Hunky MagooHunky Magoo is a fitting nickname for the husband. Its unusual, and so is he. I call him "H.M." He likes to think it stands for "His Majesty." H.M. sometimes gives the impression of being unfriendly, but deep down in his heart, hes really antisocial. Like all men, he has his little idiosyncracies. For one thing, hes a pack rat. I havent been able to park my van in our three-car garage for ten years, because its overflowing with all the junk hes collected. He hangs onto everything hes ever owned, including the wing-tip shoes he bought for our wedding thirty years ago. I cant sneak them out of the house, because he routinely checks the garbage to see if Ive thrown away any of his stuff. He thinks the groovy polyester pants he wore in the Seventies still have a few good years in them. Ive even caught him wearing my cleaning rags. Hunkys the most handsome, thoughtful, charming husband in the universe in his opinion. He brags that he can do the work of three men, and its true, if the three men are Larry, Moe, and Curly. He also brags about having a mind like a steel trap. I tell him hes right about that, because nothing can penetrate it. I also tell him the trap must be stuck, because he keeps forgetting whos the boss around here. H.M.s perspective is very different from mine. For instance, he doesnt feel as strongly as I do about things like empty toilet paper rolls. Then theres the issue of dirty underwear. He seems to believe it belongs on the bathroom floor. Every morning, I pick it up, along with enough back hair to fill a trash bag. (Im saving it to weave a rug). He also has some odd ideas about home decorating. Once, we were to show our house to prospective buyers on a day I had to work. That left H.M. in charge of giving the tour. That morning, I ran through the house, giving it a quick inspection. Everything looked good. I grabbed the dirty laundry from the bedroom, ran downstairs, and dropped it into the washer before going out the door. When I came home that night, the couple was just leaving. I met them on the front porch, thanked them for coming, and went inside to ask the husband how the showing went. As I stepped through the door, I saw THEM! There, on the stairs leading up to our bedroom on the third step to be exact was a pair of my holey, white, cotton, "grandma" underwear. At that moment, I cant be sure, but I think I had a stroke. I could almost hear those ragged old bloomers screaming, "Look at me! Look at me!" They mocked me, saying, "Nya, Nya! Ive been here all day, right out in the open for all the world to see, and there wasnt a darn thing you could do about it!" I was mortified. It was the second most embarrassing event of my life. The first most embarrassing was in second grade when my mother gave me a haircut and a poodle perm the day before class pictures were taken. That horrific memory of those tight, one-quarter-inch, fuzzy curls and the huge red bow on top of my head, was captured on film to be ridiculed forever by future generations. Anyway, after my stroke, I got off the floor, turned to the husband, and groaned, "Please tell me these were not here when the couple walked through the house." "Yeah, they were," he answered, with the same casual tone he would use to say, "Nice weather were having, huh?" I felt a second stroke coming on. An inferno of anger was rising from the pit of my stomach as if it would shoot out my ears. Yet, I made a valiant attempt to control myself. I spoke as calmly as I could. "Tell me," I said quietly. Then, a little louder: "Why would you leave them there?" Finally, I yelled, "Why didnt you pick them up?" Looking at me as if I were Quasimodos ugly cousin from Neptune, he sighed and said, "I didnt want to call attention to them, thats why!" |