Mostly Modern Family

If you were a fly on our wall, you'd see that Shaune and I have a fairly contemporary marriage. No traditional roles assigned to the usual suspects around here. We use a strengths-based model.  He cooks, I clean. He shovels the driveway, I change poopy diapers. He rough-houses and wrestles with the kids. I yell at them to cut it the hell out! He teaches them stuff that'll get a laugh. I roll my eyes.

Seriously though, we have a pretty good thing going on. Shaune helps diaper, feed and bathe the boys, cooks most of our meals and is generally the epitome of a modern-day dad and husband. I appreciate it but also think it's the way it should be.

Pioneers though we may be (you're welcome future daughter-in-laws!), a few aspects  of our relationship would send us straight back to the I Love Lucy days.

Three words.
Vehicles. Computers. Cameras.

When it comes to dealings in these domains, my husband has absolutely no faith in me. And I'm not even really sure why; I think I'm a pretty good driver, adept on the computer, take good pictures and video. But bless his heart, he can't help but give me a mini driving lesson if there is a patch of black ice within a five mile radius, seems unable to stop himself from cautioning  me that the laptop's CPU is directly beneath the keyboard -I might want to take it easy when typing and can be found mumbling under his breath if the camera case is accidentally left open.

So you will understand when I tell you that I was sick to my stomach when I scraped the side of the Odyssey on a yellow poll trying to manoeuvre it through the Lilliputian-sized gateway to the underground parking lot of a downtown hotel two weeks ago.  (Although I'm on maternity leave until June, I had to attend an orientation to learn of some structural changes at work.) And I wasn't sick because I was worried about the van, the damage was minor; I just knew that my husband's philosophy of my abilities in areas of electrical equipment and large machinery would be confirmed.

So instead of enjoying a few minutes with my colleagues before the meetings commenced, I paced the lobby of the hotel and rehearsed how I would break it to Shaune that I had hit the poll. Then, deciding I couldn't live with the kind of anxiety required to wait until I was finished at work, I called him.

"Hey"
"Hey"
"I have to tell you something"
"What?"
"I scraped the car on the yellow poll going into the parking lot at the Hilton."
"Are you kidding me?"
"No, but thanks for asking me if I'm alright"
"Well you woulda told me if you weren't. How bad is it?"
"There's yellow paint over the back driver-side wheel well. Some scraping too."
"F***. Really?"
"Really. I wanted to tell you but I gotta go to my meeting."
"Fine."
"Bye."


Twenty minutes into my meeting I get this text:
"How deep is the scrape?"

My reply:
Mostly paint. Shallow.

Shaune:
How long?

Is he kidding me right now? This is the first time in over a year I'm in heels and a suit, it's snowing out and he wanted me to measure the scrape??
Didn't measure-in meeting

An hour later I'm still in meetings and get this text:
Deep enough you can see metal?

Oh.my.god.
Don't think so.

And even after all this, me thinking I was breaking his fall by warning him ahead of time, he still shook his head and took several moments of silence when he saw the scrape.

I guess I should just thank my lucky stars that he kept quiet and didn't exclaim Lucy! You got some splainin to do!