I admit it was my idea to have the Halloween party. I drove home that September afternoon with grandiose thoughts of the parties we used to have from keggers past. I jumped in front of my new husband with my developing idea
Me: “Lets throw a halloween party! We can invite all of our new friends and our old friends. We have all this space we might as well use it!” Note- how we acquired this space is for another time when I have a cocktail in hand and a blood pressure machine ready.
Husband: “okay, put it on facebook”
Now, I’d like to call out all of the other sad saps like myself in what I’m about to describe as the “facebook effect”. I sat at my computer for literally an hour, creating a facebook event that only 12 people responded to. Out of 60. I literally poured my most creative wording, hilarious references to our college pasts and promises of a great buzzy night. In my opinion, there are four different kinds of people on facebook.
Consider the exhibits:
MySpacer: lets examine the evidence. This person only posts pictures of themselves. Usually at an odd angle or in a bathroom. Usually a female. Usually has some kind of puckered up smile and showing cleavage. Hair is almost always down. Has some kind of stupid caption such as “getting ready for a night out with my GIRRRRRLLLSSSSSSSS” And yes, there is always more than one “s” at the end of girls.
Status Whore: Probably my least favorite person. At least with MySpacer we can enjoy hilarity in grammatical errors. Status Whore is much worse. He/she is literally, always posting on facebook. And their damn little green light is always on in the “chat bar” (which PS is the most annoying thing about facebook. What happened to the good ol’ days where we could just stalk our exes and their new girlfriends? I digress.)
Now, there are several garden varieties of status whores. My husband is one of them. There is the sports status whore:(Warning, this is an actual status post from my Husbands facebook. Let's go Cards! Let's go Cards!!! Chuck Norris was a Texas Ranger but Jesus was a CARPENTER!!! Go get 'em Carp! #WorldSeries #RedOctober) This was the first post of the night. There were six more in the period of nine innings. And yes, he compared a baseball player to Jesus. Now when I get pissed and want to swear at him, I just say “CARPENTER BOBBY YOU NEVER LISTEN”. You’ll see an example later on.
There is sick status whore: Monday: “I am so sick today!!! Woke up with a runny nose and a stuffy head, going back to sleep” Tuesday: “Can’t believe I still don’t feel good!! Need someone sweet to make me some chicken soup!” Wednesday: Guess its another day of Real Housewives of New York marathon on the couch and kleenex!” Thursday: “Ny Quill is the bomb dot com” Friday: “still needed one more day of rest, but definitely looking forward lunch and shopping tomorrow!” Rinse, lather and repeat for another 26 weeks out of the year. Beware, most of the time this is a woman and when she is between the years of 25-30, the “sick” status updates will turn into WEDDING status updates. Oh joy. “just ordered invitations! 213 days to go!” just picked out our china pattern! Can’t wait for someone to buy us that platter! 142 days to go!” These, are much, much worse. I actually had someone post her wedding registry links in a status update. Wait until said woman becomes pregnant. “My baby is the size of a squash! 20 more weeks to go!”
Conversely, we also have the facebook ghosts. Or Facebook anonymous. You know that they are there, but we never see them. You know that they check facebook every day, but they just don’t leave any tracks, those sly little bastards. There is no status update, no updated pictures. Once in awhile you will get a “like” but then just in a flash, they are gone again. This is the facebook person I strive to be. So cool, in fact, I am too cool for facebook. But I’m not, so let’s move into the final category of facebook friends….
The premeditated facebooker:
Ah yes, and this is how the facebook Halloween event started. I will post something, and before I press “share” I double check wording, maybe change an adjective, add a smiley, etc. I can’t make up my mind. Pictures are personally chosen, checked meticulously and only added as long as they are not a profile shot. If I’m going to post on facebook, its gotta be good. So you can understand my dilemma when I was trying to convey the type of feeling for what our Halloween party was destined to be. I finally decided on wording that was quirky, yet cute, yet funny. After a couple of weeks, we had hardly any responses. And then I realized. We are friends with a bunch of facebook ghosts. They are seemingly too important to be bothered with the idea of a facebook invite. HA! The sad little 12 who are “attending” were close friends, people who we talk with on a semi frequent basis. The other fifty something in the “awaiting reply” box didn’t fool me, and they will be charged double when they walk into my door requesting a solo cup and a glow necklace.
