shirt without the sweater and everyone, EVERYONE stared at my stupid shoulders all day and Tammy didn’t even care or say sorry! You should BE SORRY, TAMMY!’

And, none of that even takes in to account the skills he had to learn just to understand me. That list would be far too extensive, so let me just say, Happy Birthday, Joe. I love you. You are my favorite.