The Hamper Region/Why Are You Always Yelling At Me?

"Why are you always yelling at me" by Neil Sant

I was asked this question: 
My husband is constantly leaving his crap all over the house. A pair of socks balled up on the living room floor, an empty high ball glass shoved in the couch. But the thing that gets me the maddest is when he leaves his dirty clothes right NEXT to the hamper. Had he taken one more step toward the hamper the clothes would have made it in? Why do men do this? Does he think I'm his flippin maid? Every time I bring it up I'm a "nag" or told to quit "Riding him."

The first thing for you to know is your husband is not doing any of this with ill intent. Not only is he NOT trying to make you mad, he’s not even thinking about you at all this context. After he finished his drink; he simply set the glass down and mentally moved on. Perhaps he thought about getting another one, but the bottle was way over there and he thought better of yelling to you while you were upstairs to come downstairs and make him another drink. (Really, he should get credit for that…) Regardless, he mentally moved on and then later forgot.

Now for the clothes in the hamper’s region… This may have happened (does happen) on occasion (all the time) in my closet, and I have to “hear” (get the frying pan) about it from time to time (seems like every second) from my wifey.

Here’s the scene: We have a decent size walk-in closet. The laundry basket is on her side with a dress or something long acting like a defender of the goal. I undress on my side. When I take off my shirt, I toss it at the basket. Take off a sock, shoot it over there. Drop my boxers, flick them with my foot. (I hope all of this sexy talk is not too overwhelming.) Pants, those are the tricky ones, they don’t fly straight and they knock stuff down. Hey, even Jordan missed some free throws. Bear in mind, all of this happens in a moment and without any real thought. You've seen how fast we can get our clothes off… In our heads, this game is like horse shoes and as long as you get the clothes in hamper territory, it counts. Again, none of it is with intended malice towards you. Who are you again?

No husband consciously thinks of his wife as his maid, ever. Well, unless you wear one of those sexy deals that were in the playboy magazines that we stole from our fathers in the 70’s. You know, the ones with the lacy stuff and the feather duster and those stockings and the shiny leather shoes and then your hot friend shows up wearing the same thing and the two of you start dusting each other with the feather thingy and then I’m over here saying I’m dusty too….wait, was that out loud?

As I was saying, no husband thinks of his wife as his maid. But you get mad at our missed free throws and then you start doing that thing where you use your angry voice and say a lot of words, and we nod and do our best to have an apologetic poker faced expression. Out loud we’re saying “yes dear, sorry dear” and we are truly remorseful in the moment and don’t want our noses hit with the rolled up newspaper anymore. Then you say “how hard is it to actually pick up your dirty socks and put them in the basket?” And you follow that with a demonstration. At that point we’re usually thinking, you’re right, not so hard, why am I hearing about this? But the fear of the newspaper will cause us to change our behavior, until we forget.

Reliving all of this stress has made me want another drink. I wonder where I left my glass? Never mind, I'll just get a new one.