Hey Honey, While You're Up...

“Hey honey…can you get me some water while you’re up, and some chips, and the artichoke dip, and a napkin and my phone?”

When the movie “Up” first came out I thought I was confident I was going watch a documentary of three different fathers, sitting in the dark to hide their identity, voices muffled from any recognition, talking about how they’re wives were obsessed with sandbagging various needs until their spouse’s ass left the couch…

What am I talking about?

Our first child was born in 2002. During that pregnancy my wife learned an incredible lesson she has yet to let go of:

“If I sit here long enough, eventually that big-eared, gap-toothed bastard will arise from his place on the couch creating the perfect opportunity for me to request items that are sure to meet my every need.”

That skill-set is firmly embedded into her psyche and has become a finely tuned art. It’s actually poetry in motion when it happens…either that or I’m so damn stupid that even seven years later it still hasn’t sunk in that when I stand up, I better grab a note pad, pen, and use my stuck-up waiter voice to say, “mmmm…will that be all Madame or shall you require anything else this evening?”

The other day I was watching “Weeds” with the wifey (our new obsession). We’d been there for literally over an hour. I finally stood up to go pee and I the wife dropped an Atom bomb of requests:

“Honey, can you take this plate and throw it in the sink, get me more wine, and I’m pretty sure there’s another brownie in there. Oh, and can you hand me the computer and another blanket? Love you!!!”

I felt like a prize fighter who couldn’t even lift his hands to block punches anymore and was just taking left and right hooks to the head. Bloodied, tired, and put in my place, I just said, “can I at least go pee first?”

“Oh sure…definitely. But wash your hands afterwards.”

“Yes dear.”

I admit it, I fight back on occasion. I’ll bitch and whine and throw mini temper-tantrums…I swing my limp arms around and say, “I don’t wanna.” It works for the kids.

A couple years ago the wifey decided it was too hard to get me to do stuff for her so she migrated over to asking the boy. Being that little kids are the most selfish little bastards on the planet, she gave up quick realizing that was one battle she wasn’t ever going to win. And like an idiot I stood there watching the whole thing go down. It was like watching molten lava slowly slide towards you. The whole time you think all the things in its path are going to stop the flow, but they don’t…no, they just get burned to shit as the lava keeps on flowing right towards you.

Now that last analogy may seem like I’m comparing my lovely and talented wifey to a flow of death-dealing burning lava…yeah, I guess I kinda am…but it’s the kind of lava you grow to love and want to snuggle with on a regular basis.

I’ve gotten used to it for the most part. I mean, it still stings a bit, but at the end of the day, you and I both know I justify being an in-house butler by slowly sliding another coin in the nookie-jar.

It’s amazing how many of those coins it takes before the jar gets filled…