August 01, 2008 12:54 pm
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My wife and I have different definitions of the word “relax.”
When I use the word “relax,” I mean: To take it easy. To slow down. To chill. To do pretty much nothing. You know, pretty much what I do every day.
When my wife uses the word “relax,” she means: To do the exact opposite of relax.
My wife has a tough time sitting still. She has a tough time shutting off her brain. She has a tough time doing nothing. My wife will tell you that I don’t have a tough time sitting still. My wife will also tell you that my brain has been turned off since 1978, and that I have been doing nothing since “the *&%$* day we got married.”
Speaking of the day we got married, my wife and I got married in Key West, Fla. For several years after we got married, my wife and I would return to Key West for our anniversary. We did this until we had a child and discovered that all of a sudden we no longer had any money.
Anyway, every morning when we were in Key West, I would get up early, walk across the street to a little Cuban cafe and buy a cup of Cuban coffee and a copy of the Miami Herald. Then, I would walk back to the place we were staying and read the paper and drink coffee on the porch. Sometime later my wife would come out on the porch and sit down with me. My wife would relax on the porch for about 30 seconds and then she would unrelax.
Wife: OK, what are we going to do today?
Me: I’m doing it.
Wife: Doing what?
<b.me:> I’m reading the paper and having coffee. That’s what I want to do.
Wife: But you can do that at home.
Me: That’s what I want to do at home, too.
See, my wife, and I think 99 percent of all women, don’t like it when men do something on vacation that they could do at home. While I, and I think 99 percent of all men, have no problem doing something on vacation that we could do at home as long as we like whatever it is we are doing.
For example, whenever we take a quick vacation to my Uncle Jim and Aunt Ev’s house at the Lake of the Ozarks, my wife and Ev get mad at Jim and me if we watch baseball.
“You’re at the lake,” they say. “Why would you waste time indoors watching TV?”
Jim and I always say the same thing: “Because we like to watch baseball.”
My wife and Ev don’t understand that.
But that’s OK. Jim and I don’t understand why women can’t just put the toilet seat down themselves if they don’t like it up.
Sometimes in the evening, I like to sit outside on our deck, have a cold beverage and sort of unwind. I don’t do that every day. I only do it on days that end in the letter “y.” Sometimes, when I’m relaxing on our deck having a cold beverage, my wife will come out and join me. We will sit in silence and just take in the quiet. Well, I will. After about 15 seconds, my wife will have had just about all of the taking-in-the-quiet that she can stand.
Wife: What are you thinking?
Me: How quiet it WAS!!!
Wife: Want to know what I’m thinking?
Me: No.
Wife: I’m thinking that next spring we should take out that tree, build a gazebo, put in a new fence, lift the house off the foundation, angle it just a bit and put in a pond. Hey, where are you going?
See, it’s not so much that my wife has trouble relaxing that bothers me. It’s that when she’s supposed to be relaxing she keeps coming up with things to do that are the exact opposite of relaxing.
We will be sitting on our deck when, all of a sudden, my wife will jump up, grab a tape measure and start marking on some imaginary space for some imaginary project that she has dreamed up while she was relaxing.
So, basically, because I decided to take some time to unwind, to relax, I will have managed to allow my wife to dream up some sort of project that in the future will prevent me from relaxing. Which is probably a good thing because if I was relaxing, my wife would probably come up with something else for me to do.
I guess the best thing for me to do to relax is to not relax. That way I could relax.
And if that makes sense to you, then you are a guy and have been married at least as long as I have.
Address correspondence to Mike Pound, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802, or via e-mail at mpound@joplinglobe.com.
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