Instructions from My Husband for... Me!

A few days ago my husband and I made a bet in which I wagered "If I'm wrong, you can leave instructions for me on my blog!"

You can guess who was on the winning end of that argument. So here are a few instructions for me from my beloved, which I happily post below, because I am nothing if not a woman of my word.

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As someone who reads Random Handprints with some regularity, I've spent a good deal of time sitting around and wondering just who this poor lady's husband could really be, and I'm sure you've done the same. I mean, who makes all of these unbelievable comments? Who in the world actually thinks, let alone says, even half of all of these rude and unthinkable things? And who could be that stupid, aright?

Well, that person is me. And I'm here to clear the air a little bit.

First off, let me start by explaining why I am even being given this opportunity to stick up for myself in this forum. Last night, baby Ziggy pulled his favorite blankie -- that he sleeps with each and every night since he was...well...born -- right into his bath. Of course, with the Ziggster scheduled to be heading to bed about 15 minutes later, I knew there was going to be trouble as his blankie was completely and utterly soaked. I told your favorite blogger that we were in trouble, and was quickly informed that she would throw the blanket in the dryer and it would be ready "within ten minutes."

Now, I may not do the laundry all that much in our house, and I may not be so great at remembering to do the dishes, or to take out the trash, or even what to put into the trash for that matter. But I know that a completely soaked, thick blanket like the one belonging to Ziggy is not going to be dried in 10 minutes. And I said so.

And the reaction I got to my completely innocent comment would have reached the top 10 of anyone's list of all-time human indignities. It was unbelievable. Ms. Handprints herself not only disagreed with me, but she gave me that look. You know, that look that you always give your husband when you know not only that you are right, but that he is talking completely out of his ass about something he basically knows nothing about whatsoever. It's a look, and a feeling, that wives have been making famous since time immemorial, and I received it in spades last night. The response I received, in fact, was that not only would the blanket clearly be totally dry in 10 minutes, but that it might be too dry, so dry that it could break the entire dryer and perhaps short out the power in all of northeastern New Jersey in that period of time. Uh huh.

So, being nothing if not opportunistic, a bet was offered by me, and a certain over-excited don't-call-me-a-mommy-blogger happily accepted. The terms were simple -- she would go drop the blanket in the dryer, and if it was not dry after 10 minutes, I would win the right to write any post I wanted for her blog.

And here I am. So after explaining above how I got to this point, I thought I would take the rest of this post and give you all a list of helpful suggestions for my wife and how she gets through the day with our happy family. Honey, you may have thought you would never see instructions like this on this here blog, but it looks like you were wrong....

1. Don't forget that I lived on my own for a looooong time. This includes actually cooking for myself, cleaning, doing my own laundry, and all of those other things that, you know, adult human beings do to take care of themselves from day to day. I might actually know something about laundry!! I even used to breathe on my own, wayyy back in the day. Can you believe it?

2. Don't be totally loud and aggressive when you place a bet with someone, but then when you find out later you were wrong, suddenly transform into the most silent, humble person alive who simply "forgot" to mention that she was wrong. This is one of my wife's best moves, to the point that it's just a joke in our household at this point. She makes a bet, stakes a claim, makes an assertion about something and makes a big huge deal about being right. She stomps into the family room to verify and "prove" it on her computer. And then, suddenly, it's radio silence. No confirmation of rightness, no admission of wrongness, in fact no sounds at all. You go check the room and she has either moved on to something else entirely, or she's not even there. No, I'm not going to just forget about our bet because you left the room for 15 minutes. I would say "nice try", but it's not even, really. Oh, and by the way? The Ziggy-blanket took an hour to completely dry out.

3. While we're on the topic of laundry, don't drop your clothes wherever you're standing when you take them off. I mean, it's one thing if you're right near the hamper in the bedroom when you change into your pajamas, even if you miss the hamper a little bit (not that you would let Magpie and Kay get away with that kind of sloth). But three different pairs of shoes covering the entire landing of our stairs? Your often mismatched socks strewn across our upstairs hallway for days on end? And somebody please tell me, how on earth did your lacy bra end up under our latest water delivery, anyways?

4. Speaking of which, our pretty-boy water delivery guy is not in love with you. Yes, he chats you up like you're old bitties at the salon every time he comes in. Yes, he seems like a very friendly guy. And yes, even I have to admit he is kind of pretty. OK, very pretty. But I'm pretty sure his friendly attitude has more to do with the commission he gets on those two 32-pack cases of diet carob pomegranate iced tea you manage to buy from him every time he comes by, and then promptly throw out since of course no one in our house would ever drink that crap, than it does with an actual desire to get you to break your marital vows. I'm just saying.

5. And most importantly of all, don't let your mouth write checks your blog can't cash.

Words of wisdom to live by. And with that, I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming of handprint crafts and cute-ass pictures of my children.
 
Many thanks to my husband for joining in on the Instructions fun. He's been blogging since before it was called that, and his blog was even an MSNBC site of the day in... wait for it... 1998.