The Mrs.'s new best friend

This weekend was a difficult weekend that the C household. The Mrs. woke up in a veritable funk on Sunday, and proceeded to storm around the house slamming every door she came across. Eventually, tiring of this, I went to the kitchen to get myself a glass of orange juice. I slammed the cabinet door good and hard.

The Mrs.: "[snarl] Why'd you slam that? [growl]"

Me, CherkyB: "I dunno. All I know is that something is wrong, and it is apparently made better by slamming doors. I'm just trying to help."

The Mrs.: "[roar] I can't believe you're such an idiot that you don't know what's wrong!"

At which point she proceeded to not tell me. She didn't actually tell me until the next day despite me asking a couple times (just for show - I didn't actually want to know), as that is the way a "normal" woman communicates.

Eventually, she calmed down enough to decide that, despite me being a gigantic idiot who couldn't read her mind to know her every whim and thus simply sense how it was that I had disappointed her today, the alternate route to happiness was to just have me buy her something. Again, very much like a "normal" woman "heals" emotionally. I have long ago accepted that all I am to The Mrs. is a wallet that speaks, which is how a "normal" woman perceives her husband if he is a wonderful man, like I am. If he had serious character deficiencies, then he'd be a no-good wallet that speaks. If he had a job that paid poorly, he'd be a lazy good-for-nothing bastard. But a kind, loving, good provider man like Me, CherkyB and most husbands can aspire to reach the pinnacle of happiness in a marriage, which is that your wife doesn't routinely use derogatory adjectives when describing you.

Now, my transgression, which at the time was still unknown to me, clearly did not rise to the level of, shall we say, diddling the hotel staff. So the gift The Mrs. needed to make it all better happily did not require measurement in karats.

Those of you who have followed The Mrs.'s mother's travails know that there is very little that I have not provided for my wife that she has expected on account of her mother having it. Really, it comes down to just two things: cats and a chest freezer.

Those of you who know me know that I am deathly allergic to cats. They throw me nearly instantly into an asthmatic attack that generally lingers for upwards of a week, and, more interestingly, they make the whites of my eyes turn red and swell up. Really, it is a sight to behold. If you've never seen swollen eyeballs, it is truly breathtakingly disturbing.

And it simultaneously itches and hurts. Every blink is as though the backs of my eyelids are covered in gritty sand. And there is no truly effective way to scratch an itchy eyeball.

Having noted this, one by one each of my in-laws has acquired two or more cats, and most of my own blood relatives have as well. I can visit my parents and one brother, and that's pretty much it for me. Others I am forced to visit, but am often reduced to sitting alone outside shivering in the freezing rain while catching pneumonia. Literally.

So, at this point you are wondering if what I did to anger The Mrs. was so bad that she would demand a cat or two. Thankfully, the answer is no.

Which leaves a chest freezer. The Mrs. has been going on an on about wanting one, especially since the over-abundance of our garden required us to let a great deal of food simply rot on the vine due to lack of freezer space. But The Mrs. never cleared a spot to put one. The perfect spot, the incomplete wine cellar, has been turned into an "art room" where paint can be splattered on everything due to the incomplete nature of the finishing. The other "brilliant" idea was to locate it at the end of the storage room beyond the shelves.

Way the hell back there:

I had done some measurement and had discovered that it was unlikely I could get a freezer way back there without taking down the shelves. And the chances of keeping the pathway clear to get to the freezer were perhaps even more remote.

Oddly enough, on the morning of freezer acquisition I was struck with the though of simply removing part of a shelf right by the door and putting the freezer there. Only an upright freezer would be a better fit than a chest freezer. After discussing the merits of an upright freezer vs. a chest freezer and dispelling the myth that an upright was twice the cost, a plan was hatched. A trip to Lowe's ensued, a proper freezer was selected - one that was not frost-free so that things would stay good and frozen rather than constantly thawing slightly like they do in a frost-free, loaded into the truck, and brought home.

Everything went smoothly until we got the freezer stuck in the stairwell. We have a curved stairwell, which is pretty and all, but not really what you want for moving freezers through. The Mrs. was able to muster enough upper body strength to help me pull the thing back up the two steps we had gotten it down and to strategize.

Her strategy was to call The Dave Guy from across the street to come over to help. The Dave Guy suggested I remove the door from the freezer. That made it about 4" narrower, counting the handle. The Dave Guy and I got it down the stairs and into place in short order, in large part because we were able to move it more vertically than had been possible with The Mrs, as we were now bearing the load at both ends rather than just one.

I don't know why I always think of my wife as someone who can help move heavy things. She has time and time again proven to be incapable of that. Much in the way I have proven to be incapable of reading her mind when she is angry at me.

So here is her new best friend:


And, naturally, a trip to Safeway was called for yesterday. Now we are ready to brave any storm.


I had best go shoot me a deer before the whole thing fills up with french fries.