Husband Clothes

Oh, I just realized I accidentally lied. I have said numerous times that my husband literally doesn’t do one household chore. Actually, there is one chore-related type thing he does–he puts his clothes into the laundry basket rather than on the floor, on the bed, or in other places as I have heard that many men do.

See, this is one advantage to having a husband who wears the same outfit up to 10 or more days in a row–clothes on the body don’t go in the floor! YES, he actually does wear the same thing every day, and he has a good job in the movie industry and for some reason, this doesn’t bother anyone.

I’ve learned to see this as kind of a plus, since it saves me so much time that I don’t have to spend doing laundry, not to mention the money we don’t have to shell out on laundry detergent! So what’s the problem? The only problem is what he does to the laundry before it goes into the hamper. Namely his SOCKS. He insists on putting one inside another so that it forms a ball at the top of the socks like so:

Can you guess what happens when you put this into a washer, then into a dryer? Well, I’ll tell you what doesn’t happen. It doesn’t get clean, and it also doesn’t get dry. Obviously, I do sift through the basket to find them before doing laundry. But they just blend in with other stuff. No matter how many times I explain the problem and ask him to STOP DOING THIS, he refuses to stop. Pent up anger? Rebellion? I have no explanation why. (Any therapists out there who know? I won’t be able to come in, but if you can tell me why my husband refuses to stop doing things that are not difficult to stop doing, though stopping them would really help me a lot, I would pay to have you email that info to me. Thanks.)

I am including a photo of the sock ball for you here. One final very odd detail about this sockball: these are MY socks which he wore, and proceeded to shamelessly make into a sockball, which he then threw into the laundry. I wear a size 6 shoe. Do you see how stretched out these socks are? When my husband runs out of clean socks (due to sock balls), he sees no problem in resorting to MY socks.

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Does your guy seem to get a lot of traffic tickets? For example, does he get traffic tickets that make your car insurance twice that of any other person you know? I would LOVE to tell you exactly how much we pay in auto insurance per year, but I have to pretend like I don’t remember. That’s what I tell anyone who asks because I am SO ASHAMED.

I am very happy to say that over 9 years of marriage, my husband has gone from receiving approximately 3 tickets per year to about one every other year. Not bad–I mean, as long as your standards are bottom of the barrel, as mine are.

My favorite ticket was the time he came to California about four years ago. We were soooo poor. We couldn’t pay for a room/apartment near his job, couldn’t figure out the bus schedule (or even if buses even went to his job location), and couldn’t afford to rent a car. SO, he bought this $500 clunker that was like 20 years old. He said insurance came with the car. I asked him to double check as that sounded strange. (He said he trusted the used car salesman–always prudent.) He mentioned that he needed to get the tail light fixed too. Soon after, he said he’d taken care of these things. Mm hm.

One week after getting the car, he got pulled over. $200 ticket for broken tail light. And the officer was going to give him a $1500 ticket for no insurance, plus mandatory court appearance. (My reaction: GOOD MOVE HONEY. Did the officer mention if we can pay that traffic ticket with a credit card?)

My husband explained to the officer that the car dealership had told him insurance was part of the package but he didn’t have the documentation on hand. So the very, very, very, extremely, SO VERY KIND police officer gave my husband the benefit of the doubt, omitted the mandatory court appearance, and made the ticket $200 (tail light) + $300 (no evidence of insurance or something like this). Whew! (Are you a police officer? If so, I love you because of this incident. In a nonsexual way of course, though has anyone noticed how attractive police officers tend to be? WOW.)

So my husband fixed everything, but he continued to get tickets. Till one day a judge blessed him out in court over a wreckless driving (due to speeding) ticket. I have no idea what was said, but after that, the tickets suddenly stopped. Now only one ticket every other year. I count my lucky stars every night. I love my husband, and I feel much better about his safety now. And our cars. And our finances. And our marriage.

