Pain in the Ass Man or How My Husband Invented a NEW IMPROVED Superhero

Even before I write the blog the first thing I have to do is apologize for ragging on HIM.  HIM is the poor bastard to whom I've been married nearly three decades.  (Sounds like a long, long, long time put that way.)  Fortunately for me, HIM has a good sense of humor and doesn't mind if I use him in my blogging.  Also fortunately for HIM, he doesn't always incite my ire.  (I sound like I'm a horrible bitch to live with.  I should let HIM write a guest blog.  It could be called, 'That Bitch I Live With and How She Rags On Me.  Poor Pitiful Me.'  Or it could be called 'O, Divorce Lawyers Come and Call Me, For I Have LOADS of Blogging Evidence of Her Incompatibility and Avid Insensitivity.'  And let me say now that I fully intend to add to that evidence in a long blog followed here.  And I will even illustrate it, for I am unmerciful.  Ha.  Call it bitchy.)  So anyway, sorry, baby.  I had to write it.  (And I have a note to write a blog on the list, and I do have a list, of ALL the things I'm not permitted to blog about.  I feel like a stand up comedian.  You know the ones who talk about their spouses, mothers, siblings, and then catch holy living hell for it.  Well, several of my significant relatives and a few friends have mentioned to me the need to restrain my sharing.  "Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, Caren, don't you have any common sense?  I don't want to read about your daughter's green poop.  And don't you dare talk about that time we visited Juarez and partied with the troop of drunken Albanian circus performers."  Good times.)

That being said I can now get into what has me in a dither.  HIM, to whom I am married.  To all newlyweds and those aspiring to be newlyweds, let it be known that you will fight once you are married, and furthermore, you will be...irritated by your significant other.  You may very well be more than irritated.  And the things that will irritate you may be numerous but they may also be minor, picayune issues that would not normally annoy a mosquito.  Allow me to give an example.

The toothpaste dispenser: giver of fluorinated goodness and the ability to maintain one's teeth until they're in their eighties OR demon-raised issue to cause instantaneous divorce and/or brain hemorrhage?  Answer: possibly both.  It is my concerted opinion that the toothpaste tube can be squeezed at any point of the tube without causing cranial damage to any user thereof.  (It CAN be squeezed in the middle with great glee and an inordinate amount of giggling.)  HIM's opinion: the toothpaste tube shall only be squeezed from the end furthest away from the opening, thereby increasing the usability factor of the contained paste.  Furthermore, as the toothpaste is dispensed in such an orderly fashion, the squeezing shall be followed by the neat and orderly rolling of the toothpaste tube so that every last millimeter of toothpaste shall be used.  (This from a man who doesn't care what the price is of the items on the list at the grocery store as long as he is able to check it off.  Try to picture the dichotomy there.  Squeezing a toothpaste tube until every last bit is used so that it is not wasted versus Doesn't care if something costs a buck more as long as it can be checked off the list.  Hmm.)

The Battle of the Toothpaste Tube OR How Our First Major Argument Almost Escalated into WWIII was my introduction into the inner psychological workings of the male who I married.  (I admit I married HIM.  No one made me say, "I do."  So if I made the error in judgement about not getting to 'know' HIM before we were married I can say it was my responsibility.)  I had, until that point, lived with mostly females.  There was my mother and sister, and then my uncle and aunt and grandmother, and my uncle made himself scarce because my aunt was the queen of that castle.  So the male mind was a complete mystery.  Pretty much anyway, unless one counts watching Starsky and Hutch or Magnum, PI, neither of which really counts.

