09 September, 2010

Overheard Converstation of an Idiot

In stressful situations, not all people can remain cool and calm. Renovating a home: laying tiles, putting up wallpaper, painting window- and door-frames, though not rocket science, can put a strain on any marriage.

blue

Yesterday, I passed a home in our neighbourhood (similar to the house above) where a couple have been working feverishly to renovate their new old home. They been at it since the beginning of the month and seem to be doing all the work themselves.

As I walked by their open front door, where the husband was laying down tiles in the entrance area, his wife came up to him with a cup of coffee she had just pored out of their themos. She was covered head-to-toe in a dusty overalls and paint was sprinkled all over her head. (Yeah, guess who got the job of painting all the ceilings.) As she was handing over the cup to her husband, she tripped and a slurp of coffee fell on his newly lain tiles.

The spontaneous poisonous barrage that came out of her husband was startling. After being rendered speechless, the wife apologized profusely. To which the husband responded, "Being sorry won't stop a plane from crashing." Talk about over-reacting. Talk about being an idiot.


All of this happened in the time it took me to walk by their front door. I know the incident is just a micro-moment in a relationship, but I did wonder if the couple will manage to move into their new place. And if they do,  how long will they stay together.

7 comments:

  1. If she apologized....they will stay together for a while. His rudeness is a normal part of their lives. I would have left him the moment he started his diatribe.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi LIa,

    One time I made a huge bowl of spaghetti sauce and put it in the frig. I especially told my husband,"See that bowl of sauce? Be very careful if you open the frig."

    Two minutes later he opened the door and out came the bowl which smashed all over the ceramic tiles with the light peach colored grout. Catastrophy!

    As we were cleaning it up I was so angry I wanted to scream and that scared me into thinking "I've got to say something to defuse this situation". The next time he lifted his head from the clean up job I looked at him,scratched my head like Stan Laurel and said,"A fine mess you got us into." That made us both laugh and the anger was gone...

    That's what this fellow has to learn to do..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:53 am

    Renovating a house is a recipe for disaster!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Made some spelling errors so will start over again. Understand all comments made - know they were both tired - but she was doing something kind for him and had an accident.
    Hopefully he is not like this all the time or I would be or rather he would be long gone - guess that is why I am One Woman in the woods :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Maggie, they were young. I think that might help. My instant reaction slurp of coffee/ plane crashing... not a good comparison.

    Nancy, my parents tell a story about going out to dinner to a very posh restaurant with live band for their 25 wedding anniversary. They got into a terrible fight due to a big misunderstanding. They were at a point in the argument of tallying up the property, when a colleague of my father's, who knew it was their anniversary, got the band master to get my parents up on stage to dance. Up on stage, having to dance in front of the whole place, and being secretly in a clinch, struck them both as so funny, they went on being married for nearly 25 more years, until my father died.

    One Woman's Journey, those were my thoughts as well. I even had to suppress an urge to say, "Idiot" out loud. Probably would have been yelled at by both of them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous5:42 am

    Thank you for your kind comment about my photography. I got a new super duper DSLR at Christmas time, so the camera isn't particularly new - but perhaps I'm just getting a bit better at taking shots. Also, I must say that the summer light is just glorious and that really shows. Soon, it will be back to the grey twilight of short days and long nights!

    ReplyDelete