Apr 7, 2018
On Friday afternoon, my wife called me, made me drop what I was doing, go upstairs and measure a closet.
Good thing I wasn’t doing anything.
We have four closets in our bedroom. My wife has stuff in two of the closets, and I have stuff in the other two. Actually, we share one of the closets, but that’s sort of misleading because the closet is bigger than my first apartment and my wife’s stuff takes up most of the space.
My wife had that closet added on to our bedroom a couple of years ago. My wife said that, with the addition of the new, first-apartment-sized closet, she would finally be able to get her clothes organized.
I told my wife that in less than six months the new closet would be as cluttered as all of her other closets.
Guess who was correct. Not that I would ever say “I told you so” to my wife.
At least not out loud.
Fortunately, the closet my wife asked me to measure was not the new closet. To measure the new closet, we would have to hire a surveyor’s crew. I don’t how much it costs to hire a surveyor’s crew, but I bet it’s a lot.
The closet my wife wanted me to measure was one she uses to hang T-shirts and a bunch of other stuff.
By the way, when a veteran husband describes the contents of one of his wife’s closets, “a bunch of other stuff” is an acceptable term.
To be honest, my wife didn’t make me drop whatever I was doing to measure the closet. What she said was, “In the next hour or so would you mind measuring the closet?”
Here’s a tip for you rookie husbands out there: When you wife says, “In the next hour or so,” context is very important.
For example, if you ask your wife when she will be ready to leave for a trip, “in the next hour or so” means “tomorrow.”
But if your wife asks you to do something for her, “in the next hour or so” means “RIGHT NOW!”
My wife started to explain to me why she wanted me to measure the closet, but I wasn’t listening. That’s because I was busy trying to find our tape measure, which wasn’t in the cabinet where it’s supposed to be. When I mentioned that to my wife, she said, “Oh, that’s right. I used it a couple of weeks ago. Let me think where I put it.”
I put the phone down and let the dogs outside. When I picked the phone back up my wife was still talking “… So it should be in my striped bag,” she said.
“What striped bag?” I asked.
“Oh, you know,” my wife said.
I didn’t know but I went upstairs and looked anyway. After a few minutes, I found three striped bags. A few minutes later, I found the tape measure.
While I measured the closet, my wife went back to explaining what I was measuring and why.
“See, what I can do is buy (something something something) so I can hang more (something something something) without having to (something something something).”
I interrupted my wife to tell her how wide the closet was. Then I interrupted her a minute later to tell her how tall the closet was.
Then I asked her if she needed anything else. When my wife said she didn’t need anything else, I said, “You’re welcome. Now I must go back to work.”
“Please,” my wife said.
See, I was expecting, “Thank you,” but that’s OK.
To sum up, on Friday I had to — for reasons unknown to me — drop what I was doing, find our tape measure and measure a closet that I don’t use.
Oh well. At least I wasn’t doing anything.