Everything But The Radio

It has been a long day. Productive though but that's what makes a long day separate from a bad day. I hate it when I have a long day that isn't productive. That's when I have a bad day. Today was not a bad day though. Just long.

Can you tell my brain has had a long day too? Okay, enough about what kind of day I had, let me tell you what I did.

I decided this past week that it's about time I paint our bedroom. I've decided this before but I was always either hugely pregnant or just had a new baby. After I no longer had a new baby, I was newly pregnant. Can't paint when you're first pregnant... gotta wait a bit longer. Then I was hugely pregnant and I knew that balancing on a 8" high step stool was as catastrophic as a cow riding a unicycle so decided to wait until later. Soon I was no longer hugely pregnant but I was in as bad of shape: a new baby in the house was too much work in itself to take on a day's worth of painting.

So, before I'm either newly pregnant, hugely pregnant or have a new baby again, I decided to buckle down and get this project done before it's too late.

It turned out quite well. The colors, that is. The kids also were cooperative but though their father was helpful, he was not cooperative with their mother.

Any woman would know that if you take a whole room apart, paint the walls, dust and polish the wood work, vacuum all the edges and take down the curtains, the only logically thing to do next is put the furniture back in a different way than it was before you started the project.

I was talking on the phone to my husband's mother in law when I broke the news to him by mentioning the room was going to be rearranged. His face totally changed. It reminded me of the way a horse or a cat puts their ears back when they are upset with somebody. His mother in law quickly recognized the change in our atmosphere here and hung up the phone. My husband then retreated. (That means he took a book and went downstairs to the livingroom.)

Meanwhile, I moved what furniture I could without my strongman and Landon knocked a lamp off the bedside table and burnt out the bulb. Janae was sleeping this whole time so I was in a race against time to get everything done before she realized there was a party going on without her and woke up.

In time, I sweetly beckoned downstairs that I needed his help. And then I waited. After enough time had lapsed for him to have come up and then gone back down ten or fifteen times, I beckoned again. (Notice I didn't say 'sweetly beckoned' the second time.)

He came up stairs finally and was in a blessed-are-the-poor-in-spirit-I'm-going-to-make-you-think-I-don't-want-to-help-you-when-really-I-do mood, and began shoving and pushing furniture to all four corners of the room. He had brought his book up with him so once the bed was in place, he plopped down and began peering intently at that.

He'd glance up every once in awhile and would ask if I thought the room was chaotic. I said I thought it was because it was still such a mess.

"No, not the mess," he said. "The way everything is at a weird angle makes it seem chaotic." And then he quickly finished, "Don't you think so?"

Can't say I did. Yeah, the bed and both dressers were all positioned at an angle in three different corners but that was the way I wanted it.

Then he said as long as I didn't think it seemed chaotic then it would be fine.

A second later from the bed I hear, "Are you sure you don't think this is chaotic?"

If I designed a room to look like this, does he think I'd stand back and label it "chaotic?"

And again he said, "You really don't think it's chaotic in here?"

Maybe the kid running around with the screw driver and curtain brackets and who kept begging for the piece of candy he found was a bit chaotic but no, I didn't think the furniture was chaotic. It was all standing perfectly in its place. Angles and all.

Then I decided to put a lamp on the night stand next to Toby's side of the bed. There is nothing unusual about putting a lamp there but, the fact that he has this enormous radio/alarm clock sitting there as well makes it a bit of a challenge. There was a perfect slot between the bed and the stand and so I casually implied the radio could go down there. On the floor.

I lifted the thing up and pushed the long antenna down when suddenly from the bed erupts chaos. This must be the "don't you think it's chaotic in here" Toby has been talking about...

"NO! That radio is NOT going down on the floor!"

"But honey, what do you need it for?" I thoughtfully ask.

"THAT'S my alarm clock and my radio... you can't put it down on the floor!"

"Dear, you can just push that little button right there to turn on the radio and turn off the alarm. What more do you need?" Another wise question.

"I need to see the time and, huh, I CAN'T turn the radio on when its down there like THAT!"

"Sweetie, there is another alarm clock over there..." and I point across the room to where it sits. "Why do you need to SEE the radio in order to turn it on?"

"SWEETHEART, I can't see the alarm clock over there... NO my radio is going right here." And he picked it up and put the gigantic thing on the stand.

"But, darling, this is our bedroom: that radio thing is for a work shop not a fancy room. Let me put the other alarm clock closer."

Suddenly, he says with a tone that sounds as though he's trying to prove to himself more than to me that the radio needs to be in plain view: "I let you change everything in this room... everything! BUT my radio will not change." And he looked at me and grinned.

Now I know how Adam and Eve felt in the garden when God said they could eat everything but the fruit on that one tree.

That settled it. I positioned the dainty little lamp on the other side of the drab, gray mechanical box with all its funny dials and buttons and long, shiny metal antenna. It looks like a walkie talkie on display in a lighted china cabinet. But that's okay. That's what I get for sharing a bedroom with a man.

So, I guess he has his radio and I get a rearranged room. It's really not a bad deal on my part and I hope he's happy too.