Upon acute observation I discovered that the male mind worked in this fashion:

And now I'm forced to make two observations.  One is the above illustration is the Average Male Brain at age 20, the age at which we eloped.  Two is that the Toothpaste Wars culminated in the purchasing of a new type of toothpaste dispenser, the stand up, hardened container, which was NOT, for the good of all married kind, squeezable.  Later, after the detente of the Toothpaste Wars was broken when Him and I couldn't agree on using the same kind of toothpaste, (Minty gel for me.  Crappy paste for HIM.) we resolved the issue by buying TWO different tubes.  I could squeeze mine in any fashion that made my little itty bitty brain go berserk with joy and he could obsessively flatten his into minute particles that pleased his inner anal self.  (I'll say it again.  Minty gel for me.  Crappy paste for HIM.)  Yea, consumer freedom.  Boo, Toothpaste Wars.  (And I need, no *NEED* to quote Bart Simpson here.  "There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars Trilogy.")

Now I'm forced to go draw another brain because I've been thinking that HIM's brain isn't the same as it was all those years ago.  This one would be the Average Male Brain at 48, and I can attest that I am an expert in the matter.  I've had decades of personal observation and training.

I can hardly wait to see what it's going to look like in ten more years.  (That was sarcasm.)

So HIM has created a new persona, much like Superman created Clark Kent, or Peter Parker created Spiderman.  He is Pain in the Ass Man.  And he has special powers.  He reminded me of one right now.  The ability to piss me off completely to the point of a vein exploding out of the side of my forehead in THREE words or less.  Furthermore, I will state that HIM just asked me for the opinion of what tie to wear to work tomorrow and HIM didn't care for my opinion when it was freely rendered.  As a matter of fact the tie that I selected was disregarded on the basis that it is too thick.  (I'm trying to understand this one and I need to add that HIM literally means the material is too thick, not that the tie is too wide.  ("It doesn't tie correctly," he whined as he put it back in the closet.  "So why did you ask me for my opinion, then?" I bitched.  "I don't know," he said, wishing he could suddenly be in Outer Mongolia or on a ship in the Bering Straight.)  So what does the tie selection have to do with the thickness of the cloth with which it is made?  This is a philosophical question that will haunt me for, oh, minutes.)  You see Pain in the Ass Man has this special ability.

Pain in the Ass Man also has the skill to know instantaneously whether the toilet paper roll is rolling off the top or off the bottom, for apparently it is critical to the survival of the earth that the roll comes off the top in an orderly fashion saving millions of man lives in the process.  (My reasoning: "Does the toilet paper come off the roll?  Yes.  Does it wipe my tushie?  Yes.  Does it matter whether it's up or down?  Oh, hell no."  I suppose that make me the villain in the matter.  My ulterior plan is to sneak household to household, surreptitiously changing the direction of the toilet rolls to infuriate men all over.  Insert evil laughter here.)  Another expertise is the very weird ability to get up in the middle of the night and straighten all the sheets and blankets, even the ones lying over me, for unstraightened sheets and blankets will cause tumors and an itchy rash that will make your brain seize up.  And let us not forget the infamous ability to correctly arrange sandwich ingredients with condiments.  I shall explain.  You see, Pain in the Ass Man must have the mayo only on the cheese side of a sandwich.  Consequently, mustard must only be applied to the bread on the meat side of the sandwich.  What happens if there is no meat?  Can the mustard be side by side with the cheese whilst the mayo is on the other side?  Will the mustard NOT be applied?  I do not know.  I suspect that under those awful, unforeseeable circumstances Pain in the Ass Man's brain might short circuit and implode.  (Of course, ever since I jokingly asked him if he wanted cat food on his sandwich and he jokingly said yes and I jokingly sprinkled a handful of kibble on the sandwich and sent it to work with him, he usually checks out my sandwiches before eating them.  So if he finds one that the mustard and mayo has been misapplied, he probably calls the Hazardous Waste Team with their full body uniforms to take it away.  Did I mention that he took several bites of the cat food sandwich and wondered why it was so crunchy?  And hey, I haven't done that for twenty years.)

Anyway I have obviously digressed into idiocy.  So love you, dear.  You're a quirky bastard and I'm sure you have a list about me.  But hey, I got to blog about it first and I'm more eloquent.  Also long winded.  So there.