Beyond the "for richer, for poorer" parts, there are the unspoken vows. These range from serious (loving you through the puking!) to the more humorous. I'm all about the humor, so here are my thoughts from last night.
Our littlest cat, Missy, and I have a bedtime routine. I bring her kitty treat into the bathroom while I'm brushing my teeth and put it in some place that she has to work at least a little bit to reach. It's not a big challenge to her, but it makes her start purring as she "hunts." So last night, after she had "captured" her treats, she was sitting on the bathroom counter, purring and staring up toward the ceiling. I was thinking, "Oh, she's so cute! She's looking up at me adoringly," and all other sorts of other warm fuzzies. But she wasn't looking at me exactly. Then I wondered, "Why does she keep staring at the ceiling?" So I looked up.
Big, black spider. Yep. Above my head.
Here's the unwritten marriage vow thing. Craig's job is spider control. I don't do spiders. Now, those of you who know me well, know I'm no wuss. I love nature; I dig in the mud, pick up worms, touch snakes, dissect owl pellets, examine skulls and bones, etc. I don't mind bugs, and I don't mind spiders--when I'm watching them outside from a safe distance. I understand and appreciate their place in the ecosystem, and I find them fascinating and cool from a naturalist's perspective.
However, they are not allowed in my house unless they follow my rules. (Remain visible at all times but in an out-of-the-way spot. Be relatively small. Show me that you're providing for the common good by the bug carcasses under your web.)
The spider on the ceiling was clearly in violation of my house rules, so Craig had to get out of bed and kill it. He complained about this, and I will admit that I very bluntly reminded him of the wedding vow thing. "You take care of spiders. I take care of the cards."
It's good to know who does what in a relationship, don't you think? :D
Now, we did establish healthy boundaries early on in our marriage. For example, I remember that I called him one day right after we were married. (We were still in our apartment in Elyria, which we only had for 3 months before we moved to Kettering.) He was at work at Landmark, and I had gotten up after having worked at the lab. There was a scary centipede thing in the bathroom. He would not come home to get rid of it. I will grudgingly admit (now) that that was reasonable.
However, it is reasonable to expect him to come home from a church meeting that has already gone too late to deal with this:
Do you see the size of that thing?! It was too fast for me to attempt scooting it outside with a broom and dustpan. So we trapped it under a plastic container and put some books on the top to hold the container down. It was that big--I was afraid it could push the container off of it!
Anyway, like I already mentioned, my job is cards. I'm the Commemorater of Events. I take care of birthdays, anniversaries, new babies, illnesses, deaths, etc. And I do a pretty good job, I think. The only problem I have from time to time is my mailbox impairment. See, when I put something in an envelope, address it, stick the return address label on it, and put the stamp on it, I am done. It's crossed off my mental list and finished. Somehow my mind forgets the crucial step of actually putting the item in the mailbox. Fortunately, Craig usually has my back if I forget, and I've taken to writing down on my to-do list such things as, "Put the card in the mailbox!". (But that does mean that if I've been owing you something like a thank-you note, you can be assured that somewhere in my house there is a stamped card with your name on it.)
So what are your unspoken marriage vows?
0 comments:
Post a Comment