Perspective

Sometimes something happens to "put it all into perspective." Sometimes a person needs a little perspective.

I've been married to the Engineer for more than ten years. He's just a wee bit picky.

For the first few months we were married, he reparked my car every time I drove it. I asked him if there was a problem with the way I was parking it; was it in his way? No, it wasn't in his way, it was just that cars should be backed in and driven out.

I told him that I wasn't a great backer, so that it was better for me to drive into a confined space and back out into an open space.

He continued to repark my car.

I politely requested, multiple times, that he not do so any more.

He reparked my car until I had a major hissy fit and threatened to remove his tonsils via his anus. I must have sounded quite sincere as he hasn't reparked it since.

He still adjusts most everything I touch, though. He will follow me through the house moving anything I've placed by a millimeter or two into the appropriate position. I've yet to shut the draperies properly, nor can I open them to his satisfaction. Don't mention the mini-blinds or I'll start frothing at the mouth. It's to the point that I won't touch them at all because he goes into such contortions correcting the horrible state in which I've left them.

Cooking can be fun too. He likes to follow me around pushing the trash can into my path to make sure I don't make a mess. He turns on lights. I turn them off. He turns them on. He is in charge of "Thermal Transfer" for any meat or casserole in the oven. Baked goods, however, intimidate him and he stays well away from the oven when it's occupied by cake, bread or pie. If I'm making a stir fry, and turn away from the stove, when I turn back he will have arranged the contents of the pan into a neat cone in the middle of the pan.

Sometimes I feel like I can't do anything right.

Perspective:

When we turned on the heat a month or so ago, I told him that the whole house humidifier wasn't working. This is not a hard thing to determine. If it's not working, my nose bleeds during the night. As my Mom would say, "If it was a snake, it would have bitten you."

He didn't think there was a problem, but kept an eye on the humidistats he has scattered about the house to monitor the situation. A few days later he informed me that the humidifier wasn't working (!) and that I should call the furnace company that had installed it.

So I called in the furnace repair guy who came out and confirmed that the humidifier wasn't working. It needed a part, which was under warranty, a couple of adjustments, and it was working fine again. No more nightly nose bleeds.

The next weekend, when he had time, the Engineer went down into the furnace room to inspect the repair.

O!M!G! Never had he seen such terrible workmanship! The supply valve had been set improperly! and this thing! and that thing! and the other thing! The Engineer spent most of a Saturday redoing the job the professional furnace guy had done.

Nobody can do anything properly except him (and the Twin.)

Perspective:

It's not me, it's him.

But it's still annoying as heck.

It's a good thing he's cute.