When I first met The Viking just over 9 years ago I didn’t have high hopes that we’d end up in a long-term relationship. At first blush we didn’t have much in common. He’s a guy’s guy while I am a girly girl who has man hands and, among other things, big feet. However, according to him he started falling in love with me when he saw my car had a manual transmission. That’s as good a foundation for a long-lasting relationship as any other. Right?
When I moved in with him I brought all my shit from my condo. And my shit wasn’t shit because I had collected it over the 4 years since I had left my husband. It was shit that made me happy, shit that made me smile every time I saw it. It was shit that reminded me to take care of my soul and to find joy every where I happen to be. The Viking’s household shit though was mostly shit. Wal-Mart shit. Shit that a guy’s guy would buy to serve a function regardless of sex appeal. But his shit was his shit and my shit was my shit and we squared off in front of our respective piles of shit to decide what shit to keep and what shit to trash.
It took us 7 years to whittle down our piles of household shit to a manageable level. My excuse was that my shit was part of my newly found soul. The Viking’s excuse was more complicated. I think I have it figured out though. He has a Telepathic connection to every miniscule item that belongs to him, both in the garage and in the house. And when I say miniscule, I really mean microscopically tiny. So tiny, in fact, that when I threw a piece of it in the garbage it didn’t even make a sound that I could hear.
Apparently, though, it was deafening in the mind of The Viking, like a sonic boom that alerted him that something had happened to a piece of his shit. It took him 3 days to mentally sift through it all to find the piece that was now missing.
The Viking: Have you seen my crescent screwdriver wire solenoid differential Robertson welding tip?
Me: Uh. No.
The Viking: It is just a little piece of wire about a centimeter long with a metal tip.
Me: Uhhh noooo? I’ve never seen anything like that. Are you sure you left it in the house?
The Viking: Yes, I’m sure. I left it right here on the kitchen table at 3:05 pm MST facing NNW. You were standing right there in front of the fridge, wearing black pants and a blue shirt and you weren’t wearing socks, we were discussing what to have for dinner.
Me: Wow. You have a good memory. But I didn’t see that thing on the table.
The Viking: We need to find it. Stat! It is worth $25 million and I have a guy who wants to buy it right now.
Well, fuck! I definitely can’t fess up now! If it had been worth a mere $250,000 I might have confessed, but 25 fucking million dollars is way too much! He’s looking intently at my face trying to decipher if I’m telling the truth. I’m trying to keep every single facial muscle from moving and not blinking even though my eyes are starting to burn with dryness. Gawd! He knows I threw it away! How did he know?! What are the signs of lying? Is looking to the right remembering but looking to the left is bullshit? Or is it vice versa? Shit! I need to memorize those things.
Finally, he looks away and I blink rapidly and roll my eyeballs around behind my lids.
“If you find it bring it to me right away.”
I heave a sigh of relief. “Okay. Roger Wilco.” He gave me a stern look as he went out the door.
I would have thought it was just coincidence if it only happened once, but it happens all too frequently. A few days ago I was chatting with The Slave and he has exactly the same thing happen with The Viking.
The Viking: Slave! Have you seen my diaphram bearing coil valve testing wire end?
The Slave: Uh no.
The Viking: Yes you have! For fucks sake! I left it right there on the end of the bench!
The Slave: Uhhh nnoo. Are you sure it was on the bench?
The Viking: It was right there, right where your dick is!! I left it there at 1:05 pm MST on Thursday the fourth. You were wearing your blue coveralls and your steel toed shoes and you had my torque wrench in one hand and 7 Allen wrenches in the other. You looked right at it for 11 seconds!
The Slave: Wow. You have a really good memory. But I don’t know what happened to the wire end.
The Viking: Motherfucker! That thing was worth 9.4 billion dollars!!
Being a teenager, The Slave can adopt the Camel Look which drives The Viking insane.
And even if The Slave did vaguely remember that little scrap of wire he certainly isn’t going to fess up now that he knows he threw away 9.4 billion dollars.
The fact of the matter is that The Slave and I have very similar purposes during daylight hours – cleaning/picking up after The Viking. Think of The Viking as Da Vinci. He’s working on Masterpieces here and he can’t always remember where he put things down because he’s in the middle of something very important. That’s why he needs The Slave and me – to keep him organized and on time. And you don’t just interrupt Da Vinci when he’s in the middle of painting The Mona Lisa to ask if this tiny piece of wire is garbage, now do you?
So, sometimes, we need to make judgement calls. Does this little scrap of something look like it’s worth a billion dollars? No, it really doesn’t and it’s been laying here for days so it must be garbage. Most of the time we make the right call until that one time when it’s the wrong call and we’ve thrown away “The Last Supper”.
Shit happens. Right?
Why oh why is it the junk you throw away that they always need and not something in the countless piles of crap you just move out of the way all day long?!?! Never fails. Glad you stared him down and held your own. You go girl!
I’m not really comfortable lying to The Viking but when he backs me into a $25 million corner I find I can force myself into it. :o)
This was really funny. I especially liked the bits about the orientation of the missing items and the way you moved your eyes after the Arab averted his gaze. My wife and I have something of a similar relationship, but with the roles reversed. She leaves stuff that looks indistinguishable from garbage lying all over the place, and then asks me six months later what I’ve done with it.
Maybe we would already be exploring space at Warp 24 except some genius left a tiny piece of shit laying around and the Mrs. threw it in the garbage?
I love this. So well written and who wouldn’t relate!
xx Rowena
Thanks, Rowena :o)