Why I Love Him

Working on the house when tired brought up some anger issues about the sloppiness of my family. It set off a whole cascade of things that ended in a mental review of an entire marriage. My conclusion? My husband is pretty much a slob, but he's my slob and I love him.

I thought of how I used to come home exhausted from work to a really messy and chaotic house after we decided he should stay at home with the children. I thought of what a terrible job he did painting in the last house and why he is never again allowed to take a paintbrush to our home. I thought of how I should have known this would be my fate when I first visited his house when we were dating and saw that he wrote both his song lyrics and his phone messages on paper plates and then jammed them all in a kitchen cupboard with piles of screws, nails, tools, and dishes. All next to a can of WD40, of course.

Then... while back in dating land, I thought of how he used to go to the 7-11 after Karaoke to get us Cuban sandwiches when we had the munchies. Those things have pickles on them and I don't like pickles on sandwiches. He used to pick the pickles out of my sandwiches for me. That was really sweet. No one has ever picked the pickles out of my sandwiches before. And I thought of the time he accidentally scratched my leg with his toenail while we were doing the deed. I said, "Ow!" He said, "Pardon me." I thought what an odd thing it was for a man to be so overly polite in the middle of the casual familiarity of doing it. And yes, I also thought about how he puts up with The Crazy. He is never mean to me when I have The Crazy. That's because he was used to a different, scarier brand of crazy before me.

And, with that thought, I heard his alarm go off and I started laughing like a loon. Of course, I had to explain. Poor man wakes up to go to work and his wife has not slept and there is bedroom furniture and the paraphernalia of a custom paint job strewn about the kitchen floor... I said, "You know how you always say you married up when you married me? Well, I think I finally see that you might be right in a strange way. Remember all the stuff you told me about your ex-girlfriends? The cocaine freaks who were always getting arrested and having perpetual boob jobs and running around fucking anything with (or without) a tool? Well... I think maybe you did marry up. You married up to a better brand of crazy."

He looked around and said, "From rock star crazy to a more sophisticated brand of crazy."

"Yes," I said.

We laughed until we cried.