PS. Are you a judge? If so, you may be the one who fixed my husband’s driving problem, so I will do anything for you that is morally sound… Need a free babysitter for your children? Need a maid? Need some one to do your online shopping for you? Need money? I’ll send any sum. You saved me thousands of dollars by scaring my husband. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Many people emailed me about my post on my husband’s odd sense of humor to tell me that I’m not alone. It was nice to learn that other spouses and significant others out there tell bizarre, show-stopper jokes. (By “show-stopper,” I mean, socially all’s going well, then your husband tells a joke, which causes an abrupt silence and everyone sits there looking around confused and nervous for 2-3 minutes.)

This happens nearly EVERY time my husband tells a joke. Fortunately, reactions to my husband’s jokes are highly amusing to watch, so I no longer need a husband with a funny sense of humor. Mine has a sense of humor that does funny things. It’s almost the same. My standards sound low? Well, that’s because they are. (But they used to be much higher, so ha, I told you.)

By the way, yes, my husband knows all about this, and if he reads this post, trust me, it’ll make him proud and not embarrassed in the least. He even has a joke about his jokes: The ones that really confuse people are “Level 7.” The ones people laugh at are “Level 1.” (He jokes that this means Level 1 are just easy to understand, whereas Level 7’s are much funnier, so much harder to understand. Now, that joke is funny.)

Since my last post on this topic, I’ve been waiting for a good example of one of his jokes. Today, the perfect “joke” surfaced. Get ready:

I read a scary article about stocking up on food (basically that people in the US should due to the global market). My husband LOVES Costco and bulk-buying. So, I emailed him and said, “Hey, look at this scary article. Maybe we should get some extra food at Costco every weekend for a while, like canned stuff, rice, etc.”

His response (verbatim): “Yes, also we should get a small house in Central America. It’s not expensive there, and we could go if there is a crisis in the weather. If not, we can sell it when the prices rise.” (Seem confusing? Not at all funny? I’m right there with ya.)

I love these articles that help me learn about the psychology of men, and namely, the psychology of my husband.

This article is scientific in nature. It’s on livescience.com–it doesn’t get much more scientific than that. I am positive this article was NOT supposed to be humorous or funny. However, I was laughing aloud as I read it.

I recommend that you read it: Clueless Guys Can’t Read Women. Then correct me if I’m wrong, here’s basically what the article says:

1) Don’t misread the title. It doesn’t mean “Only some guys are clueless–those guys can’t read women.” The title actually means “All guys are clueless and unable to read women.”

2) If you smile at a guy for any reason, he thinks you’re flirting. Frankly, I find this alarming. Girls smile at guys they feel sorry for, guys they are scared of, even guys they hate–just to make a situation less awkward. So, in summary, I guess this means geeks, psychopaths, and evil ex’s all over the world think girls are flirting with them when really they are just trying to think of a way to escape–the room, the seating arrangement, whatever.

3) Guys mistake friendliness for sexual come-on’s. Great, so, pretend you are a guy, and you need a dollar–say for a drink. If I give you this dollar to avoid thirsting to death, and I give it to you and smile (because I feel sorry for you at this moment)–does this imply I want to have SEX with you? I am assuming the answer is no. But based on this article, I am VERY nervous that the answer might be “yes.”

4) Guys mistake girls’ sexual signals as friendly ones. I love this. In this study, each guy was shown 280 photographs. In the ones that showed a female actually being alluring, most guys reported that she was giving friendly signals. Okay, so, if a girl smiles at a guy, she wants to have sex. If she, say, winks and gives him the sexy eye (not sure what that is, just trying to think of something alluring-sounding), she’s trying to be friends?

5) A common theory on guys’ misinterpretations, one of psychologists apparently, goes like this: due to the fact that men have an inherent, biologically based interest in sex, guys have lower standards for what qualifies as a sexual advance. However, the psychologists who designed this study said, “No, it’s not that guys have lower standards. It’s just that guys really can’t read signals correctly.”

Summary
So, it kind of seems like we’re back to square one here. Guys read women’s signals incorrectly. They interpret friendly signals as sexual ones–so to be sure we don’t tease anyone, girls should be careful about smiling, using nice voices, and generally being friendly. Guys interpret sexual signals as friendly ones. SO, if you are a girl trying to make sexual advances, don’t be surprised if you get invited to partake in a burping contest instead.

I hope you feel as enlightened as I do.

