>Tradition
>I remember it like it was yesterday.
Wait a second. It was yesterday.
Hubs and I were driving back from our oh-so-romantic annual honeymoon trip after collecting the baby from my parents’ house. Every hour or so, Hubs would ask me to fish a gooey pastry or cookie out of a dessert box he’d picked up the day before at a quaint old bakery. The box was precariously perched on top of about a thousand shopping bags in the backseat. Its cardboard top mocked me by flapping open every time I tried to close it, exposing the sugary nastiness inside. It was only a matter of time until…
“You know, I hate that bakery box,” I said as I handed Hubs his 900th danish. “It’s constantly about to spill on everything. It’s ruining this trip.”
Hubs shoulders stiffened as he bit into a handful of goo.
“Are you trying to deny me my bakery?” he said gruffly. “Because I will always get my bakery on a trip. “
My irritation increased tenfold. Who calls it ‘my bakery’ like that? A nerd. That’s who.
“I’m not denying you your bakery,” I said. “I’m just saying it’s totally nasty and gross.”
“I can’t believe you!” he shouted, his mouth ringed with icing. “You don’t want me to have my bakery!”
Again with the bakery! Ugh!
The whole thing came to a head when I turned around to see Baby staring down woefully at her fingers, which were glued by chocolate goo to her knees. Apparently, Hubs had thought it was a great idea to just hand our two-year-old a pastry while I was taking a bathroom break, then totally ignore the disastrous aftermath.
“I can’t believe you!” I squealed, throwing down a promotional chamber of commerce magazine. Immediately, I was embarrassed. I had hoped the throw-down would feel defiant, and maybe it would’ve had it been Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass or something. But a chamber of commerce magazine? It was just soooo…. middle class.
Anyway, I’ll spare you the rest of the scenario, because it involves a whole lot of silence for the next three hours. But as I was sitting there pouting, it all seemed disgustingly familiar. And I realized that the end-of-honeymoon-trip argument had become a tradition. After a great week together, we always, always end the whole thing with the world’s stupidest argument.
One year, we got into it on the car ride home after I played him my favorite Radiohead CD for the first time.
“This is one of the top ten greatest CDs,” I said proudly. “It’s brilliant and I could listen to it a thousand times and never get tired of it.”
Five minutes later, our discussion culminated in him shouting, “I hate this CD! It SUCKS! I NEVER want to hear it again!” To say I was offended is a gross understatement.
Another time, we were playing Travel Scrabble while waiting at the Seattle airport to catch our plane home. Hubs is a master Scrabble player and I had never been able to beat him. But in a miraculous move, I spelled out H-O-B-B-I-T-S and earned about 10,000 points. I grinned wildly, unable to believe my good fortune.
“That’s not a word,” Hubs said.
“Hobbits? Hobbits? You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, laughing. “You, the big Tolkien fan, are trying to tell me Hobbits is not a word!”
He was deadly serious. “It’s a name created by Tolkien,” he insisted. “It’s not in the dictionary.”
“Yes it is,” I said. “Of course it’s in the dictionary. Are you joking?”
“No,” he said. “It’s unacceptable. And since we don’t have a dictionary, you have to remove it or the game’s over.”
Suffice it to say I lost it. I lost it. I don’t think we spoke again the rest of the way home. And the first thing I did upon our arrival, of course, was to get out the dictionary and find ‘hobbit’ listed there just like I knew it would be.
Grrrrr.
I can only guess that these wildly inappropriate arguments are the result of our deep disappointment in having to return to ‘real life.’ Because we have an awesome experience spending time together all week long- at least until it’s time to go home.
But I’m pretty sure that it mostly has to do with him turning into a Radiohead-hating, hobbit-denying, bakery-eating dunderhead.
Yeah. That’s gotta be it.
>I think it’s awesome that you guys go away each year for a re-honeymoon extravaganza. Oh to live close to family. Or at least, close to family that we deem sane enough to watch our child longer than ONE night. Maybe close isn’t that good after all. 🙂
>As always, you crack my shit up. We have the same stupid competitive nature, and the same stupid fights. Husbands are so stupid! LOL! Also, hobbits is so totally a word.
