Control and Clueless both start with “C”
Did I ever tell you I scored a 373 on the SAT? Apparently I spelled my name wrong and they thought the ship I drew wouldn’t even fit in a bottle. Wait, that was the ASVAB. I don’t know if you remember that one or not, but back in my day it was the test you took that told you your military aptitude. Mine came back with a very ambiguous, “Do NOT join the military. You refuse to be controlled and WILL be court martialed.” I saw through their little shenanigans (and obvious attempt to control me), and headed on down to the Army Recruiting Office to be all I could be. Unfortunately, that was before “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and they wouldn’t let me in.
So it took me a while to find something more controlling than the military, but eventually I got married. My wife has a serious control issue. Her issue is that she doesn’t do well with my conspiracy theories that she is always trying to control me. There is an old saying that I tend to agree with, “Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” With my wife, it is obvious. She’ll say things like, “Hi Hon, what are you doing?” It sounds like an innocuous statement so I’ll translate it for you, “Can you stop writing your stupid blog, put on some clothes, put down that beer, and help me paint the entire house?” It drives me nuts! Or she’ll say something along the lines of, “What are you doing tomorrow?” which translates to “It is freaking July, can you take down the Christmas lights already???”
I’ve got to be honest, her control issues aren’t good for our marriage. Where usually my temperament would best be described as “Peaches,” when I get to feeling this way she can say “I love you” and I’ll hear, “I dove you,” and start thinking she just wants to poop on me like a pigeon (come to think of it, maybe it was my hearing that kept me out of the Army).
So an interesting thing happened in my blogging hiatus. It wasn’t interesting at the time, it was down-right scary. My wife got to have one of those talks with the doctor that basically goes, “Your test results came back irregular and we need to do some more testing.” We knew that it could either be nothing, or that it would be terrible news… there was no in-between. Many of you have also been there and you know that your mind can’t help but to think the worst. All of a sudden, my wife didn’t have to beg me to help her with some mundane housework, I wanted to help her. In fact, I wanted to show my love for her in any way I could. She could even ask questions like, “What are you doing?” and instead of blowing up at her obvious attempt at control me, I would just answer her and not give it a second thought.
Why the change??? Well, I’m guessing she did some sort of voodoo mind control trick on me. Wait… I mean, because in my mind we only had a short time left together and it would be stupid to spend that time arguing or not being nice to the woman I love. Of course, as soon as we found out that the test results were okay, that logic went right out the window.
Those of you that scored higher than a 373 on your SAT can probably figure out that our loved ones could be gone tomorrow. So since you are smarter than me, I’ll ask you, “if your loved one did pass away tomorrow, would you have any regrets?” Sure you would regret all the things you didn’t get to do together, but life isn’t about things or activities. I think life is about relationships and love. IF that is the case… how are you doing??? I think I’ll choose today to start working on improving in this area. Want to join me? Actually, can we start tomorrow? Today I’ve got some Christmas lights to take down.
