I am the snatch grabber

I really don't want this blog to turn into one of those "kids - they say the darndest things" blogs. I'm always very aware of that, because we're all just one step away from becoming the next Cavagnaro Blog or CJ's Blah. However, the occasional well-placed MaxieC quote does little to no harm.

He explained shortly thereafter that he was very good at snatching grabs, in case you care.

So today marked the official beginning of The Week of Disappointment. I believe I've mentioned before that this is what we call the week that has The Mrs.'s birthday followed immediately by Valentine's Day. A week that always ends with one of the following utterances:

• "I had no expectations, so I wasn't all that disappointed."
• "I had absolutely no expectations, and you met them, for the most part."

The Mrs. cranked on The Full Martyr today. Good lord, it didn't matter what I did, she responded with, "Why are you taking shots at me?"

Let me give a couple examples. In the morning, MaxieC had some magnetic darts in the fambly room. He was noting how the yellow and red darts repel each other, much like the red darts repel each other and the yellow darts repel each other. Then, he took his handful of darts and whipped them at the wall as hard as he could.

I said, "MaxieC, cut that out or I'm taking the darts away. I don't know why momma keeps insisting on buying you stuff for you to fling against the walls. "

See, it's a longstanding issue that The Mrs. thinks that somehow MaxieC is quite a bit older than he actually is, and she buys him presents that are for older children, and he just destroys either the presents, or the house, or both. This birthday, his fourth birthday, she got him tons of stuff that said, "Ages 8 and up". He doesn't, for instance, have any where near the muscle control or temperament required for a relaxing game of darts.

The Mrs., naturally, took great offense at me accusing her of buying him something that said, "Ages 8 and up," for his birthday, though of course she did, and then said something to the effect of how I care more about all the dents in the wall than I care about her or blah-dee-blah-blah-blah. I try to ignore her when she tries to go on offense when the puck is deep in her zone.

We had a bit of a thaw this weekend, so I managed to pick up the dog poop. I filled two plastic grocery bags. I couldn't get is all up, as some was still frozen solid to the ground. FreddyC will now have somewhere to poop without jumping the fence.

Then, I had to go to Lowe's to buy landscape light bulbs for our step lights on the deck. We run them 14 hours a day, and three had burned out. HannahC decided to go with me, and as I was getting her jacket down, I noted how her jacket was on one of my fancy wood hangers.

Again, The Mrs. exploded at me for noting this. However, I'd like to officially state my case.

A few years back, I was kind of in a state of the blahs. HannahC was young and annoying, and I'm not sure MaxieC was even born yet. I decided I needed a bit of change. About the same time, I was watching a good deal of TV, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was a brand new show that was getting lots of hype. So I ended up watching it a lot.

I learned many things. For instance, I learned that I was too old to be going around with long hair wearing jeans and t-shirts all the time. So I cut my hair and bought a whole new wardrobe of decent clothes. Not investment banker clothes, but just sort of ordinary adult man clothes. I also learned that you ruin good shirts by putting them on little wire hangers, and instead need thick, wooden hangers to keep your shirts in shape.

So I bought a pack of wooden hangers.

The Mrs. immediately laid into me about how wooden hangers was a complete waste of money, and that the little wire hangers or the medium plastic hangers were just as good.

I bought a second pack of wooden hangers. Now I had enough for all my nice shirts.

The Mrs. again started in on me about wasting money and how she hoped I wasn't going to force her to switch the kind of hangers she used because of some big fuh-gee TV show and all that, and I agreed to only use the nice wooden hangers for my good shirts. For the record, I was perfectly willing to replace every hanger in the house with a wooden one. They don't cost all that much. But I was instructed not to.

Fast forward to last weekend. I was packing for a conference in San Fransicko where I was going to wear my nice clothes (I have, unfortunately, backslid on the whole jean-and-t-shits thing), and I noted how the majority of my nice shirts were on spindly little wire hangers. Odd. I look around. I note that the majority of my nice wooden hangers seem to have The Mrs.'s clothes hanging on them, and the most common thing on them appears to be her T-shirts.

I file this away for later use, as there is no point in starting up a squabble when you're going out of town the next day. Plus, just by the mere fact that you're going out of town the next day, you're in an exceptionally good mood.

So today, I'm heading to Lowe's to get the light bulbs for the step lights, and HannahC is going with me, and I discover he jacket hangin on one of my nice wooden hangers. And I find both of The Mrs.'s jackets hanging on my nice wooden hangers. While my nice shirts continue to be ruined by little wire hangers. So, I non-nonchalantly note, "Hey! Why are my nice wooden hangers in the coat closet when my good shirts that I bought them for are on wire hangars?"

The Mrs. goes ballistic. She comes into the closet and strips her coats off the wooden hangers and throws them on the floor. Then, she starts to mart about how mean I am to her, despite the fact the she is the one who declared the moratorium on buying these hangers and set the rule that they were only to be used for my shirts.

I believe I may go out and buy 200 wooden hangers tomorrow. That'll teach her.

When HannahC and I returned from Lowe's (and other places - HannahC insisted on shopping for birthday presents for her mother as well as valentine's presents for everyone else), The Mrs. picked up an old Target plastic bag and asked my permission to use it as a poop bag for FreddyC (they were going on a walk), cuz she didn't want to use anything I was saving for something else.

Next time she bakes cookies for a party, I'm going to eat them all. And if she complains, I'm going to walk around the house asking permission to use the water in the toilet or the electricity in the lights in case she's saving it for something else.

I wonder, if you've stopped counting the years, do you still get presents on your birthday?