My Stress-Free Evening
2004-10-14, 9:21 a.m.

OK, ladies, admit it. When our menfolk arrive home and are immediately thoughtful/sweet/romantic/considerate, greeting you with the wide-eyed innocent look, the knee-jerk reactive thought is
�WHAT DID HE DO NOW?�

So Hubby walked in the door yesterday evening from work wearing The Look, laden with his laptop and other technological accoutrements, kissed me on the cheek (instead of walking by me still enveloped in a cloud of Logic), and then said, �You�re gonna hate me.�

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ooooooooooookay, so now what? My mind was whirling far beyond the simple obviouses like he banged up the truck, lost the keys, forgot to pick up ______ on the way home, lost it on a few less significantly brilliant colleagues thus once again potentially endangering his job, etc. The parallel universe of Really Big Things opened, and I was forced to consider such potentials as he mowed down a few dozen pedestrians on the way home or he�s bringing his other wives to meet me or�or�or�

No. He had a big project due and needed to work from home for the evening.

We were supposed to go to Wednesday night supper at church and then the Authentic Happiness course, which is a quite interesting series being taught by a couple of psychologists through early December. Fun and insightful, relaxing, but not earth-shattering. He needed to stay home and work instead, and THAT was the BIG FAT HAIRY GIVE-THE-LITTLE-WIFEY-HEART-FAILURE deal.

Sometimes I wish we had a home defibrillation device. I could make good use of it.

So later, he listed some rather sizeable bills we need to pay right away and "live lean" out of his upcoming paycheck, and finished by telling me not to get stressed over it. No, no stress whatsoever, nope. Won't find it here.

I spent the rest of the evening in the corner muttering incoherently about finances while Hubby nested on the porch, snug with his laptop and coffee and XM radio. The state of overall blissful ignorance which he can enter at will must be a wonderful thing. I shall have to try it one of these days. Either that or a pacemaker.

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