How the Mighty Have Fallen

Its no secret that in the past few months, Chris has become a bit of a workaholic/psychotic about the house.   He has been spending hours doing things like pulling down vines, painting bathrooms, installing light fixtures, and wiring sound systems.   I sometimes call him Task Master C.

It is also no secret that I despise any activity which causes mild exhaustion and/or the smallest amount of sweat.   I have been spending most of my time hiding in bathrooms from Chris with a good book and a glass (or 4) of wine.   The few times I did venture out of hiding, I was forced into spousal labor.   This usually resulted in a melodramatic breakdown of some kind that only ceased when either food or air conditioning was given to me.

My, how the mighty have fallen.

A some point this weekend, Chris stepped on the smallest piece of glass and it got lodged into is heel.   You would have thought someone had cut off the man’s legs.   And arms.   He has completely shut down.   All he has done for the past two days is walk around our house with a pair of tweezers in his hand, crying about that sliver of glass.   Last night I was cooking dinner and he stood next to me for 15 minutes wallowing in the pain.   Then, I went downstairs to do our banking (which is about as much fun as shoving a large piece of glass into your foot) and he hobbled down the stairs after me, tweezers in hand, and still complaining.   I finished banking and headed back upstairs to write thank you notes for all the goodies people brought us this weekend, and here he comes.   With his tweezers.

“My foot still hurts,” he announced for the 1,582nd time that night.

“I know, sweetie.   What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know.”

Silence.

“My foot still hurts.”

“I know, sweetie.   But what do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know.”

Silence.

“My foot still hurts.”

He was driving me crazy.   I wanted to yell out at him, “Yeah, well, my whole body hurt the other night when you made me cut down trees in our back yard, and you told me to suck it up.   So suck it up, Sally!”   But I didn’t do that.   I showed him the mercy that he didn’t show me.   I patted his hand and kissed his forehead and continued watching The Hills.

Ten minutes later, I guess he thought I had forgotten him because he started up again.

“My foot still hurts.”

“I FREAKING KNOW, SWEETIE! What do you expect me to do about it?!?!”

“I don’t know.”

Silence.

“My foot still hurts.”

Finally, I took his tweezers away and made him go to bed.   We turned the lights out and laid there in the dark, and just as I was finally dozing off…

“My foot still hurts.”

And that’s when I poked his eye out with his tweezers.