Airing of grievances (or husband and wife pet peeves, vol. 2)

We had such hilarious feedback the first go-round, so I thought it should become a more regular thing so long as we can continue to find pet peeves about one another (I don’t see this being too difficult). I got a lotta problems with you Steve Hunt, and now you’re gonna hear about it! Let the airing of grievances begin!

My pet peeves for Steve [and his retorts]:

Steve can be looking directly at me while I’m speaking to him about something (anything, with varying degrees of importance; wait, no, everything I say is important!). I mean perfect, sustained eye contact. And just when I’m wrapping up, I discover that his mind is somewhere else entirely. Thinking about his next lecture, papers he needs to grade, the literary merits of the Gospel of John, how many more years Tom Brady will play for the Pats, or, or, or. So now, not only do I ask for eye contact, but I don’t start until I know he’s really listening. Having been married to the man for over 10 years now, I can see the difference. It’s a subtle distinction. The older kids know this about their father by this point and sometimes revert to yelling “Steve!” at him instead of “Dad!” as though the shock of being called by his first name by his offspring will alert him into attention, bring him back into the room he’s actually sitting in.

[Steve, here: with 37 kids, and a job that requires that I work from home a lot, over the years I have trained my otherwise sloppy mind to filter out all sorts of things (e.g., other conversations, vacuum cleaners, dogs barking, my kids fighting/bleeding, TV, etc.) while I’m trying to get work done. When I’m working, I literally don’t hear anything. So this absent-minded thing almost always happens in the context of work. But the “absent-minded professor” thing is a real condition too. I can’t help it. Why do I sit around thinking deeply about the philosophical problem of evil? I don’t know.]

Steve has this weird thing about take out food. He’s a bit frantic. He needs to get it to his table and in his mouth pronto. As if it’s going to taste absolutely horrible if we don’t eat it immediately. The number of times when he has rushed in with pizza and then is tearing through the kitchen to get plates ready so we can sit down to eat is remarkable. Don’t get in his way. One time we got Mexican takeout and he was opening it and eating it on his lap while driving because the five more minutes until home was just too risky. In NJ recently, he had to eat his Wawa hoagie in the car outside of Wawa before getting to the beach where the rest of us ate ours. “It’s meant to be eaten right away!” Point taken, but let’s show some class, Steve.

[Steve here: I like to eat food in its prime, exactly as the sandwich artist at Wawa wanted it eaten. I get the bun toasted, you know! Who waits on a sandwich with a toasted bun?! I should note that I come to the table right away to eat Bridget’s food too.]

“I’m giving up carbs,” he says. I’m excited! I’m impressed! I’m cheering for him! This declaration lasts until the next meal.

[Steve here: I like going carb free between carbs.]

Facebook. The amount of time he has spent on Facebook, especially since our last election, debating people but changing their mind NEVER, is too much. Refreshing his screen to see the comments/likes, etc. And then, when engaged in these important conversations with “friends”, he ends up watching a video of a dog doing a hand stand. “Watch this!” he says. PLEASE GOD NO I think to myself. Too much time on Facebook. I’m going to change his password and not tell him what I changed it to.

[Steve here: I’m standing up to the man. And for the little guy, the refugee, the immigrant, etc. Arguing on behalf of my kids and the world (and the debt) they will inherit from us. Someone’s got to fight the fight, right? Am I doing any good? No, no I’m not. All I’m doing is alienating my friends and family back in Trump country. Oh well. On the flip side, and in my defense, some of you might like to know and perhaps would appreciate the fact that I’m never on my phone; I don’t do instachat or snapgram or whatever that stuff is. And, to top it off, I’ve never played a video game in my life. No Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto by the hour for me. You’re welcome. And, just so you know, that video of the dog doing the hand stand was adorable.]

And now Steve’s pet peeves for me [with my retorts]:

We just got done with a long road trip—Cape May, NJ to Boston, MA. We left at the tidy hour of 3:30 AM, as one does when one wants to beat the traffic around NYC. This time we had pouring rain for mile after mile, hour after hour. Now imagine this for all those miles, all those hours, while driving in the rain. My co-pilot, Bridget, seemingly asleep, is constantly reaching over to adjust the windshield wiper speed. Faster. Slower. Switch to intermittent. Intermittent medium. Intermittent slower. Intermittent slowest. You get the point. About every 5 minutes or so, she’s making another adjustment to the wipers. After this last trip, it’s officially a pet-peeve. While on the subject of road trips, this: if we’re on the interstate, rolling down the highway, she’s either sleeping, reading a book, checking her phone, talking to me/the kids, or whatever. If I even begin to touch the brakes, she will gasp, exclaim, and begin to brace herself for impact all before looking up to see that there’s no danger. She has no control over any of these reactions. And they are always WAY bigger than they need to be (like my sneezes, she would say). She just did this a couple of days ago and it sends my blood pressure through the roof. I’m still recovering.

