Pre-birthday tension syndrome (PBTS) arrives about two weeks before the birthday. There’s only one symptom: being pissed off. I have broad spectrum PBTS, I’m pissed off about everything. As my poor old Other Half knows only too well. Over these two weeks he becomes but a husk of a man.
This morning he was yarning in bed about the gym class he’s going to. He’s got a predilection for forgetting that he’s 47 years old, and injuring himself with unsuitable forms of exercise. He strained his Achilles tendon doing tai-kwondo, causing a calcified obtrusion to his heel bone. He got a splinter of metal in his eye from welding his land yacht together. Now he’s doing gymn class.
His teacher reckons she boasts a record of zero injuries in her class, but she seems to be forgetting the middle aged mum who ‘put her hip out’ doing a mid-air twist off the horse, and the middle aged man who ‘hurt his neck’ on the trampoline. Hurt his neck! That’s not like cutting your finger a bit or getting a bruise on the shin. That’s ‘hurting your neck’ – a distance relative of ‘breaking your neck’.
I’ve done yoga for seventeen years and I’ve injured myself once during all that time, from flipping the dog when I knew I shouldn’t. My dogs have remained unflipped ever since.
Everyone over a certain age should be banned from gym classes and do only yoga, because that’s what I do, so obviously it’s right. I was pissed off to be hearing about the gym classes before I’d even stuck a toe out from under the duvet.
I decided to return fire. I launched into a description of the notice they’ve put in the school newsletter about the next School Association meeting and how they just quoted a bit of the constitution instead of calling for agenda items and giving some contact details. Christ, I was boring my own arse off about it and I’m on the committee.
‘Come on, we really need to get up now,’ blurted my Other Half suddenly, flinging back the duvet and springing from the bed in a way completely unknown since our earlier days when we did nothing but spring in and out of bed.
Various things continued to piss me off during the course of the morning. Because he’s a bit hard of hearing, my Other Half often doesn’t hear me coming if we’re approaching each other from opposite sides of a door or a corner in the hallway or something. When I appear in front of him he leaps backwards defensively as if some ghoulish apparition has appeared before him. Given the state of my hair in the morning, it sometimes has. But it’s not a way for a husband to endear himself to his wife, especially one with chronic PBTS.
Once we were up and about he announced that today we’d be ear-tagging the piglets. Bang went my writing day. Actually, bang went only half an hour of my writing day and obviously I’ll write it up on this blog. Even so, I still managed to be pissed off about it. So in the interests of future marital harmony, even though there’s two weeks to go till my birthday and PBTS recedes for another year, I’m writing a list of handy hints on ‘How to Be a Good Wife.’ I often complain that he’s not nice enough to me but I’m not being very nice to him just now, and he’s not such a bad old sausage really.
So I’m thinking up all those simple but thoughtful gestures that reach in and put a little string of lights around an Other Half’s heart. I know Toad in the Hole does it for him. (That’s a traditional English dish involving sausages, not something rude, just in case you didn’t know.)
They’ll be published on a future post, but if you’ve got any suggestions, I’d be glad to add them – click on ‘Comments’ below.
That was a fun read. I hope your day has given you a few reasons to smile rather then feeling pissed off. Though a bit of that can feel empowering. Your husbands leap backwards reminds me of my morning routine. My other half is often slow to get out of bed and it takes his face a while to make any expression. I can't help it I just love giving him the biggest wide awake happy smile and say "Good Morning sunshine!!" Which he clearly isn't in the mood for.. but I just love the inner giggle I get from it.:)
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your birthday, being alive for another year is a good thing.
Thanks Glenys for your very kind comment. I've re-written the post a little because my mood really is more to do with me than my Other Half and he was a bit out of sorts about it. Sometimes those inner giggles and gripes are best left 'inner' - but that's the problem with blogging, you tend to blurt everything out.
ReplyDeleteMethinks one needs to study some history. Shall we go back to the times of Henry VIII when the women folk were not to question their men and their opinion was not required nor desired. They were there to provide services for their men to whatever capacity they were deemed worthy. (cooking, cleaning, making shirts, sexual requirements....at least until they had a son...etc). Indeed, some cultures still maintain these ideals. Unfortunately things have changed in our society, but watch this space post the Gillard years as the revolution of battered, thumb printed men folk raise once again to the glory years that preceded femininity.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I cannot come to your party as I am obviously gender disadvantaged (if there was a men only gathering these days, would this be considered sexist?).
Now excuse me, I have to go and iron my wife's bra........
The good old days weren't that bad, actually. Because the drinking water was so foul, we drank wine all day, so I spent a lot of merry time legless, until I became headless.
ReplyDeleteA. Boleyn (Mrs).
PS - remember to iron the straps on your wife's bra.