I Just Called...To Say...I Love You...

If you are married and not yet of retirement age, listen up. If you are married and retired, feel free to point and laugh.

My husband has been short on work lately. Even if I did not know this fact by the obviousness of him being around ALL THE TIME, I would know by the amount of phone calls I have been getting. Now keep in mind, whenever I leave the house when he is home, I am guaranteed to get a phone call from him. The reason? There never is one. I'm usually annoyed that he is calling for no reason and when I start to get "the tone" I get the "I was just calling because I love you" reply. Sweet, right? Sure, except that sometimes, I want to be out of the house ALONE. Sure I may be in the Walmart with 500 other people, but they are not MY people, you know? When I leave the house to go food shopping, I tell him how long I plan to be gone. Some time before that set time, I will get a phone call. "Where are you? Are you all right?"

Sigh.

"I told you I'd be home in an hour and a half, why are you calling? I've only been gone for 45 minutes."
"I was just worried and...I just wanted to tell you that I love you."
At this point I feel like crap for getting annoyed, say I love him too and that I will be home soon.

Today I left to go shopping. I told hubby that I would be gone for at least two hours. "Two hours?" he questioned. "Why two hours?" Um, I don't know, maybe because it's three days before Christmas and I'm going to the Super Walmart - the place where every person goes to shop on a normal Sunday and this close to Christmas they will be tripling their supplies. I mean, common sense, right? I drove the three miles to the darn store, circled the parking lot a couple of times to find a spot, parked, grabbed a cart and was walking across the demolition derby in to a swift, cold wind when my phone rang. OH, COME ON!! He launches in to a story of how the 8-year old fell in the mud, the pattern of the mud on the clothes, etc. when I interrupt him to question the reason for this phone call. "Is there something I need to get?" I finally ask. "No," he said, clearly disappointed that I interruped the riveting mud story. "I just need to know what I need to do with these muddy pants." Like this could not wait until I got home. Like the boy had fallen in a puddle of toxic waste. I mean, I appreciate his wanting to take care of this issue, but again, common sense.

Two hours and fifteen minutes later I leave the store. It's dark out, it's even colder and I still have to stop and put gas in the car. I start the car, let it warm up and reach for my cell phone, surprised that it has not rung already. Apparently it had and in the loudness of the Walmart, I missed it. My darling one had called twenty minutes earlier. So I call him back, wanting to know why he was - yet again - calling me. I got a little snippy. I admit it. I was like "I told you I'd be gone for two hours. WHY are you calling?" "Didn't you listen to my message?" "NO...I was shopping! Like I told you I was! In the madness that is the Walmart Super Center three days before Christmas! What do you need?"

Ladies...

"I just called to tell you that I love you."

I really hope he finds work soon because this is clearly a sign of things to come when retirement age hits.