The Tragedy of Inter-Appliance Love Affairs

Since it seems that the world is finally coming to their senses on marriage equality for humans, I guess I can start speaking out about other marriage equality issues.  No, I'm not talking about those ridiculous religious arguments where people say that men will marry sheep and women will marry their cats, or how people will marry Buicks or Ferraris...

I'm talking about inter-appliance love affairs.  It's time that the world recognize them and give them the same respect we give other love affairs.

Just because you assume your washer and dryer have mated for life doesn't make it true.  Oh, sure, we've all had the sad experience where the dryer died early, and you had to go out and arrange a new mate for your washer, or vice versa.

Refrigerators are typically mated with freezers.

Stove are mated with ovens.

Dishwashers and garbage disposals have some sort of unholy alliance going that nice people don't talk about.

We sometimes even condone appliance polyamory - you can have a stove with 2 ovens, or a refrigerator and freezer with another freezer in the garage.

We've come to accept that an appliance can be two things at once - a toaster and and oven.  A sort of hermaphrodite appliance if you will.

But what happens when the dryer has become disenchanted with the washer, and has fallen in love with the refrigerator?

You think this can't happen, but we've all experienced losing socks, underwear, the occasional complete set of bedroom sheets from the dryer...only to discover exotic food in the refrigerator that you have no recollection of buying.  (Providing, of course, that you have a high end dryer.  If you have a lower end dryer,  you're more likely to find things like Miracle Whip, Liver Mush and lots of no-name mustard from the .50/bin at the Dollar store.)

Now, if you're lucky, the refrigerator will return the dryer's affection and reciprocate...and you'll find that the missing sheets have been replaced with luxurious 900 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, or washable silk teddies that will make your partner swoon with joy.  If the refrigerator doesn't return the dryer's affection, however, all you find is stained clothing...stains from things like Miracle Whip, Liver Mush and no-named mustard.  Or you'll notice a disgusting odor coming from the dryer, as the refrigerator tries to return the caviar, smoked salmon and Belgian chocolate.

The washer will eventually start showing her displeasure at the dryer's infidelity and try to start her own affair with the freezer, in an effort to make the dryer jealous.  This never ends well.  You'll find dirty frozen gym socks tucked between the individual spanikopitas you spent hours making for your Greek themed dinner.  The Leg of Lamb you paid $12.99 a pound for will mysteriously show signs of having spent time in a rinse cycle.

It's disturbing.  And there's nothing you can do about it.

I refused to say "obey" and then I heckled the pastor

When Scott and I got married, I wrote our vows.  I told Pastor Tim that I would not be saying "obey" because I've never "obeyed" anyone in my life and I saw no reason to start our marriage off with a lie. He seemed okay with it.  Right up until he decided to start quoting St. Paul about how wives should be submissive to their husbands.  That's when Mom and I started heckling him.  If you've seen my standard picture on Facebook where we're all laughing, that's after Mom and I interrupted the ceremony.

I'm still really bad at obeying, and submissiveness is not my style.  I'm passive-aggressive as hell which can sometimes be mistaken for submissiveness, but trust me, there's a difference.

Scott and I are a mixed marriage.  Not racially or religiously, but politically.  It wasn't a big deal at the beginning, but I was drinking a lot and probably was not expressing myself coherently.  I mean, I can't really expect him to know that "yaaaaavo tad bama" meant "I voted for Obama", right?

But I've quit drinking and I'm not slurring my words anymore and shit, suddenly he can understand what I'm saying.  Worse, instead of hiding out on Usenet with my Imaginary Friends, we've all migrated to Facebook.  Plus my local friends, old friends from high school, family...typical Facebook circle of friends.  The problem is that he's on Facebook too.  And of course we're friends, we're married. Worse, I'm friends with some of his friends.

My imaginary friends (and a lot of my local friends) and I share a lot of current news through Facebook.  A lot of us lean left, but certainly not all of us, and this is what we did on Usenet - we'd post something currently in the news and provoke a discussion.  Not a flamewar, not something meant to attract the grepping loons, but a real discussion. Sometimes the posts would get heated, but usually we kept it relatively civil.  If we couldn't keep it civil, we tried to keep it creatively mean.  Eventually the threads would die out with everyone losing interest and conceding that The World is a Very Big Place (TWIAVBP) or Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV) or just a cheerful "PLONK!" as someone was added to a killfile because their imagination had failed them and they'd resorted to typing the same cuss words over and over and over and over.  Not that we were adverse to cussing - one of our group has reached levels of cussing that I am just in awe of - but creativity counted.

So I have my imaginary friends that I'm used to engaging in lively debate.  As I go through recovery, I'm making IRL (in real life) friends with whom I can engage in lively debate.  Yes, most of the time we tend to agree on things...but not all the time.  I'm still a Liberal living in South Carolina.

What I can't do is engage in lively debate with my husband.  There is no debate.  What ensues is a verbal beat down of me, my opinions, liberals, Obama, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton and the mainstream media.

It makes things difficult. He finally unfollowed me on Facebook. I think that's for the best.

We will not Regret the Past Part II

Big Pete died a month ago.  I'm still grappling with my feelings about it.  First of all, I was shocked that it hit me as hard as it did.  Then again, maybe it was because of how I got the news.  I was at work, and my phone pinged me.  Debbie, my father's sister, had sent me a message through Facebook telling me that my father had passed away at 8am, and she would call me later.  It showed up on my phone like a text message.

Note to anyone reading this:  Don't text someone to tell them that a loved one died.  It's just tacky.