I Need a Little Backup Here

I just want to run this by everybody, and see if y'all think I'm being unreasonable. Or if (as always) I am perfectly and justifiably right.

The other night I came home late after my choir practice. Choir night is Jimmy and Jude's "boys night". Jimmy gets Jude in the bath (doesn't give him a bath), gets him in his jammies (lets him wear sweat pants and a vampire cape to bed) listens while Jude reads to him (never makes him read) and reads aloud to him (tells him some inappropriate story involving mini bikes or firecrackers or some such rabble-rousing male-bonding fun). I sometimes hear the next day from Jude, who has a bit of a problem with keeping secrets, about how Daddy let him stay up late watching the Lakers or the Yankees or whoever. Or let him watch Scooby Doo's Halloween for the 42nd time.

So anyway, I got home from choir totally spent. We're deep into learning all the choruses of Handel's Messiah, which is SO COOL! But exhausting. Jimmy was in our bed watching TV (sound asleep). I walked into the kitchen and realized that despite the fact that I had cooked dinner earlier and fed the man an excellent and hearty meal of chicken and dumplings, Jimmy had decided at about 9:30 at night to make himself a little snack - a full breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast. I knew this based on the debris littering the kitchen counter. Initially, I was simply horrified because of the unnecessary fat and cholesterol my husband had ingested late at night, and was concerned about his health, heart and expanding waist.

It was then that I spotted on the kitchen counter the empty bread bag. The bread with which I make Jude his daily PB & J for lunch. The bread without which, our child would have NOTHING to eat for lunch the next day. The bread which, just that day, I had checked to make sure we had enough for the next day's lunch, saw that we DID, and chose not to run to the store to replenish. THAT bread. Which was now GONE, because Jimmy had eaten it.

I then (rather unattractively) turned into a hideous, raging shrew and stormed into the bedroom waving the empty bread bag. Jimmy, as I mentioned before, was asleep, and he is rather a sound sleeper, and it's often hard to wake him from the really intense dreams he has. 

Gretchen (in shrieking harpy voice):  You ate Jude's bread!!!!

Jimmy (sitting up and looking around stunned and panicked): Huh? Huh? What is it? What is it?

Gretchen: You ate all Jude's bread. I guess our child just won't be able to EAT TOMORROW!

Jimmy: What? Huh? What?

Gretchen: You're just SO selfish and you never THINK!!!

I then stormed out, leaving him dazed and confused.

So...what do you think? Too harsh? I mean he did EAT ALL THE BREAD without thinking for ONE SECOND that someone else in our home might NEED that bread tomorrow. Which is just such a MAN thing. And he does this kind of thing ALL THE TIME. Drinks the last of the orange juice. Or the wine!! Or eats all of Jude's favorite ice cream sandwiches.

Do other people's husbands do this kind of stuff? Or am I just lucky that way?

Comments

[Danabug]

Oh I think your reaction was entirely appropriate - & in fact I think you could have been a little harsher (throw the car keys at him so he could go & get more bread) LOL.

Since it's just the two of us we're pretty good about not using up the last of something without consulting the other. But I think that's because my husband it nicer than I am.

[Michele Renee]

I could have written this post. Good for you for getting your abger out. I tend to let mine fester. I have told my husband for years that if all 5 of us were starving and there was only a little bit of food left (like if we were on a lost lifeboat or something) he would eat the last of our food and let the others starve. An awful accusation, yes. I've had to hide stuff from him. In fact when he has a hankering for a cookie he even asks if I have some hidden. He once ate some dinner (a second one for him that night) that I had set aside for oldest son. Hubs did feel pretty bad about that. The thing that really pisses me off is that he has a good body for all that he ingests around here.

[becky]

Ha! I totally get it. You were set up to be extra annoyed by the mess he left out. I would have had the same reaction, and it would have ended with Matt promising to go to the store at dawn. Then I would have felt satisfied.

But I bet Jimmy won't make that mistake again!

