The lucky one

Here is a post my husband certainly won't want me to publish on the Internet. Heh!

Last week after suffering through the horrid interview and subsequent realization that I'd locked myself out of my beloved automobile, my in-laws helped me kill time before the traffic died down to a bearable level to drive home. (Good God, can you imagine my mental state had I driven home directly after the interview? Who knows how many drivers-who-refuse-to-use-their-turn-signals would have lost life and limb?) My father-in-law fed me a snack and listened to me kvetch and we watched the news until my mother-in-law came home. Then my mother-in-law made me feel better by telling me all sorts of awful stories about ThisCompany and then announced that we were going to Olive Garden for dinner and TOO BAD for Phillip not wanting to drive to the suburbs to join us because BOY was he going to MISS OUT.

I love my in-laws. They are so nice to me. They bring me fake Prada bags from Hong Kong and remember what kind of cake I like from the Chinese bakeries in Richmond, BC. They gave me my beloved automobile and they helped us buy our house and in return I try my best not to gag on that jellyfish appetizer and to present myself as a decent substitute for a nice Chinese wife in front of all their friends who don't speak English. It is obvious who has the better end of this deal.

When I am alone with my mother-in-law, she will invariably ask me about Phillip. How is he doing, what is he doing right now, is he happy, are we happy, are we worried about anything, does Phillip like his job, does he always work this much, do we need anything? This time she was worried about Phillip being the youngest/only child. Is he spoiled? Is he nice to me? Is he hard to live with? Does he help around the house? Does he pick up his socks?

NO, I said emphatically. He does NOT pick up his socks.

Actually, I found this line of questioning to be no end of hilarious. As MY family will certainly tell you, there is only room for one spoiled person in this relationship and that person is definitely me. I couldn't help myself from giggling over his mom's worries because seriously, there is no one more laid back, more willing to give in over stupid things, more unconcerned with getting his way than my husband. In fact, whenever he DOES request doing things HIS way, he does so in the nicest most non-confrontational way imaginable, complete with rational logic, all of which is so utterly foreign to me that I am speechless and capable of nothing except going along with him. (Except for the times when I am horrified that he would even THINK of not doing it my way and find this as reason to promptly start World War Three.)

Phillip's only sibling is eight years older than he is. I am the oldest of five, all one year apart. We've talked about this at length. How much does birth order factor into our personalities? Because we fit the stereotypes pretty well. Phillip is used to taking direction and I am used to giving it. Phillip is content to let his brother be the crazy overachiever and I am constantly feeling guilty about not being the overachiever I know I'm supposed to be. Phillip comes home and relaxes and I am upstairs furiously writing blog posts about the meaning of the word "relax" and how I have yet to figure out HOW to relax.

All that to say: I am the one who is difficult to live with! I'm sure this comes as no surprise to you readers o' mine, but it's good for me to remind myself of this fact now and again. We had an argument the other night, not even a real argument, just a misunderstanding, and I spent the rest of the evening going through my catalog of Marital Grievances, picking out just the right ones to support my case. But really, all that happened was that one of us was tired and one of us was (okay, IS) hyper-sensitive. And the tired one decided to bring the hyper-sensitive irrational harpy a giant bunch of flowers the next night, and really, there is nothing like a handsome man giving you a bazillion pink tulips to make everything right with the world. (Seriously boys, that is ALL YOU HAVE TO DO.)

So now I feel terrible about my list of Marital Grievances, especially since some of them happened way before we were married and therefore can't possibly be filed under "Marital". I feel bad for Phillip. He should have some sweet even-tempered girl who stays up late and can drive stick and is rightly afraid of the word "mortage", but instead he has me. I am a grouch. I start laundry at seven in the morning on Saturdays. I use him for absolutely all of my exhausting external processing. I cry about stupid things and refuse to go to any restaurant where the entrees are all carbohydrates. I make fun of his shaving schedule and the way he folds the plastic grocery store bags into little squares before he stores them in the closet. I complain about TiVo cutting off the last five minutes of Veronica Mars when I wouldn't even have a world with TiVo (the only kind worth having) if it weren't for my husband. And my mother-in-law thinks HE'S the difficult one?

But I guess that's the way I want it. Better to have everyone think they've got the better end of the deal, yes?