The Mr. truly is a patient man.
We’ve been married over 25 years, and he hasn’t divorced me yet. That’s saying a lot.
He drives me crazy, that’s for sure…especially when he gets in a grumpy funk…but honestly, there are more reasons why I love him.
He grocery shops and runs out if he thinks I’m not eating enough for dinner. He takes me out for dinner so I don’t have to cook, and he takes out the garbage and puts away dishes. He even vacuums and washes his own clothes.
Yeah, I know I’m blessed.
A few weeks ago, he did something that earned him reason #5,729 why I love him.
It all started on a Monday (here we go again with a bad Monday story).
I was doing what I typically do and straightening my hair after washing it the evening before.
About halfway through, I went to lift my arm over my head to straighten another piece of hair when I felt the flat iron jerk from my hand.
I’d stepped on the long cord, unknowingly, so when I raised it, there wasn’t enough slack in it to accommodate the space I needed between the floor and my head.
Instead of dropping it immediately, there was a delay, and my thumb rested on the hot iron for a second or two before pain registered, and the iron fell to the floor.
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
I’d done this before, but not this badly.
My thumb began swelling immediately, and the burning sensation stretched from the inside of my thumb around my knuckle joint down to where the thumb joins with the rest of my hand.
The skin on the inner part of my thumb was burned.
I began crying immediately and holding my hand.
The Mr. doesn’t have to be at work until later in the morning, so he gets to sleep in.
In other words, I’m the only person awake at o’dark 30.
I quickly ran to his room, though, and began sobbing, telling him my sordid tale. I needed to know what to do because my brain was not fully functional.
He suggested aloe, which we didn’t have. He suggested Neosporin, which we didn’t have.
For someone who has raised children, I found myself woefully unprepared for an emergency such as this.
Then, I did what any working woman does and begged him to help me fix my hair.
Mind you, half of my hair was in a clip…the straightened part hanging below the curly half.
The Mr.’s eyes weren’t working, and he told me to just go like I was.
Um…nooooooooooooo.
I wailed, “I can’t go like this. Half is already done.”
He told me it would be fine.
Yeah, the man, despite twenty-five years of marriage, can utter stupid things sometimes.
Let’s blame the sleepiness.
Ahem.
I told him I’d call my friend, Megan, who lives in the neighborhood across the street from ours.
He poo-pooed this idea and glumly got up and trod heavily to the bathroom.
The man had no clue what to do.
The only thing I could do was provide verbal assistance.
My thumb was throbbing.
I couldn’t even grasp the clip to remove sections from it. I couldn’t squeeze my hand together at all.
The Mr. never fixed Chicky’s hair when she was growing up. Lesson to all you dads out there…do your daughters’ hair sometimes just in case you are called upon to fix your wives’ hair.
Just sayin’.
Anyhoo, I had to explain E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G…including how to divide hair into sections, comb them out, and run the straightener through them.
I sobbed the entire time but was cognizant enough to hold the mirror with my left hand to check that things were being done correctly.
I even asked him to redo parts that he’d skimmed over.
I am an overachiever, lest you have forgotten.
Ahem.
Did I mention that I was crying?
Thank heavens I’d already fixed my makeup, but some of it was looking poorly by the time we finished.
The Mr. dropped the straightener a time or two. He was completely freaked out by the heat…especially given what he’d seen me do.
Still, he finished and returned to the bathroom a few minutes later with the strict admonition NOT to go behind him and try to fix anything. I couldn’t even if I’d wanted because I couldn’t grip the straightener.
I went to work looking like this…
I had no bandages…no aloe…no Neosporin.
It was not a great start to the day or the week.
Fortunately, or not depending on your perspective, a fellow teacher called me as I was backing out of my driveway. He needed assistance with his car, which had refused to start after he’d stopped for breakfast at a local eatery.
Across the street from the eatery was a CVS and a Walgreens. The CVS opened ten minutes early for me after I explained my sad tale to an employee, and I went to school with the supplies I needed.
My friend, Lydia, wrapped my thumb so I wouldn’t be afraid of doing something worse to it…
The Mr. texted me later in the day to check in on me. He knew I was in a lot of pain but also knew how determined I was not to let it curtail my teaching time with my students.
Later that evening, I decided to take a bath instead of a shower. I was so afraid of wetting my finger and, thus burning it more.
The Mr. helped me put a glove on, taped around the edges.
I then asked him to put my hair in a ponytail so I wouldn’t get it wet in the tub.
Oh word. What a comical event to behold! I wish he’d let me record him.
Have you ever watched someone who has never put in a ponytail try to manipulate the holder and hair?
He took the holder and wrapped it around the hand that held the hair instead of pulling the hair through the holder.
His first attempt resulted in the hair coming out right away.
The second attempt, while passable, was too low on my head.
I had also asked him to not pull the hair all the way through on the final loop.
Um, yeah. That instruction went over like a lead balloon.
Still, he gave it another shot, and voila! Success!
Rooster did a quick cleaning of the tub, and I was able to enjoy a bit of downtime de-stressing from the trauma of the day.
The Mr. continued to spoil me for the next few days.
He is such a blessing to me.
We’ve certainly had our problems over the years, but I am grateful that our stubbornness to keep things going has paid off.
He’s constantly adding new reasons for me to love and appreciate him. I strongly suspect that we are up to 5,978 by now.
❤
Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged: family, Valentine's Day | 1 Comment »
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