My Husband Married a Monster!
And we adopted a dog!
It’s my husband’s birthday and to celebrate I thought we could use this platform to throw him some love (I’m assuming you didn’t get him anything either, did you?)
Perhaps the best way to honor this dear and patient man is to tell you about the monster he married.
Hello.
Sometimes I do wretched, selfish, or disgusting things to Bart and one of our favorite pastimes is to imagine what would happen if he were to do any of these things to me.
I am unsympathetic to his ailments
Yes, yes, we all know “man colds” are so much worse than everyone else’s colds, but if not taking care of a sick, sneezy, drooling, CONTAGIOUS grown-ass man is wrong, I don’t want to be right. If I go down, who will make the child’s ramen and Nutella toast the right way1?
I like to believe my laissez-faire approach to nurturing is sort of a placebo. Like reverse Munchausen syndrome. If I don’t treat you like you’re sick, maybe you’ll believe you’re not sick and quit acting like that stuffy right nostril should land you in some medical journal.
Really it’s me who should be in a medical journal, because that is some seriously genius mind science right there.
Like really unsympathetic
My dear consort has restless legs syndrome and instead of feeling bad for someone with this “condition,” I yell at him for shaking the mattress when I’m trying to sleep.
I throw my limbs at him
Imagine you’re relaxing on the couch with a bowl of Yoplait and fresh blackberries, watching the Amazing Race, and just as Phil is about to tell a pair of preschool teacher cousins from Ohio they’ve been eliminated from the race, someone’s foot lands in your lap demanding you pay homage in the form of a massage.
“I HAVE A CRAMP!” I shout, (which was true maybe one time, but it worked so I keep using it.)
He always (often grudgingly) appeases.
One time his foot brushed against my heel and I recoiled and screamed like someone slapped me with a sock full of venom. I HATE FEET. And the one time this poor man asked me to rub his sad, sore back after our then-toddler jumped on him and slipped one of his disks, I acted like he was asking for my last kidney.
I might scratch an itch on his back if he proves he cannot reach it himself, but most of the time I find him rubbing up on a door jam like a bear on a conifer tree. Yes of course I point and laugh at how ridiculous he looks!
Speaking of looks…
I make fun of his appearance
One night after he worked out, threw a hat on, then wrestled our kid for an hour, the front of his hair got smushed down over his forehead giving the impression of tiny, little baby bangs. I could have just noticed, mocked him silently like a normal wife, and moved on, but nope. The response I deemed most proper was to point and proclaim, “Hey! YOU LOOK LIKE DUMB AND DUMBER!”
Friends, you should see the beast this man is forced to lie down with, wake up next to, and eat dinner across from. At my best I’m the before person on a make-over show. Can you imagine if at any time he casually tossed out a, “Hey! You look like Charlize Theron from Monster” in my direction? He’d be stuffed in the compost bin. Dead. Just dead.
I snore
Apparently. Allegedly. IF this is true, I feel for him. Snoring is about as annoying as someone’s cricket legs rustling a 385 pound memory foam mattress just as you were about to fall into a delicious slumber. And yet, he feels bad waking me up!
Our nightly conversations go something like this:
Bart: Shelly? Sweetheart? You’re snoring. Can you roll over please, my sweetest angel on earth?
Me:
Allegedly I tell him to shut the f*ck up, claim to not even have been asleep, act all confused and insulted, and accuse HIM of waking HIMSELF up due to his own dumb, stupid snoring.
ALLEGEDLY!
He likes to recap our middle of the night conversations the next morning as we are having our coffee and making our son’s lunch.
On those rare occasions when Bart might snore or mumble something in his sleep, or roll over, I’m right there poking my finger in his spine and demanding he BE QUIET!
A finger in the spine counts as physical touch, right?
I’m gross
Yes, married couples lose some boundaries and get real comfy around each other. We are no exception. While there are still bodily functions that remain shrouded in mystery like peeing, pooping, or buzzing the cracked, dead skin off our heels, burping is my love language.
I’m sorry if this is hard to hear, but I’m being honest, remember? I’m quite good at burping. Like on-demand good. Like louder than a foghorn good. Like speaking and burping at the same time good.
Here’s a recent example:
Bart: Do we have anymore coffee filters?
Me: Yes, we do in the lawwwwwwwwwwwwwdreeeeeeeeeeeeeee rrrrrrrrrooooooommmmmmmmrrrrrrrrrrpppppppttttttttt.”
That good.
If I didn’t know better wasn’t so delusional, I’d say he sometimes looks damn proud of his princess bride, even while pretending2 to gag on a throw pillow.
I laugh in the face of danger
If danger had a face it would be this one:
Picture this angelic, photoshopped face nearly slamming the door of an SUV’s trunk on your head causing you to VERY THEATRICALLY jump out of the way of serious injury and into the path of oncoming traffic. When you VERY DRAMATICALLY say, Jesus Christmas you almost beheaded me with the door of our trunk, this face laughs and says, “Sorrrrrrrrrrrrr-reeeeeee!”
And then the face vanishes. Just floats right into a Menchies without a care in the world and proceeds to spend $19 on a bowl of frozen yogurt piled high with the weightiest toppings like balls of cookie dough and Swedish Fish. When confronted with the curbside near-decapitation, the face looks annoyed, tells you to let it go, and reminds you that it did say, Sorrrrrrrrrrrrr-reeeeeee!
The face doesn’t understand the problem.
It’s me. I’m the problem
In conclusion, I’m thinking maybe I should have gotten him a wallet or a tequila of the month subscription instead of outing all my terrible flaws, but something tells me he’ll like this even better.
I admit it— I’m a monster!
Even though he’s the one holding on to pictures of me looking like this:
And let's not forget these pictures.
Just when I start to feel really terrible and vow to change my ways, I open the dishwasher and see how he loaded it.
I have no words. But I do have an esophagus full of excess air and someone’s about to get a mouthful.
XO,
Shelly
Enough About the Husband!
Let’s talk about Penny, our newest family member! She came to us via Save-a-Mutt rescue and she’s pretty much the greatest thing ever. Perhaps you know Penny? She made the rounds on Substack last week when I posted a note about how excited I was to welcome her home. 1,400+ people (and counting) gave that post a like. Is that officially viral? Does Penny need her own Substack? Are we officially Middle-Aged Lady Mom and Dog? That is more likes than anything I have ever written combined.
Dogs, man. Such attention seekers.
The child’s words, not mine!
At least I’m assuming he’s pretending. Hmm, maybe time to wash some throw pillows
I feel this article. You’re such a great yin to his yang.
"I have no words. But I do have an esophagus full of excess air and someone’s about to get a mouthful." - LOVE THIS. What the hell kind of dishwasher stacking is that, it looks like there's been an earthquake in there
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only foot rub demander that can't abide a man flu moment. I'm also terrible if I'm woken up - I fell to sleep watching a show the other day and my husband tried to wake me to tell me to get ready for bed, I got very angry and refused to do as he was saying, as though taking off my skinny jeans and mascara would benefit anyone but myself. Regretted that one at 3am when I woke up with gritty eyes and a leg cramp.
They put up with a lot from us. But looking at that dishwasher (and knowing my husband does similar nonsense) we put up with a lot from them too. Let's call it a tie.