Do I Smell Like Vomit?

It’s sometimes difficult having conversations with a husband whose job it is to deal with special needs kids at a privately funded residential institution on a daily basis. He likes his job and it’s challenges with bodily fluids, but he doesn’t call me Special Ed for nothing. Wait… Is that considered a double-negative? Speaking of double negatives…

It’s all a dream.

The other day I came home from my own (frustratingly people oriented) job in sales, to Daryl in the kitchen re-stacking the dishwasher that I painstakingly arranged (some would say threw in there haphazardly) earlier in the day before my shift. As is common with homosexual men, he tore off his floral apron, we immediately licked our lips, lit patchouli smelling candles, stripped each other of our clothing, turned on our Bluetooth house trance music, our tower fan, and proceeded to sip our pink cosmopolitans while falling sexually to our knees. Oh wait… that was a dream I had last night.

In real life, we smiled, pecked, and hugged each other, grateful to be at home in our little world. As I pulled away and turned to get changed from my suit and tie, Daryl asks me a little too nonchalantly, “Do I smell like vomit?” Now, I know these words are usually restricted for those couples with infants, toddlers and outdoor pets that eat rodents, so I turned around while still grasping my necktie a bit to tightly. My look must have startled Daryl into a quick addendum, “I think I washed most of it out with water and paper towels at work, but I don’t think I need to change my shirt. What do YOU think?”

“What’s wrong with the way I stack things in the dishwasher?” I shot back with love filled darts behind my eyelids ready to strike.

He looks at me… then back at the open dishwasher, and quickly grabs a soup spoon before it escapes the conversation like a teen with a persistent parent. “Look at this! It still has peanut butter on it! You have to rinse things first.” He half sighs, half snorts in frustration.

“I just don’t get why they call them dishwashers then. It’s false advertising,” I shot back. “and I enjoy eating peanut butter out of the jar on occasion. Rinsing it would be such a chore. Whats the big deal?”

“… and HOW do you think water is supposed to get to this bowl when it’s blocked by another bowl?” Daryl asks, looking again into the mis-stacked puzzle of dishware, flatware, assorted cocktail glasses and a large cheese grater.

“Water jets,” I smirked as I bobbled my head from side to side, “HOT propulsion water jets.”

“No and no” he admonished like he’s some sort of physics expert.

I pivoted around and I stomped (as much as a carpeted floor will let one stomp) into the bedroom to change while Daryl continued to clink and clank his way through my jumbled mess in the Maytag, trying to make sense of it all.

Not so long ago…

What’s interesting about this situation is that when Daryl and I moved in together 9 or so years ago, living in (yet another) sin, the man didn’t understand the power of chores. I believe he thought that dust covered tables were great for leaving handwritten notes, or hearts, or those pesky XOX’s. Making a bed was something one only did in hospitals, and even then, only when a patient left or died. And trash was only taken out if it smelled. Really smelled.

Don’t get me wrong, the man wasn’t a slob so to speak, but the man was… Well, a man.

Thank God, I turned him into a woman. Wait… that sounds sexist. Thank God I turned him into a good housewife. Whew! He even once bellowed during a particularly verbal disagreement over laundry once that HE was turning into ME. Surely a fate worse than… worse than… mixing colors with whites! Wait… does that have racial undertones?

Hope.

As I was taking my socks off, Daryl came in to the bedroom holding two full glasses of our best Pinot Noir, hands me one and says, “All forgiven?” I smiled, threw my arms around his chunky chocolate neck and said “Absolutely! Now go change your shirt. You smell like vomit.”