I Actually Said That To Someone.
My niece once had a dream that my mother stood up on the table and became an evil rabbit. She was a little kid, and it was a big deal to her at the time. We don't let her forget it either. I've been showing up at mom and dad's house regularly this week, which is something I haven't been able to do for the past several months. Their cat is sick, and my mom happened to ask me if I thought I could help my dad give the cat some medicine.
She said that they have been having a horrible time getting the cat to take the medicine. Which reminds me I need to find that email about how to give cats medicine, I think my dad in particular will get a kick out of it. Well, I don't know how to do a lot of things, but I DO know how to give a cat medicine, so I offered to help out with it. She needs two doses a day so I've been showing up here and there at medicine giving time.
The cat likes to hang out in their bedroom the majority of the time, so dad and I go in there, close the door, and then proceed to chase the cat back and forth between the Lucy and Ricky beds until she finally makes the mistake of coming out long enough for us to grab her. We try to use calming and soothing voices during this process to alleviate as much stress for her as possible, but even doing so she still scratched my dad's arm really bad yesterday. Catching her is the hard part, once we've got her dad holds her down while I give the medicine. There is a trick to it, a vet taught me a long time ago, but if done correctly it is pretty easy.
My dad works night shift, and has done so for as long as I can remember, so he usually takes an evening nap. I guess the cat was fussing tonight while he tried to catch his zzz's so he was grumpy as he was leaving for work he stopped in the doorway of the kitchen and told my mom, "Go ahead and sack up that stuff at the end of the hall and throw it away!" I asked, "What is it one of your useless dogs?" He laughed and went on out the door.
My mom got this look on her face, she was not happy. It seems there were some clothes hanging on this hook thing on the door, and like everything in my parents house has been there since the year I graduated high school, well dad apparently decided at that very moment he could not tolerate the things on the door any longer and took them off, leaving them in a pile at the end of the hallway. This combined with his command that it be sacked up was not acceptable to my mother who had a few choice words to say in his general direction.
My brother was there, and he and I were sort of amused by this whole scene, and were cracking jokes about how she should cut up the clothing and place them in a neat pile on the Ricky bed, but she was not laughing. She was stewing. And then I realized something, when my husband and I are 65 years old, we might still be fighting about stupid things. I thought we might outgrow our petty arguments, but I see now there is a possibility that we might not.
I said, "well mom, that's the difference between you and I, I would have told him to shove the pile of clothes where the sun doesn't shine, and he would have told me, 'if you keep talking to me like that, one day I will just leave'" Instead, she was just mad, but I knew she wouldn't say anything to him, she never does, and I guess it is a good thing they don't read my blog since now I've let the cat out of the bag.
My parents don't fight openly, or when they are alone even. I've never seen them fight. I know they take an opportunity here and there to poke a jab at each other, but it is never discussed. I tried to do things differently in my marriage. I told myself, I'm not going to just take things and say nothing, I am going to speak my mind, I am going to stand up for myself, and I do. Sometimes I don't do it right, and I say mean things like, "Go cram X item," when I feel angry or cornered. I am actually only speaking about one incident where I said that, it was a few weeks ago, and my husband has not forgotten it yet. In fact, he brought it up tonight when we spoke on the phone and were having a disagreement about something, he said, "I'm surprised you haven't told me to shove it yet." I felt bad, but I assured him I had no intention of saying it.
I know it was the wrong thing to say. I shouldn't have said it to him before, I guess he is still bothered by it. I shouldn't risk the love of the man by saying stupid things in anger. We will get over it. I just shouldn't make the mistake of assuming we will always get over it, I would hate to lose him over something like that.
Well, I'm off to bed. Have a good one.
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