Football and Sympathy

Men are whiners. You know it, I know it, even they know it. I hate to go all Militant Feminist on their asses but I'm gonna toss this out there, just for old time's sake: If it were up to them to give birth, human life on this earth would have ended a bazillion years ago, or whenever Man first made his appearance. (I'm not an anthropologist, for God's sweet sake... I'm just a woman with an opinion. So don't expect actual facts from me, mmmkay?)

Anywho, *inhale* *exhale* when DAN is sick, he becomes the World's Biggest Whiner. He lies in bed, he sleeps for hours, he coughs pathetically, and I wait on him hand and foot because he is soooo helpless. I mean, seriously helpless. I'm usually tolerant for about 24 hours but if it lasts longer than that, I'm pretty much over it and I start getting mean. But that's beside the point.

When I'M sick, he needs to be reminded constantly that I'm, well, sick. I still manage to make my own food, blow my own nose, and usually cook him dinner, while he asks me repeatedly what's wrong with me. I'm going to use yesterday as an example:

I woke up with a migraine that left me dizzy, vomiting, and in so much pain that I couldn't even speak. It was bad. BAD to the degree of Longing for Death. (And if you get migraines, you know exactly what I mean.)

Dan woke up cheerful and loud. I mean, he's usually loud, but yesterday morning he took loud to whole new levels. He was frisky and obnoxious and wayyyy too freaking perky. (I kinda sorta wanted to hurt him. True story.)

After he had grabbed me and squeezed me and bellowed "GOOD MORNING BABYYYYY!" into my ear (which I normally appreciate, really I do), I got up, staggered to the bathroom, and threw up everything I've ever eaten, ever, in my entire life (and a few things that I'm pretty sure I've never seen before. Hmmm.)

When I came back to bed I informed him in as few words as possible that I was sick, I had a migraine, and I was potentially dying.

He looked like he was listening. He nodded his head. He expressed sympathy while he flipped through the channels looking for a football game.

After listening to me puke a few more times, he got up, got dressed, and went to his nephew's football game (he helps coach. It's not like he abandoned me, he was supposed to be there. Just so you know that he may be an asshole, but he's not THAT big of an asshole).

I spent the morning dying and throwing up.

He called when the game was over and bellowed happily into my ear that they'd won the game and as a reward, he was going to let the little monsters shave his head on Tuesday after practice. (Don't get me started. Let's just pretend this is something people do every day and move on.)

I listened but wasn't capable of much speech. I grunted a few times and felt lightning bolts shooting into my head.

Dan: *soooooo damn loudly* "AND HOW ARE YOU DOING, BABY?"

Me: *softly, without opening my mouth because it hurt too bad* "Awful."

Dan: *here's where it get good* "WHY? WHAT'S WRONG?"

Seriously. He had listened to me puke, was looking right at me and nodding his head while I told him I had a migraine and was potentially going to die, and within 3 hours, had completely forgotten.

Me: *with as much annoyance as I could convey without my brain exploding* "I have a migraine and I've been throwing up all morning."

Dan: "Oh yeah. Ha ha, there can't be much left to throw up! Well, I'm gonna go have lunch with the team and then I'll be home. Love you!"

Warm fuzzies, am I right? I could feel the empathy pouring through the phone.

Flash forward an hour:

Dan comes barging through the front door, whistling. He charges into the bedroom exuding energy and good cheer. He shouts, from the doorway, "HI HONEY! I'M HOME!!! WHY ARE YOU STILL IN BED?"

Right???

Me: *without moving any part of my body for fear of puking* "Migraine. Vomit. Dying."

Dan: "Oh yeah. Sorry. Mind if I watch the game?"

Me: "Could you go get me some applesauce and 7 Up first?"

Dan: *looking wistfully at the tv* "Right now?"

Me: *snarling* "Yes, right now."

