The Factual Basis for the Myth:
When we had been married a few years, we bought this house and I started decorating it. I started decorating it. My wife Gary kept trying to help. After 22 years I have suppressed his feminine urges so now all the homemaking he does is to re-season any food I cook. I can live with that. It helps to know that he doesn’t like to season food, just to “fix” it. And I say, “Oh, it’s so much better now! You have the magic touch.” And after swallowing all that pride the food does taste pretty good in comparison.
At any rate, I will tolerate improvements to my cooking, but then Gary started inching onto my decorating turf. He has a good eye for arranging furniture, better than mine. And then one day, I bought a rug, put it in the bathroom I had bought it for, turned my back, and he had moved it to the bottom of the basement stairs.
The Myth As Gary Tells It:
“I just moved this rug, because I thought it would look better at the bottom of the basement stairs! And then all of a sudden Ellen lost it! She grabbed the lace curtains she had sewn and tore them off the walls, then she went and got the scissors! She came back and started slashing the coverlet and throwing the stuffing around and screaming at me! I grabbed the dog and ran and hid in the bathroom. Every once in a while I’d peek out the door and there was just a blizzard of batting floating through the air! I would have run but I couldn’t see! THEN she started throwing things! She grabbed this heavy electrical transformer and threw it and it made a hole in the bedroom door that was there for years! She just kept screaming that I didn’t listen to her when she was rational and she was going to act like my family so I’d listen to her!”
More Factual Basis:
Actually, that’s pretty much what happened.
12 responses to “The Mythology: The Scissors”
You made me laugh so hard I wet on myself.Stress incontinence is such a bitch.So are men sometimes. John can cook better than I can, wrap presents better than I can, arrange flowers better than I can, and has an eye for decorating that I will never have. He is a gay man stuck in a heterosexual life. I knew something was up when we first got together and he came to my apartment. He told me my horizontal and vertical lines did not go together, or something like that.I guess he loves me because I know how to take care of his booboos.
I love how this round of More Factual Basis = Shrug, Nod.
You can pretty much do anything, but if you try to rearrange my furniture, it’s time to draw swords.
Umm… so is this recent history? Like, yesterday?I may have to force myself to give you a hug tomorrow. Or at least encroach on your personal space.
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable response to nosy interference! My husband always adjusts things to suit himself and then I move it right back. You’d think he’d query my logic, but no, he just merrily switches things around each time. Arrrrgggghhhhhh……must choke…stand aside!
Zayrina – Aw, you are so kind to join me in my incontinence. I just laugh hysterically at Gary’s boo boos.Becs – That’s why there are no actual swords in my house.Catherine – Yup. He has nothing to add. He still moves the furniture, though.Friend #3 – No, no this was like 19 years ago.Judith – Same here! Finally I got him to agree to “Party configuration” of the furniture. Really, thats when it really matters.
After I picked all the furniture for the house according to exactly where it would go, he decided “his” chair must be in a certain place which meant everything else must move. I did it, but I’m not happy about it… I keep threatening to move it back, but I’m just hoping he’ll trip and break his neck some night and my point will be proven. Passive-aggressive? Moi?
Given that our decor currently consists of 20 year old carpeting and half stripped wallpaper, I’d be okay with my husband taking some initiative. I do appreciate your enthusiasm for your personal taste, though.
Hon, I think it was very restrained of you to aim the electrical transformer at the door and the scissors at the coverlet. But that’s just me.
sue – Even worse – Gary says things like “The dog would prefer it if this bench were over here.”Caroline – Oy, Gary never does anything that takes more than five seconds. If he had to unscrew the furniture from the floor, for example, he wouldnt move it. Thats an idea.Sherri – Thank you. But he was hiding, so I cant take full credit.
You are so damn funny. It’s a good thing Gary hid in the bathroom, otherwise he might be the one with the transformer-shaped dent in him, instead of the door.
styro – no, darn it. I remember thinking, “THROW THE HEAVY CRYSTAL BOWL (no, I like that bowl) THROW THE TRANSFORMER AT HIM (no, aim at the door)” – I couldn’t even lose control during a tantrum.