I don’t know about you, but I get blamed for some ODD things.  Here are a few examples from this week:

1.) Not watching the YouTube videos my husband sends me via Instant Messenger. He sends like 5 of them a day, and then checks up on me to see if I’ve watched them. If I didn’t, he starts with the irritated comments, “Oh, well that’s too bad. That was REALLY funny.” or “Hm. Then when I tell you about the newstory about Russia, don’t start asking a ton of questions–it was all there in the YouTube video.” (Uhhhhh, sure thing.)

2.) Broken lemon tree branch. We have a lemon tree in our yard which was almost dead when we moved in, but I nursed that baby back to health. (Important detail: my husband never sets foot in the yard–including to lay the sod, mow, or water the lawn, all of which I did/do single-handedly and felt/feel very proud of myself for.) However, I never had a lemon tree, so I don’t know when to pick lemons. Well, recently, a fairly large branch got too weighed down by numerous huge lemons that apparently grew too large. And the branch broke off and fell in the yard. This was very sad for me but…hey, learning experience.

Out of the blue, my husband, who couldn’t care less about the yard or plants in it, got soooooo annoyed. “Didn’t you know you needed to pick the lemons? Why didn’t you just go pick them? Now this whole huge branch broke off!” Why he cared about this branch is beyond me. Why HE couldn’t pick the lemons, and this was all my fault, also beyond me. Nevertheless, this WAS TOTALLY my fault.

3.) My husband can’t log into his webhost server, so I must have changed the password. People, I can barely even tell you what a webhost server is. (See, I don’t even think I’m calling it the right thing–is it webhost? Webserver? Or just server???) I  don’t even know what company my husband uses as his webhost server. Nor do I know his password. Not to mention, I really don’t have a lot of extra time to be logging into other people’s webhost server things, as I have like 8 jobs plus a family to care for!!!

YET, he couldn’t log into his server or something yesterday, so he IM’s me: “Did you change my webhost server thing password?” My reaction was, “Hu?” He continues: “Well, I can’t log in. You must have gotten onto the ftp and changed it.” My reaction: “Hu? I don’t know how to get onto your ftp. No. I didn’t change it. I have no idea how to do that.”

He did not believe me. Then he used FEAR to get me to change his password back! He says, “Well, your email is linked to this server, so I guess you won’t be able to use it anymore.” Finally in about 2 hours the server thing got fixed. Thank GOODNESS.

PS. Good deal for techies–lasts until April 30th: Get 10% Cash Back with Paypal on CompUSA.com!

I suspect that my husband doesn’t know our address by heart. To his credit, we have moved 8 times in 9 years. We haven’t lived in our current apartment even a year…Still, would it not freak you out a little if you suspected your husband hadn’t memorized your address and/or phone number? (Yes, this means I also suspect he may not know our phone number.) I know, speed dial. No one knows anyone’s number. Yet, usually, they know their own number…

Why do I suspect that he doesn’t know our address? Because he carries around this piece of paper in his wallet with the address and phone number written on it. How do I know this? Please, I don’t search through my husband’s wallet. Okay, maybe once a year. Never anything suspicious in there though, and he reads my email, so we’re even. (By the way, he doesn’t even try to hide this. He’ll just say “Hey, who’s that guy who emailed you today?” And I will say “Uh, he’s my cousin, the guy who was in our wedding.” And he’ll say “Oh.” I know, it’s strange–probably dysfunctional. But I have nothing to hide, so if he finds my email entertaining, more power to him. I DO delete the mean emails about his mother. This is very healthy for our marriage.)

SO, actually, I know about the paper because sometimes he loses it and starts asking about it–of course, I’m supposed to know exactly where this 1-inch x 1-inch piece of paper is. “Where’s my paper? Did you get it?” What paper? Get it for what? No, I already know our address, why would I need your paper? Then he immediately makes another “address paper.” He copies it while referencing a piece of mail. Each of the three times this has happened, I have said, “PLEASE tell me you KNOW our address.” And he says he does but gets confused about two digits at the end of our zip code.

Yeah, SURE ya do.