Dan: *sighing dramatically and making a big fat deal out of running to the corner store and buying me applesauce and 7 Up and missing 5 minutes of football* "Fine. *sigh* *sigh*"

Long story short, I started feeling better towards evening. I managed to get up, shower, eat some applesauce, and appreciate that with all the puking and not eating I'd done that day, I might have lost a pound. (It's the little things, yo.)

Dan spent the afternoon watching college football and happily yelling at the tv.

Which brings me to this morning.

When we woke up, Dan was oddly quiet, except for the occasional cough and deep sniffle, followed by a longggggg, longgggggg, longgggggggggggggg sigh. I knew what was coming, I really did.

Dan: *pathetically* "I didn't sleep for shit."

(GOD I hate it when he says that.)

Me: "Sorry, baby. You okay?"

Him: "My throat is scratchy and my sinuses are bothering me. *cough* *cough* *sniffle* *sigh*

Me: "Sorry! Hope you don't come down with what I had yesterday."

Wait for it....

Dan: "Why? What was wrong with you yesterday?"

Back off, girls... He's alllllll mine.

Best Facebook status of the day...

This one came from my beautiful daughter-in-law and honestly made me shoot diet Pepsi through my nose:

"Really, Dog the Bounty Hunter... button your effing shirt, for the sake of everyone."

(That's my daughter-in-law, Danielle, with my son, Kacey. Are they or are they not the most ridiculously beautiful couple on the planet? Prince William and Kate who? Am I right? Oh, also? We have the same name, which makes her even more awesome. And our family gatherings a little confusing. And makes me think my son is kind of a mama's boy. Which isn't a bad thing.)

Further Adventures in Aspergers

I know I've blogged before about my husband, Dan, having Asperger's Syndrome (which is somewhere, but not quite, on the Autism Spectrum). It amazes me, when I hear the stories about him as a child and young adult, that no one ever thought his behavior was, you know, ODD.

(Dan wasn't diagnosed until I dragged his ass to a doctor in 2004 and said, "Will you please tell him he has Asperger's?" Which they did. Promptly. It was kind of like a "Duh" moment.)

One of the things he did, as a teen-ager and into his early 20s, was wear the same shirt every Friday, eat out of the same bowl, and drink out of the same cup... and use the same towel. They were his Friday shirt, his Friday bowl, his Friday cup, etc. I asked him one time why he did that and he said, "Because I really like Fridays."

Alrighty then.

(I may or may not find this so damn funny that I ask him about it a lot, just because it makes me laugh so hard. I may or may not be real sensitive and thoughtful like that. *cough*)

Anyway.

So let's flash forward 20 years or so to this morning:

Dan was getting ready for work and I was lying in bed with the two dogs and the covers pulled up to my nose. (It's cooooold outside today... I'M SO HAPPY!) Dan was rooting through his sock drawer and came up with a grand total of two socks, neither of which matched.

(Sidebar: There were only two mismatched socks, but at least 12 pairs of underwear were still in his drawer. I'm afraid to ask how that happened.)

Dan: "Did you do any laundry yesterday?"

Me: *guiltily, because I'm home all day and the fact that Dan doesn't have two socks that match is pretty embarrassing, considering he owns approximately 200 pairs* "No... sorry."

Dan: *very patiently, even though I have no good freaking excuse* "I don't have any socks."

Me: *because I'm a problem solver... it's what I do instead of laundry* "You wear work boots... just wear those socks. No one is going to see them."

Dan: *agreeably... which actually kind of shocked me, because if he's ever had a legitimate moment to bitch about me not doing laundry, this was it* "Okay."

He held up the socks and looked at them for a moment and said, "Well, isn't this going to be a special day."

Me: "Why?"

Dan: "Because my socks don't match."

Me: *because I am that person who will beat something I find funny into the ground* "They can be your new Friday socks!"

Dan: *very seriously* "They can't be Friday socks."

Me: *trying very, very hard not to laugh* "Why can't they?"

Dan: *even more seriously* "They're not that special."

I give myself huuuuge amounts of credit for not laughing myself into a coma until AFTER he left.

I'm a giver, yo.