So…. Preparing for this party was going to be a big task. I’d been carefully searching Halloween decorations and even convincing Bobby to let me buy a fog machine for the dance portion of the evening. I had to do business in Kansas City the week before the party and made a sweet deal with my husband. In exchange for writing ALL of the thank you notes for the wedding, he, in turn, was in charge of taking down the wall paper in the dining room. As I gave myself carpal tunnel writing the same sentence over and over (“thank you so much for sharing our special day with us, we had a blast, even though it was a little rainy!!!’”), I would periodically check in with my beloved on his progress with the wall paper.
ME: “How’s the wallpaper coming”
BOB: “ Uh, haven’t started yet, but don’t worry, it will be done by the time you get home”
ME: via text: what are you doing tonight
BOB: nothing, going to watch the game with some people at sports zone
ME: well don’t forget about the wall paper, I’m coming back on Monday.
BOB: don’t worry it will be done!
ME: But its Saturday, you only have one day left
BOB: Sunday funday with wallpaper its all good.
Come Monday when I came home from the office at approximately 4:15 pm, I found Bobby, scrapping and sweating on a step ladder. His hat was tilted towards the side like a little rascal. The music was on and the dog was outside. There were THREE walls left to be stripped, sanded and primed before we could paint.
ME: “I see that the wall paper is on the walls”
BOB: “ruh roh… guess this glue on the walls was a little tougher than I anticipated”
ME: “You have got to be kidding me”
BOB: “Its no problem, I can work on it Wednesday when I’m POST CALL”
When he said post call, I knew I had to take matters into my own hands. If you ever are in a law binding relationship with a physician, God bless your little soul. Post call means one thing and one thing only. Sleep. It doesn’t matter if he slept from 10:00-6:00 throughout the night. It’s not actual “sleep”. Yeah, right. It’s also not called “sleep” when the dog that I’m watching when he’s on call barks at the slightest noise, giving me a half heart attack while I reach for my epi pen as some kind of defense against a rapist.
ME: “I’ll take off Wednesday and we can do it together”
Fast forward to Wednesday…. Sleeping beauty had woken up, we bought paint, took a slight detour to Steak and Shake and were back at home ready to get that damn stuff off of my walls.
Whoever invented wallpaper should be drugged out to the street, and bludgeoned in front of the town.
Its obscene how sticky and glue-y this stuff is. Luckily, we had a little steam tool that we would slowly press on the walls to melt the glue and pull off the paper. Now I know I can be a little stupid sometimes and I know that steam obviously is hot, but what Bobby failed to tell me is that you have to “lightly” press on the button when you start to steam. Otherwise hot scalding water comes flying out. Third degree burns later, I had finally gotten the hang of it. I was pulling that paper off of the walls like it was MY JOB. I was kind of getting into it too, its like pulling off a scab, and the thrill of getting it off in one piece (anyone else like this? no? The cheese stands alone I guess).
Finally, we get to the priming of the walls, which if you haven’t primed the walls before in an unventilated area, you are in for a treat! After helping Bobby peel off the little booger goops of what can only be described as old primer icky ness, I was feeling pretty loopy. I had forgotten to wear socks on the drop cloth so that if paint dropped and I stepped in it, I would be able to take off the socks and onto dry land. Mistake number 1. So when it was time to move the drop cloth Bobby would chant “1, 2, 3, jump” and I would jump as he moved the cloth. So considerate. He knew he couldn’t just pull the drop cloth with my weight on it, and didn’t even bother embarrassing me with that. After we were done, he went to go get me a fresh pair of socks so that I could prepare for debarkation. He lovingly put the socks on my feet, and since they were his socks, they were high up on my calves and very loose past my toes. As I was lunging into my best “risky business” pose, Barley, our lab, joined in on the fun and PUSHED me into the wet wall. I fell over, laughed, and of course acted like a child in a hot mess. Bobby of course cleaned my feet with paint thinner in another unventilated area which added to the fuzzy feeling in my brain.
After it was all said and done, I learned some valuable lessons about our marriage.
Sometimes men don’t do shit right. And that is why women are here on this earth. To remind our husbands that wallpaper from the 80’s is not only unacceptable, but creates judgement from our other female friends. However, when you have a husband that at least helps, he is a keeper.
Bobby whispers very quietly when he is working on a home improvement project.
No matter how high you get from primer on your walls, you have to have someone that will use paint thinner on your odd shaped toes to get rid of the primer, and catch you when you fall on your ass.
After two months of wedded bliss, our marriage isn’t perfect, our life isn’t perfect. There are flaws that each of us carries that cramps up each of our styles. But sometimes, all it takes is a little steam, a little grit from sand paper, and some primer to keep our lives interesting.
.... The party was Saturday... And that is a whole different story.
