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August 24, 2005

the sound and the fury

I got a new phone. It's smaller than my old phone, and can take pictures. Very exciting.

In the past, all new technologies that came into our home were vetted by The Husband, who has a sense about this sort of thing. This is the first time that I've had to make sense of a thousand-page instruction manual on my own. Watching me and exasperated by my inability to figure out how to send a text message, Herself says "Why don't you just wait until Daddy comes over and he can do it for you? He's better at this stuff than you are, anyway."

After taking a deep breath and willing myself to stay in my chair instead of flying across the room at her I reply, "Yes, he is. But he isn't here and I need to do it." But I know what she means, and how she feels. It's amazing how when something goes wrong I think, "if only The Husband were here..."--even if what goes wrong is something I know how to fix. I try to figure out why Herself and I are of the opinion that life in general was so great when he was here, because I know that it wasn't.

The Husband was great at troubleshooting the pc and rewiring lamps, that's true. But he didn't cook, barely cleaned at all unless forced to and then complained bitterly about it, didn't do laundry or iron, was iffy about childcare, slept until noon or later every weekend, eschewed all animal care. Even if he was the one who wanted take-out for dinner he made me call in the order, or we didn't get take-out. And yet.

I hate having to call him and ask for help, when what I want is for him to be in the next room, available to me. I hate have to call him. It reminds me that he managed to escape, escape us, escape me, with my Luddite tendencies. It galls me that his phone is ringing in an apartment where he lives with somebody--that there's the chance it's ringing while they're having dinner, or having a party, or having sex. It makes me want to break things. Like my new phone. The one I'm having so much trouble programming.

I call him.

Posted by JudyLa at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)