[Bridget here: Steve will have the wipers going at full speed with a mere misting outside such that you can hear the rubber dragging along the windshield. Sometimes they’re squeaking and slapping back and forth and it’s not raining at all. Steve, what do you have against the windshield wipers? I always give it a few seconds, hoping, waiting, willing him to change it himself, but he doesn’t. And so, in an effort to protect my windshield wipers (it’s a money-saving measure!) and my sanity, I’ve taken it upon myself to put them at the proper speed for the actual precipitation at hand. That’s one less thing for him to worry about while he drives. You’re welcome. On the braking:  Touching the brakes? Try slamming. But if I’m honest with myself and all of you, there is a certain amount of truth here too. My defense for the most recent trip was that this took place after many hours in the car in the pouring rain and after we passed at least 3 accidents. Ambulances. Police cars. Smashed automobiles. My nervous system was on overdrive! I also come by this quite naturally; my mother is a nervous driver (and passenger). My Dad could tell similar stories.]

Bridget is very nosy. I don’t think I’ve ever texted someone in her presence without her asking, “Who you texting?” She does this often while I’m texting, which means, of course, that her voice is picked up by Siri and her question gets awkwardly inserted into my text. Arghh. Delete. Start over. She’s also nosy about my diet. Unfortunately for me, our pantry door squeaks. The pantry is where all the good stuff is found too, especially the stuff in the crinkly bags. Even if she’s watching TV, she hears me making my move. From the other room: “What you eating? Hmmm. Chips, huh? Hmmmm. Why not get yourself an apple?” She’s also really good at finding my trash in the trash. I’m not kidding, this happened yesterday. Bridget goes to throw something away and then I hear this from the kitchen: “Who had a Blueberry Siggis Yogurt? Those are to-go for the kids!” I confessed to the crime, but added: “Well, I needed something because, as you know, I’m going carb free.” And that was true. I was at least 4 hours into my carb-free lifestyle yesterday. So that excuse worked pretty well. Anyway, pet-peeve #2, she’s really nosy. Who are you texting? Who are you calling? What are you eating? She’s got to be in the know.

[Bridget here, again: We have large yogurt containers that are not specifically to-go yogurt containers built for bringing to the pool or the beach! Which is specifically the reason I bought the Siggis! For consuming outside of the house on a summer day trip! Let’s just call a spade a spade, Steve: it’s easier to just pop off the lid of a blueberry Siggis than it is to get a bowl out, dish up some (plain) Stonyfield and then add the blueberries from the freezer. LAZY.]

Bridget likes to throw the word “just” into any request that requires my labor. Like what she’s asking is really no big deal since it’s, you know, “just” this or “just” that. Some examples: “Steve, will you just wax my car?” or: “Steve, will you just load all the dishes in the dishwasher, wash the pots and pans, and clean the kitchen?” or: “Steve, will you just snow-blow the driveway?” I should add that quite often these “just” requests come while she’s doing something. “Steve, I’m cooking dinner, so will you just give the kids a bath, and get them ready for bed?” Evidently, she believes that if she inserts the word “just” into the request, that somehow the work is more manageable than it otherwise would be.

[Bridget here: It’s all in the delivery.]

Bridget wants everyone to smell something that she smelled if it’s offensive. Over the course of our married life, this has happened hundreds of times: “Wow! This smells terrible. Steve, come smell this.” And for some reason, she’s quite insistent that I smell it too. On a related note, she has very little concern for food safety. At any given moment, we have several science experiments going on in our refrigerator. Food, long past its “best by” date, sits idling (just say it—decaying!) on our shelves for days and weeks. Her worst offenses in this regard relate to salsa. She will serve salsa that has been opened long past the 14 days allowed by the manufacturer. You know those dried out bits of onions and tomato paste toward the top of the jar, It turns my stomach to think about even now.

[Bridget here: This is seriously untrue. He is just absurdly queasy, especially as it relates to salsa. It is the oddest thing. Salsa! “Is that salsa still good? When did we get that salsa? What’s the date on that salsa say? When did you open that salsa? Throw that salsa away!” Have you heard the word salsa too many times in this paragraph? I’ve heard it too many times in my marriage! A related note: he also has access to the fridge but does he clean out said science experiments himself? No. No, he does not.]