Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Proceed with Caution

Situations sometimes arise in a relationship where you realize things aren't going to go well unless you tread verrrry carefully. For instance, DH and I were admiring the lovely blue of a periwinkle's flowers one day and he asked me whether the colour had a name. He's right: it's such a good colour that it deserves its own name, and our experiences doing crosswords together indicate that I am the person in the relationship who is most likely to know the words for things like that. In that moment, however, I could not find a good way to say "periwinkle blue" without sounding like a sarcastic asshole. The proceed-with-caution alarm started going off in my head, and I'm reasonably certain I have a matching facial expression that goes with the alarm. It feels as if it might resemble a deer caught in headlights who also happens to be eating a lemon, but since I've never witnessed it personally I can't attest to how it translates externally.

On another occasion, I butt-dialed DH from the field. I had never experienced a butt-dial before that moment and since subsequent experiments with those field pants suggest a generally low ability to effect any dialing unless dampened, I believe it was literally my ass sweat that dialed him. I'm not much of a phone person so DH was pleased that I had (ostensibly) taken time out of my busy work day to call him. "It's so nice to hear from you! Why did you call?"

*Alarm sounds in head. Possible deer-lemon face. Long pause while considering my options.*

"... Um, because I miss you?"

This, by the way, was found to be The Correct Answer, and further proof IMHO that the exact truth is not always the exact best thing for a given situation. "Because it's 35 degrees and my ass sweat has increased the conductivity of my field pants such that they were able to work my smart phone" would surely not have gone over so well. Crisis averted.

Because I only get to live in my own brain, I'm only aware of when these situations come up from my own perspective. (Or some degree of aware, anyway: I've been told that I'm offensive frequently enough that I'm guessing my batting average isn't spectacular.) I've always wondered whether other people have similar alarm systems wired up, or if they just sail smoothly along with a minimum of anxiety involved in the telling of their lies (or truths, as befits the situation).

* * *

Have I ever mentioned that I've decided to do any future Mrs. Small Fry a solid and really normalize the heck out of weird woman-things, so she won't have to worry about him finding them weird? Don't fret about, say, shaving your ankles in the sink so you can wear cropped pants that day, future potential daughters-in-law - I have got that shit covered. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if DH received any such training so we have developed a workaround wherein basically neither of us acknowledges anything, ever. Frankly, it's exhausting, and becoming less and less feasible the older I get, so here's a huge "you're welcome" to the future Mrs. Small Fry.

* * *

I was making good use one evening of the wax left over from doing Medium Fry's brows when DH came into the room. As per our usual approach, I pretended to simply be casually standing around in the bathroom for no waxing-related reasons whatsoever, and he pretended not to notice my telltale hot pink reverse-'stache (et al.). He had an odd look on his face, sortof like he was afraid but had also recently eaten something sour?

"Um," he said, "I have a message for you from Small Fry, that is definitely not from me."

"Okaaay...?"

"He has asked me to ask you that when you are done waxing your knuckles, would you please go give him a goodnight hug?"

Ah. So that really is what the alarm face looks like in reality. Good to know.