When you’re married for more than a minute, like decades’ worth of wed, there are things you just accept about your spouse and rarely question them. They just… are.
Like how the Hubs rarely buys clothes for himself. He doesn’t begrudge me, but he’ll wear the same pair of anything—anything—for years. Decades even. Buying new clothes for himself is not his thing.
Golf balls are his thing.
Second-hand chairs (I don’t know), mops from mop commercials, and the occasional foolproof gadget are his things.
He also doesn’t mind those little red notification numbers on his phone for texts, emails, and calls. Not bothered by them at all.
I have my things. Notebooks, pens, and wardrobe items for Trudi, the adopted concrete lawn ornament office goose (I don’t know), are my things.
I can’t stand little red notifications piling up around my apps, so I clear them off post-haste. I’ll just delete apps without remorse if those red numbers start piling up.
Bottom line, I don’t ask how many golf balls he needs, and he keeps his little red numbers. He doesn’t ask how many notebooks I need, and I keep clear of the little red numbers.
We just vibe with our things. Until our things escape cabinets and go rolling down the driveway toward traffic (his true story) or avalanche from shelves and scare cats (my true story on repeat), then we may question the decision-making process.
A few weeks ago, we were out with the Adult-ish Male Child for an afternoon. I went into a shoe store, and the guys went to a clothing store.
They were unsupervised.
I join them after I found what I needed, and they were already in the checkout line. I was pleased he’d found something, though I couldn’t see what, exactly, he’d found. I didn’t bother to ask. Vibing in my new shoes and the fact that I’d found *ahem* another notebook.
A few days later, Hubs emerges from the bedroom in one of his new purchases. He spreads his arms. “Does this look right?”
I blink.
He spreads his arms wider.
“Uh...”
He was wearing a pink and gray striped shirt he’s had for a while (not a bad look on him) and the new pair of shorts he’d just bought.
These shorts are a color I don’t have a word for.
I do believe we had mauve carpet back in the ‘90s that was close, if mauve married lavender. I’d need a trip to Sherwin-Williams to browse the paint swatches, likely coming up with “morning rain under a fresh sunrise” or some such ridiculousness.
At any rate, I know his outfit doesn’t work.
And I know because I have a deficiency, aside from my ailment in the kitchen.
Fashion is not my thing.
Even building wardrobes for imaginary characters on the page is difficult. Unless the clothing moves the story forward, I don’t mention clothes much. I suppose my people are in jeans and t-shirts if I’ve not described anything specifically.
(Trudi the Office Goose is the only member of the office staff that requires a wardrobe. But she is a joy to work with. She has impeccable style, her own seamstress, and a trunk for her capes… but I digress.)
To somewhat overcome my deficiency, I perform a mental exercise when I shop without the aid of a fashionista friend (and that doesn’t even work half the time because their styles belong to them, and I end up looking like them instead of feeling like me and it’s a whole thing. Like trying a new recipe, but now you must add color and texture—it doesn’t end well).
I call the exercise Would the Mannequin Wear It? test.
If I want to be “put together” outside of jeans and a t-shirt, I must buy what’s on the mannequin. Like, go into a store where they pay people who know what they’re doing to put outfits on display.
If I’m in a store with no displays, I pretend to see things on a mannequin. It helps.
I look at Hubs in his stripes and new shorts, and yeah. “You’ve got too much going on. A plain shirt, less color.” He changed and it worked. I think. At least the mannequin could be seen in public.
Fast forward to last Monday after the conference. He’s got the rare week off work. I’d slept waaaay in to recover from the Writer’s Digest Conference, but my head spins from information overload.
I dress in a royal blue neon duck t-shirt and brown sweatpants. I fully plan to stay in this state of “What Not to Wear” all through errands to the post office, gas station, and grocery store.
Bottom line, I don’t care.
I walk out to the kitchen where Hubs is already dressed and excited to golf with a friend. He’s wearing the mauve-married-lavender shorts. Blue shirt. Black socks.
I thought it looked off, but I didn’t say anything. We’d already had the “too much color” conversation. I figured he was vibing and doesn’t care, either.
But then he asks, “How does this look?”
Honestly, I wouldn’t even let Trudi wear it. But, he’s got this rare time off, and I don’t want to start something this early in the week, so I say, “There’s too much color. It needs to be gray. Or black.”
Then it starts.
“I should change the shorts or the shirt to black? Or gray?”
“Yes.”
“Which?”
I look at the black socks. I try to picture the mannequin. Any mannequin. I can’t. No mannequin would don this ensemble, but I don’t know how to fix it.
“Which?” he presses.
“Either or both.”
I don’t know, I just know what he’s got going on ain’t it if he’s caring. If he didn’t care, none of this would matter. I feel like I’m juggling too many ingredients with too many heating elements. We are standing in the kitchen, the most confusing room in the house.
This is uncomfortable.
Come to think of it, this is exactly like one of my many kitchen disasters: I know it tastes awful, he knows it tastes awful but wants to remain married, so he doesn’t say anything. Bottom line is, I don’t know how to fix it. These nights, I call the good folks at the Mexican restaurant and let them handle dinner.
Maybe I should call them now. Maybe they could help here, too.
We spin on what should be gray and what could remain mauve-married-lavender. We are firmly in that married-for-more-than-a-couple-decades dance, stuck in an infinity loop of not understanding any of the words either of us is stumbling over.
Finally, I say, “Either you can go with ‘nobody cares’ and stay as you are. OR you can wear that shirt OR those shorts. You cannot wear them together.”
He changes the shorts.
He’s about to leave when his watch buzzes. “How do I get these notifications to stop?”
I find the app on his phone and am greeted by a red 239.
“Oh, good grief.” I bite my tongue. I silenced this very app on my phone a mere two dings in months ago. No red notifications for me…
The first unread subject line was “Free snow pants.”
“Too bad you didn’t read this one. You could’ve worn those shorts underneath.”
We laugh about it—until I tell him this will be a blog post.
He winces because he knows this like he knows he’d better have a good lunch on his own. I’ll likely not succeed at cooking an edible dinner this evening because I’ll get distracted changing out Trudi’s capes and let something smolder…
He’s getting a sense of these things before I inform him what will happen.
For the sake of kindness, I’ll refrain from blogging about the swim trunks you can’t wear a belt with and how the ruckus in the tree branches over the walking track a few days ago could have been a flock of groundhogs.
Groundhogs.
When you’re married for more than a minute, some things just… are.