[Jan]

Since I am deep in the throes of perimenopause and have been known to begin frothing at the mouth because someone asked me what was for dinner, I could hardly take you to task for your reaction. LOL However, let me just say I'm impressed your husband cooked ANYTHING AT ALL. Mine would have stood around (with the refrigerator door wide open), going, "Isn't there anything to EAT, here?"

[Sarah at themommylogues]

I'm going to say it was perhaps a slight over reaction based on the fact that I'm sure he didn't intentionally eat the bread to make your life miserable.

And I'm going to follow that by saying I would have had the same reaction. Because it was late, you were tired, and now you have to figure out what to fix your stinking picky eater (I have now changed over to talking about my own child) for lunch, which probably means you running to the store even though you'd like to be in bed NOW because the eater of those last pieces of bread doesn't know what kind of bread to get and will undoubtedly come home with a kind that picky child won't eat.

I think I had a similar reaction last night when my husband commented on how much cleaning we needed to do this weekend. "Whenever you say something like that, it sounds like I'm a horrible cleaner and wife. DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT I DO ALL DAY???" To be fair, he does a lot of the cleaning as well (I am very lucky that way), and he caught me on a very PMS-y day.

To sum up: you are not alone.

[Gretchen]

Sarah, I have that same stinking picky eater! I SHOULD have made Jimmy go to the store, (I love Danabug's throwing the keys at him suggestion!) but he was so spacey and asleep that I didn't think he'd make it. I ended up making the poor kid a quesadilla for lunch, which of course was ice cold and hard by the time he ate it. Arrgh. Sorry. Still pissed!

[Keely]

Yeah, you're not just lucky. All men are selfish and apparently can't think beyond 5 minutes into the future.

Drinking the last of the wine, though? That'd be grounds for divorce in my house.

[The Lawyer Mom]

Oh, Gretchen, you make me laugh. I would have had the same reaction! A lack of foresight is maddening. Did he leave the pots and pans for you to clean?

My biggest pet peeve is pot lids. As in, "I think I'll put this pot lid heavy with condensation right smack dab on the counter and leave it there." My husband does this ALL the time. Aaargh.

[Amy]

Walking in from Handel (I am SO impressed) to find a mess in the kitchen AND the bread-for-lunch eaten? You only woke him up and hollered at him?

Dat man? He got off easy!!

Yeah, I shrew over those (entirely unintentional) things too. Of course, my ultra-considerate hubs now feels compelled to ask about everything before he eats the last of it. Which creates penance for me, the shrew. You earned every penny to pay for it, mister, you go right ahead and eat it. (Or drink it. Thankfully, he doesn't much like wine. :)

[Jessica]

lets just say I'm glad to be divorced

[Lisa]

M.E.N. are a different species - seriously.
This happens All the time here. Lunchtime on weekends - He will actually make himself a sandwich and not even think about the three starving kids running around the house asking whats for lunch. I ask him are you for real? He just gives me that blank deer caught in headlights look- ugh!!

[Shannon]

Okay I was contemplating leaving a comment - then I read the quesadilla bit and I am now compelled.

2 weeks ago my husband ate my son's lunch that I had squirreled away in the deepest, darkest back corner of the refrigerator. It was in a teeny tiny little 2x2 tupperware container (my kid doesn't eat much lunch). We were out of bread so I couldn't make a sandwich, and my son is also very picky, so since he liked dinner that night, I saved that little bit out for him to eat the next day.

I came back in the kitchen from giving the kids a bath and I saw the empty tupperware container lying on the counter, and I freaked out! The poor guy (after I was done haranguing) said that after he finished his dinner he was still hungry and he found that little bit left (in the far nether regions of the fridge - which never happens when I'm asking him to get something out of the fridge that I know is in there somewhere) and it was just the perfect amount to fill him up.

So for lunch the next day, I made my son a quesadilla. On a spinach wrap, which he hated. And he said it was too cold for him to eat it.

AHHHHHH, MEN! (AND PICKY BOYS!)