At Least I’m Not THAT Stupid

My husband was in another room yesterday when I heard him say, “Oh. My. God.”  He’s a quiet man, rarely commenting on what he sees on TV or reads, so he had my attention. He was watching a movie that featured a man and woman who were talking while the woman stood about six feet off the ground on a ladder. My husband was irritated because the woman was standing on the ladder while wearing high heels! It was absurdly unsafe.

I was tickled for several reasons. The woman, after all, was attractive; her make-up was impeccable, and she was dressed up. No doubt she was on the ladder to draw attention to her pretty legs, right?  Some men might be mentally urging her to go a little higher so that the man could look up her skirt. Nope. My husband only sees how unthinkably unsafe she is and griped about how the move producers should spend more time on the content and less on the outlandish lipstick and things that are unimportant. In all fairness, he has managed many engineering projects and numerous Safety Engineers, so his point of view is skewed a bit to safety first. In that moment, I once more appreciated his practical nature while he pays more attention to the story than the actresses.

Here I am, short, dumpy, and sometimes grumpy, and he’s okay with it as long as I don’t do something so stupid as wearing high heels on a ladder! Torts in law school covered memorable lawsuits related to idiocy like that; so even though I use ladders a lot as a short person, I never do it in high heels. I’d have to dust them off and put them on first, after all.

After being married for 24 years, I am grateful that this is the man I am with, 24/7 during the shutdown. I’m grateful for his work to give us each a home office, so that we can work remotely without distracting each other. He thought nothing of paying for the two big monitors, keyboard, and docking station for my work laptop so that I could work remotely with less frustration and fewer headaches. I never would have considered paying out-of-pocket for that, but he thought nothing of buying what I needed. We spend so much time working that he thought spending a few hundred dollars and sacrificing the spare bedroom was worth it. He was right.

Thank goodness we also need about the same amount of social and solitary time, which is an often over-looked pinch-point in relationships. If he wanted a lot of attention when I wanted to be alone, or vice versa, we’d be irritable A LOT. But we are compatible here, even though we need more alone time than most.

As I continue to look for good things during the pandemic shutdown, I consider my husband to be one of them. We have always worked well together, but we also live well together. I am delighted that all his work-related travel is on hold, keeping him at home. He has completed many projects around the house since March, beginning with some kitchen cabinet customization to make things easier for me. Yay! There’s nothing better around the house than a capable man with the time, tools, and inclination to get things done. We’re lucky that we’re still suited and like each other despite being together 24/7.