I try to put a positive spin on my relationship by convincing myself that it is actually a positive thing that The Man drives me absolutely insane.
On some level, surely it’s a good sign that I still feel passionately enough about him to hate him… right? Even more maddening than his many misdemeanours is his total lack of caring about the fact he’s pissing me off. For example, he is totally unconcerned about my insistence that if I find out one more time he has used the wooden bread board to chop onions I’m actually going to murder him in his sleep. He’s so arrogant, he thinks that I won’t be able to do it, that even in his unconscious state he will be able to overpower me but I will, the rage will invigorate me. I’m counting on it.
Such is his mastery of pissing me off that he no longer even has to be in the vicinity to enrage me, sometimes the mere evidence of his recent presence will do the trick.
10 ways The Man can piss me off (when he’s not even in the room)
1. When I walk in the front door and know simply by the odour and atmosphere in the house that The Man has removed his shoes and socks and is airing his sweaty, pasty ham-like feet somewhere, most likely on my pillow.
2. By disappearing into the toilet of a Sunday morning, usually with the papers in tow for an inordinately long length of time. A) It contaminates the papers for everyone else in the house, namely me. And B) We’d all like to hide in the jacks all weekend but the toddler scratching at the door shouting “mumma”, doesn’t allow it.
3. When in the aftermath of The Man “thoughtfully” cooking dinner, everything appears cleaned until I uncover the husk of a sticky garlic clove still inside the garlic press AND – wait for it – placed back in the drawer. Does he not know what a raw pressed garlic clove in a cutlery tray can do to a drawer? Apparently not. The word “contamination” cannot even begin to describe it.
4. When, while I’m upstairs humming The Child to sleep, he embarks on some totally illogical and LOUD activity downstairs, like screaming at sports on the TV. They can’t hear you. And Rob Kearney doesn’t need your advice.
5. When, upon moving the couch to clean behind it, I uncover his cache of UNSTEEPED Weetabix bowls. “Just STEEP them. It takes two minutes and it makes life EASIER,” I shriek to the empty room.
6. By leaving a trail of socks in his wake at all times. Why would a person even want to remove their socks in the kitchen, never mind leave them there? And why, when picked up do the socks remain stiffly at a right-angle to one’s hand, more closely resembling a garment made of cardboard rather than cotton?
7. When he undresses for bed by simply stepping out of the items and wandering off, leaving me to stumble upon them and hurl them against the wall in a rage. I may have anger issues.
8. Putting onion halves back loose in the fridge without even a scrap of tinfoil around them.
9. Embarking on and then swiftly abandoning DIY projects and leaving the detritus in unlikely places to trip me and The Child up.
10. By turning me into a ranting, raving maniac with his very existence. I used to be the laid-back one… then I went a year and a half with no sleep.
