Marriage 201, Lecture 352: Out of office

2:13 Friday afternoon. SH is dressed*, I am still in my pajamas. I have, however, put the sheets in the washing machine. I am not a total slacker. Just a partway slacker. Thursday is my usual cleaning day but I skipped it because we were cooking all day. That means some chores get pushed to today. Some. I guess I will not do the heavy cleaning I would have done to prepare for our friends. But I vill not sleep on dirty sheets.

Me: Now that we are not having company tonight, what do you want to do today?

SH: I dunno.

No, this is not under the table. Yes, I dusted this cedar chest. Bernie Staab made it for me. He was my grandfather's friend. He didn't go past 8th grade and wasn't much for book learning, he would say, but boy was he an artist with wood.

Me: You worked really hard yesterday. What does your perfect day off look like? Do you want to spend the day watching football?

SH [in the "There's no basement in the Alamo" tone]: There's no football today! [I double-checked the facts with him on this and he said oh sure there's football but he's not interested. See? I do care about facts. Sometimes.]

Me: Well, whatever. Just saying that as far as I'm concerned, you could play video games all day** and I wouldn't mind. [sigh] I wasted all that time cleaning the guest room and bathroom and the living room and now they're not coming.

SH: Not really. What if we have someone over for supper soon? You won't have to dust again.

SH had to let his car go today. He sold it to someone who will love it*** as much as SH did. The buyer had a car like this years ago and is very excited to have found one again. He has the money to fix the rust and garage it in the winter.

Me: Um. Yeah!

SH: No! You certainly won't have to dust under the table again for a year.

Me: Of course I will! I would have to dust again in a month!

My house in Memphis, with the Yard of the Month award that a Mysterious Stranger gave me. Yeah. I know there are zinnias growing in the middle of the yard. I couldn't bear to cut them down. It's not like grass was growing there or anything.

* He is dressed only because the guy came to pick up the car already. SH can go an entire day in his bathrobe, a hazard of working at home.

** He wouldn't. He would, however, read espn.com, wine reviews and look at woot.com. We each have our guilty pleasures.

*** I understand why SH would want to wait for this kind of buyer. I was worried about selling my Memphis house. I loved that house and wanted to sell it to someone who would love it as much as I did. It killed me to tear out the flowerbeds and replace them with grass (I didn't think anyone would want to commit to so much work) and I was thrilled when the buyer told me that one of the reasons he wanted my house was just because of the garden and that he intended to restore it.