People have different styles, and some may be quirkier than others. The definition depends largely on who is describing the behavior, the person with it, or the person living with the person with it. In this instance, I would be the first person, which makes Husband the second.
Here’s the story. We have five windows in our upstairs master bedroom. After a protracted discussion (battle) over how to shade these windows, we reached a decision (compromise). Husband wanted no shades at all, and I wanted those privacy blinds that allow only enough light in so you know you’re not in a coffin. What we settled on were silhouette shades that allow in filtered light while obscuring vision from outside.
This would be a good compromise except Husband wants the shades pulled up all the time we’re not sleeping. One of the windows looks out onto the path that students walk to the local high school and another looks out onto our neighbor’s roof. I told Husband I want those two shades down all the time because I don’t need packs of teenagers looking up into our bedroom. He gave me a look that said, “Are you kidding? They’re busy selling drugs to each other,” which I can’t argue with so let’s move to the other window, the one facing the neighbor’s roof.
These neighbors are very nice people who have sorely neglected the back of their house, the side our bedroom faces. They’ve done all manner of landscaping and design to the front and sides, but the back looks like it belongs to a foreclosure. We’ve carefully mentioned this to them in a non-critical way, like, “You know that rotting wood attracts termites and carpenter ants, right?” and they just nod and ask how the kids are. So we’ve had to let it go. But that doesn’t mean I want to look at it.
Being in the field of social work, Husband often likes me to explore the underlying meaning of my preferences. Sometimes I go along with it and sometimes it just gives me cramps. Saturday morning I pulled up all the bedroom shades except the roof-facing one. Noticing Husband looking at me, I explained.
OSV: I’m going in to take a shower and I don’t want to come out with that window shade up. The roof is ugly, and besides, who knows if they’ll be having work done and there’s someone standing up there.
For a Certified Social Worker, this is the Aha! moment since everyone in the psychology field knows the part that comes after the ‘besides’ is the real deal.
HUSBAND: They never have work done. Why don’t you just admit you’re a little paranoid about privacy?
Just to show him, I pulled the shade up and went in the shower while he left on errands.
After my shower, I entered the bedroom in my towel and something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. Directly to my left, right out that freaking window, were two guys standing on the neighbor’s roof. One had his back to me and the other one looked away quickly when I appeared. No young guy wants to see a woman in her fifties in a skimpy towel unless maybe she’s Michelle Pfeiffer or he has Cougaritis. I found out later that a pregnant raccoon had found its way into the neighbor’s attic through the rotted fascia board. The guys on the roof were with an animal removal service, and at least one of them was going to need an extra beer at lunch.
All things considered, I fared better than the woman who submitted the following response to a magazine asking about readers’ most embarrassing moments. She had taken a shower, and then ran down to the basement in her towel to get the basket of clean laundry. While there, she noticed her son had left his football helmet on the washer after putting his dirty uniform in. Since the basket was full and she knew he’d be looking for the helmet after school, she put it on her head and went to go upstairs.
Unfortunately, as she walked the towel came loose and fell to the floor. Not having a free hand to retrieve it, she just kept going since it was only her husband in the house. But unaware his wife was in the basement laundry room, the husband had let in the meter reader. As the woman approached the stairs, she was stunned to see a strange man standing there. Equally stunned to see a naked woman holding a laundry basket and wearing a football helmet, the meter reader said, “Lady, I don’t know the game you’re playing, but I hope your team wins.”
Today’s Featured Fotos add alliteration with Cousin‘s Costa Rican Catches