>That reminded me of the time back in the early 90s when my ex-husband ripped my Vanilla Ice tape out of the car tape player and threw it into the backseat in disgust. Why? I guess I said “Will it ever stop? YO I DON’T KNOW!” one too many times.
>John and I go on anniversary trips every year too, and we almost always have a fight near the end as well. All that “love” is just too much to bear. (If by “love,” we mean complete and total annoyance…LOL)
>I know, right at the tail end of the vacation look each other in the eye, exclaim how wonderful everything was, get your own car/plane ticket and say “see ya at home sweetie!” Eh?
>I definitely think it’s getting back to real life. I just want to stay on vacation.
>Sooo Funny! You reminded me of the time that my (ex)hubby decided it would be a good time to introduce our oldest to pink peeps. She was one pink, sticky mess and so happy. She was 15 months old!And Hobbits is so a word! You were robbed!
>You could always drive home separately. 🙂 I probably would have challenged Hobbits too… Like your hubs, I take my Scrabble seriously. Oh to be caught without a dictionary!!
>Oh thank you thank you THANK YOU for letting me know that I’m not alone here. Just this week, when we got home from vacation, the SigOth was a total curmudgeonly asswipe. He starts to argue with me when I’m agreeing with him! Infuriating.
>The Man and I typically fight all the way there and all the way back. I would call him a dunderhead, too. Maybe the Y chromosome makes them dunderheads and the extra X makes us high maintenance.
>Oh, I so get this post and envy your honeymoon trips away, spats and all. If only we had family closer that were able to handle two young kids.I’m thinking about approaching a babysitter about at least a weekend away…..Thinking about you and your “going public” dillemma. Hoping for the best. If it were me, I’d weed out your past posts, but I’m a wimp about these things. : )
>Of course that’s it? ANd WHO doesn’t like Radiohead? WHO? 😉
>What? Who denies that “Hobbit” is a word? LOLI say that you guys must really love each other if you can travel together and only begin fighting at the VERY END. Something to be celebrated!And those pastries sounded gooey-liscious…
>Ugh, we got to where we don’t keep score in scrabble anymore. It means misterpie will play, but I think I’ve lost my edge for making high-scoring words now that it’s not an issue. Damn.
>All good vacations need a less than graceful seque (sp) to finalize the escape. Plus, would your world be quite as entertaining if you didn’t have stories like that to tell? You make me so laugh!!
>I say hobbits should be in the dictionary. But that totally sounds like something my mother would do … the gosh-forsaken Scrabble challenge. I hated them, and still hate them. Like challenging someone in a Scrabble game gives them the royal sceptre to world denomination.
>and that was SUPPOSED to be WORLD DOMINATION. Maybe my mother challenged me one too many times.
>We argued on the date celebrating our first wedding anniversary. We’d gone to see the remake of “The Untouchables” and I wanted to know if Mr. Half would continue to forget to lock the doors at night against intruders…thus keeping us safe. It escalated into a comparison of his skills as a protector and those of Kevin Costner. Stupid…I know. I think stuff that’s supposed to be romantic gets too fraught with tension and pressure. And that’s why we argue.
>I didn’t realize “my” tradition until recently. No matter what we are going to do we have to argue before we do it. LOL… Okay the CD thing has me laughing cause I’ve argued with my husband about that before going to the beach.
>I always kick Chris’ ass at Scrabble and he always starts cheating eventually.Hobbits totally a word and if it was on the double word score he needs to pay you back your points in FAVORS. Uh-huh. 😉
>”Re-Entry Is A Bitch”We always argue on the way home too. Usually in an airport. With 2 screaming toddlers. Lovely.
>Jeez the things they find to argue about, when they know were right anyway! My ex threw my Wham cassette out the window and called him gay (way before we knew George was really happy… We had a serious fight over that …can you imagine?