I was looking in the refrigerator to fix breakfast, and I found the container of salsa below. For added effect, the photo is upside down, as was the salsa container. (Must add–it’s NOT because my husband was drunk and eating salsa and chips. He was perfectly sober last night, and I found it this morning):

I don’t understand why this was in the refrigerator. It’s empty. It’s dirty. The garbage can is right beside the refrigerator. In fact, putting it in the trash would have been EASIER, because then no need to even open a fridge door, just throw in trash.

Questions to guys: I just had a suspicion that this is not accidental. After so many reminders, why would he keep doing it? I am thinking there may be some type of thrill involved with this “empty things back in the fridge” thing. This HAS to be intentional, or at least serve some purpose. It just has to. These guesses may be way off, but let’s consider them a place to start. Could it be that:

1) When you insist on putting empty things in the fridge, it involves some type of trick you are playing? Kind of like: “I’m going to play a trick on people and make them think there’s salsa in here! They’ll never know the container is empty! hahahah!” ???

2) Putting empty things in the fridge stem from feelings of rebellion? I’m saying thoughts along the lines of: “I will show that biotch girlfriend of mine who’s in charge. I’ll put this d&^%# empty salsa container upside down in the fridge. That’ll show her to try to boss ME around.”

Anything of this nature? Sorry, if I seem really off target, it’s because I truly don’t get it. But I’m kind of interested in learning.

Hi. I made this interesting discovery. Apparently guys read my blog. I was a little surprised at all of the REALLY nice emails from guys about how mean that my husband forgot my birthday! Wow–thanks. SO, I made some joke posts to guys in the past. Now, I decided to write a real post to guys. And on a very critical topic: why your girl is mean to you.

Guys, the bad news is, there are probably many reasons why your wife or girlfriend is mean to you. If I met you or at least saw a photo of you, I could probably name at least 10 of the reasons within 5 minutes. BUT, since this isn’t the case, I can only tell you the probable reasons she is mean to you based on my experience of having known many, many girls in relationships. And from a few relationships of my own. Here we go:

1. You don’t listen. She tells you things that are really important to her a million times. You keep doing the same annoying stuff. What is she supposed to do, jump for joy? (Yes, I realize you have heard these words–you should have listened, then you wouldn’t need to read this.) What to do: Listen. This doesn’t mean “open your ears and hear her.” This means DO something differently. Obviously you can’t do everything she wants–by the time you get to the stage where she’s fed up with you not listening, there is a very long list of things she wants you to change. That’s fine.

Just change the important one or ones. Which is this? This is the thing that when you do it, she no longer reacts with words. She either begins to slam things, yell (but not about the thing, just words that don’t really make sense, but still convey a very angry message), or gets super silent with a really red face and just kind of goes from place to place trying to get away from you for a few minutes. When this happens, try to ask yourself “What thing has she mentioned did I do right before she started [insert behavior such as slamming things]?” If you can stop doing that thing, she’ll feel that you have listened. At least for a while.

2. You ignore her. (This involves #1 because it’s one of those things she keeps saying that keeps happening. But it’s still an additional and very important issue.) Yes, I know–when you are ready to spend time with her, she’s doing her stuff. Well, still. She needs attention. You must figure out how to give it to her if you want her to be nice. Remember: Attention doesn’t mean 3 hours a day–she’s WAY too busy talking to her friends on the phone, taking care of children, or shopping for that kind of time commitment. We’re talking 10-15 minutes of sitting with her when she seems to need your company. What to do: It’s SO not hard–basically say–hey, let’s TALK! Don’t worry, this means something totally different to her than it does to you. To you, it’s doomsday. To her, it’s pleasure island.

When she sits down, do NOT stare at her blankly. Write down these questions and refer to them (sneakily) if you need to: 1) How did your day go? 2) Did you figure out what to do about that problem you mentioned the other day? [When she asks which problem, you’re going to need to be prepared–think about this one in advance. I can’t give you any definites, but common problems tend to be problems with an annoying acquaintance, boss, or coworker. For stay-at-home moms, another stay-at-home mom or a discipline issue with the kids.] 3) As she tells you the answer, do NOT tell her she handled it incorrectly!!!! You have NO idea what you’re talking about. Just say things like “oh really? ” or “hm, that was an original idea.” also a really good one: “oh, that would work in a lot of scenarios.” Trust me, this will take 15-12 minutes, and she’ll be really happy. Also, this may feel fake–trust me again, this is what your girl is doing when you’re talking about your job. She doesn’t really care about all aspects of your job that she pretends to care about, but she wants to make you feel important. It won’t kill you to do the same.

