Turning My Brain Off

Michelle and the kids finally got home last night. Every year, Michelle takes them down to her moms to spend the week there. The last few years this has not affected me too much, as I would be in China. However this year, I “had to fend for myself” for a week. It’s amazing how much I just turn off in my head when she is around. I’ll give you a few examples.

Grocery Store

Friday I went to the grocery store to get food for the week. Let me caveat that by saying I pretty much knew I had my weekend and week full for dinners and lunches, because I was going to be eating out with others to discuss business or hangout with college students. But for some reason, come Friday afternoon, I felt like I needed to go to the grocery store. Once I get there, it’s like I draw blank:

“What do I buy? I know I need to eat but what do I eat? Michelle cooks. What does she cook? I don’t cook. I grill. What would I grill? STEAK! Oh, wait I need jetski oil. I can do that! I have done that before. Jetski oil, steaks….. what else?”

By the time it was all said and done, I had spent almost as much as what Michelle would spend in a month for all of us! By the way, I haven’t eaten half of it.

Boat Safety

That evening, I took my jetskis out on the lake to do a test for in the morning. I had some teens planning to ride them, and I wanted to make sure they were riding ok before in the morning. I back the skis down into the water, and notice a LOT of gas floating on the surface. My initial thought was that someone previously had just emptied out their boat before loading it on to their trailer. As a jetski owner, this should have triggered an alarm, an alarm that normally would have been present with my wife and kids around….

I climb on top of one of the skis and begin to try to start the jetski. All of the sudden, a huge detonation comes out of the hull of the ski! This explosion blew the front lid open, shooting the storage compartment 3 feet up in the air! At the same time, a fire ball comes out of from under the seat singing the hairs on my legs. Turns out the gas floating in the lake was from my ski. It had a gas leak, and thanks to the ridiculously hot weather recently, there was a massive amount of gas fumes under the seat, waiting to be ignited.

Cleaning

On the way home on Sunday, our realtor called saying she had a showing. I get home and start looking around for floor cleaner. Turns out, glass cleaner does NOT clean ceramic floor tile! Where does all “that stuff” come from that I sweep off the hardwood floors? It’s only been me here for a few days! How does Michelle arrange the pillows on our bed so they look so “Ethan Allen” like? Do I leave lights on or off? Closet doors open or closed?

Cooking

I finally got around to cooking pizza. Slightly more conscious of my lack of attentiveness to certain tasks, I read the directions for the frozen pizza, and followed it to tee! I was so excited: preheat oven to 450 degrees. Check. Unwrap pizza from box. Already did that. Set on middle rack. We only have 2! Uh…. I’ll set it on the top and hope for the best. I come back in exactly 11 minutes, and the pizza is looking awesome. It’s got that brownish color to it that I love so much. I open the door, reach my hand into the oven, and am a milli second away from grabbing the thing WITH MY BARE HANDS, when a little voice in my head says, “hot.” It doesn’t scream at me like,” HEY! Idiot! Stop before you burn your fingers off!” It very politely and calmly says, “hot.” Thankfully, I listened.

These are only a few examples of how my brain seems to turn off when Michelle is around. There were others, like looking for Q-tips, pillows to sleep on, ceiling fan noise, door for the mailbox, etc. that I am not going to get into. The experience really showed how much I just seemed to have turned over to her. I wonder if she has similar experiences like these?