>haha. You totally married a radiohead-hating, hobbit-denying, my-bakery eating (and sharing) man!And I bet you still love him anyway.
>You may use Hobbits in scrabble with me anytime!I taught the husband how to play cribbage-and he now continually beats me. I am a sore loser. So I quit. Music? Whoa-we have way diff tatses. I cannot believe I married someone who seriously LIKES Rush and Queen! Jeez!
>My hubby doesn’t think “The Office” is funny and he’s “seriously concerned about my sense of humor”. This is an end-of-vacation-argument waiting-to-happen! luv ya! C
>You are a riot and I love your graphics. Did you do those yourself?Check out Mom O Matic on blogger to see why I kick my husband’s ass regularly!
>Oh. I soooo have a scrabble-ass husband! I’ve only beaten him once and it was delicious!The “my bakery” thing really cracked me up. A nerd – that’s who. That was perfect 🙂
>”This CD SUCKS!” ROFL – we have had far too many of those arguments. Funny how I take it so personally when he says it to me, but I say it to him expecting nothing else but for him to shut it off or change it.One time, we even had a fight on the way home over cheese. WTH?
>So I’m a little behind, but I just learned about your new (real) identity and your new gig. Congrats!!!I’m sticking with my pseudonym for a while– I still got things to bitch about!!
>I would totally react the same to a messy box and especially the messy kid. “glued by chocolate goo to her knees”LOLHe won’t fight with me though. He either apologizes or explains in an infuriatingly calm voice why I am being irrational and attempts to demonstrate his considerable forethought in dealing with the situation which should completely dispell my irritation. When on many occasions I MYSTERIOUSLY GET MORE IRRITATED, he settles in to this space with a grim expression on his face that I know means, “OH yeah, I married a crazy person, I had hoped she was over that but I can see now that she’s not. Sigh, I am just going to have to grit my teeth and bear it now until she comes to her senses and realizes I’m right.” And then I start drooling and convulsing, or more often crying I’m so angry and frustrated, and then the furrow in his brow deepens a little bit further as though to say, “See, I told you you were crazy.”I think it would be way more fun to have your kind of fight.
>It’s kind of endearing in a “Katherine Hepburn – Spencer Tracy” kind of way 🙂
>It’s so sweet that you guys take a honeymoon every year. Very romantic…even if the drive home wasn’t… Jake and I have little spats like that too…We’ve had a couple of hours of silence just today as a matter of fact…
>Hmmm…Get him a measuring tape for Father’s Day. Keep this going.
>Our “end of fun” is always after we get home and Herr decides he should take a look at the checkbook. And then the credit card statement is always in the mail when we come back. He always starts off by saying, “God Damn we spend too much money. We’re really going to have to rein it in the rest of the month.”And then for 2+ hours we fight over the money we spent on the trip, the bills, the mortgage, etc.We’ve been married for nearly 13 years. You’d think it wouldn’t happen anymore.I can’t WAIT until we get back from our vacation in Rome next spring…
>I’m very envious of your honeymooning. We never even had a first honeymoon. What a bummer.Just thought I’d tell you, even if I may be the only one out there, your blog looks all funny now on my computer. I think it’s since you revealed yourself) The text of your posts is on the left and can only be seen if I select it so it’s highlighted… I use safari on a mac. Maybe it’s just me. Just thought you should know.
>Ha. I can just see the chamber mag throw down. I’ve been known to do a few ‘middle class’ things like that, myself.
>I always know it’s time FOR a vacation when we start to argue over laundry. Oh and hell yeah hobbits is a word! Tolkien is rolling over in his grave over that one.
>Uhm, Hubs is right. “Hobbits” isn’t in the dictionary.I’m going to go now, before you lose it on me.*Wink*
>hobbitn : an imaginary being similar to a person but smaller and with hairy feet; invented by J.R.R. TolkienGah, Leesepea, did my husband pay you or something? ;)This definition is from dictionary.com. It’s in Webster’s too, though.
>Or could be the culmination of way too much time together, which is so easy to do on vacation.