Now, you could have this issue: you sit down to talk, and she immediately starts griping about #1–I know, this is probably one of the reasons you hate talking. That’s understandable. Try saying, “Hey, I know these things are really important. But I just want to be with you and hear about your day. Tell me how you…” then continue with above suggestion.

3) You create so much work for her, yet do so little work. I know, some guys do work and help. The problem is most guys THINK they do, but really they don’t. See, she yells about your towels and clothes on the floor–why? Not because she wants to be mean. Because she’s tired, and picking up these things is extra work. Plus, the only reason she HAS to pick them up is because you didn’t. Not fair. Sorry, simply not fair. What to do: Listen to the work you create for her, and stop doing it. If you ask, she might start yelling. So, choose a time while she already is yelling about it, and try to listen for key words rather than totally tuning out: “towel” or “fingernail clippings” or “DISHES.” I know, the yelling goes on for a long time and about many various topics, all kind of in a stream. BUT, if you can pick out those important key words, and then stop creating one or two types of unfair work, you’re on your way to having a great week next week!

Wow, that took a lot of explaining. I don’t like super long posts, so I will sign off now. I will post more along these lines soon. Also, I realize there are many things your girlfriend and wife need to change. I’ve changed over 9 years of marriage, so I might be able to tell you how my husband helped that happen. Soon.

Hi. Make me feel better about this. Every guy does this, right? You have hangers all over your house that look just like this, true?

In case these photographs seem perplexing (because they are), let me fully explain them. The first photo is a hanger. No, the hanger did not come like that. It was a perfectly normal, metal hanger. Straight edges, triangular shape. Like all hangers.

But my husband, as you can see, bent the hanger upward on both sides. It kind of looks like it’s… smiling…if you will. The next photograph shows how the hanger is used. Yes, despite the new form, the hanger IS still used to hang up pants. As shown below, the edges that stick up are laced through the outer-most back belt loops of my husband’s pants.

As you can imagine, this ONLY works for pants. Don’t try hanging a shirt on there. Or a dress, skirt, sweater, or anything else. And pants, of course, become much more wrinkled on this little doo-dad, but as you know, that’s the way my husband wears his pants, so that works out perfectly.

Doesn’t everyone want a partner who has a great sense of humor? Yes, me too. But well, I didn’t really get that. I realize that probably sounds a little mean to people who haven’t…how shall I put this…experienced my husband’s jokes. It’s not that his jokes are gross, cruel, too political, or anything like that. Rather, they are just completely incomprehensible. And not at all funny. And they confuse people. Or even alarm people, depending on the topic.

If we are sitting around a table with friends and my husband suddenly blurts out a joke (my worst social nightmare)…here’s what happens: Everyone kind of stops talking and starts looking around at everyone else. You can tell they want to ask, “What just happened? Was that a joke? Or was it a fact? Something from the news?” There is always a moment of sheer confusion, but the moment stretches out for several moments, because my husband thinks that people are just taking time to process the humor–therefore, he doesn’t say “I was joking” quickly enough to eliminate the mass confusion.

Now, I could jump in and say “he was just joking,” except that his jokes also confuse me (and often frustrate and irritate me). Also, when I do finally realize there has been “a joke,” I prefer to quickly change the topic and let people think the confusion was their own fault, rather than admit that the pandemonium was all the result of my husband’s attempt to be funny.

He also tells lots of jokes about me. Not to other people. To ME. For example, “Honey, so you like the chicken I made tonight?” It’s very difficult to replicate one of his jokes, but here’s something vaguely like what he might say: “Oh, this is chicken? I thought it was goat meat.” See–that’s not only not funny. It’s just plain confusing and frustrating. Why would you think it’s goat meat? Have you actually eaten goat meat? Are you trying to say the chicken tastes bad? If so, just say it instead of telling confusing jokes.

For 9 years, I have been asking him if he can try to make his jokes a little funnier. I don’t even think he’s trying.

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