Marital Strain

You just know with a title like that it’s going to be a juicy post.  On Modern Family – do you watch Modern Family?  It’s very funny. –  the other night, Claire was looking through the Tupperware and wondering how or why the containers and lids get separated.  Phil replied, built-up resentment, financial issues, met a younger lid.  Heh.
In our house, the chief source of marital strain comes from a little electronic item known as a clock radio.  My husband brought this clock radio to our marriage.  It is probably about twenty five years old; they don’t make things like they used to, do they?  Anyway, this clock resides on his side of our king sized bed.  Every morning at 4:58 my alarm goes off, and I stumble around the bed to turn it off and set it to my husband’s alarm.  Frequently my husband voices his displeasure at the fact that he did not get back to sleep after my alarm went off.   
After years of this, yesterday my husband finally announced that he cannot take it anymore.  We need to get separate alarm clocks.  For marital harmony I agreed.  Also I was getting tired of stumbling around the expanse of our bed at 4:58.  We had the following conversation:
Me: I’m going to Costco today.
Husband: Do you want to pick up a clock radio?
Me: Oh my god.  OH MY GOD.  You want me to go to the electronics department?  In Costco?
Husband: (sighs deeply) Fine.
Me: (thinking, I’ll show him) Fine.
If there is something I find more overwhelming than shopping at Costco, it is walking through an electronics department.  But nonetheless, that is where I found myself, yesterday morning, pushing a gigantically heavy Costco cart full of groceries.  As I wandered through aisle after aisle, looking in vain for a clock radio, I started to lose hope.  I started to feel as though I was lost in some kind of electronics vortex.  The minutes ticked by and I started to feel despairingly like I was wasting so much time.  I still had to get home, unpack the gigantic volume of groceries from the car, and walk the dog prior to picking Jake up at the school at 11:35.  I started to feel extreme resentment towards my husband, Costco, and clock radios in general.  I wondered if maybe they don’t make clock radios anymore.  I was reminded of the scene in Borat, where the most coveted luxury item in the village is Borat’s clock radio, and when he leaves for America the village criminal whispers “Say goodbye to your clock radio”.  I started to think that it would have been easier, although not, maybe, from an ethical standpoint, to break into my neighbour’s house and steal her clock radio.  She’s a senior.  Surely she would have one. 
Finally I saw a small man in the signature red Costco vest and managed to ask him, somewhat anxiously, if he had a clock radio.  He led me to the only model they carried, an eighty-dollar one that had a docking station for an iPod.  I don’t have an iPod.  Crestfallen, I left with only my groceries, calling my husband to tell him of this travesty.  And by calling him, I mean I informed him that I had been in the Costco electronic department under extreme duress, and I had undergone severe mental strain and trauma for nothing.  NOTHING.
Last night when my husband came home from work, he was carrying a clock radio, purchased on the way home.  We are now a two clock radio household.  Marital harmony resumes.

Comments

  1. You can get alarm clocks with 2 alarms on them.. 😀

  2. Love, love, love, slavishly adoringly love Modern Family. And I think you made the right decision. Clock radio money well spent. And Costco in general gives me severe anxiety.

  3. So there’s a 4:48 AM? REALLY?! I did not know that.

    Why are you getting out of bed that early? And why not just set the alarm for 5 AM?

  4. I don’t get anxiety while in Costco, I do however ALWAYS get buyers remorse after leaving!

    I never need THAT many napkins, muffins, apples, paper plates, candy bars, Bic Pens, Pairs of Panyhose, etc., etc., etc.,

  5. Love your post. So so funny! I want one of those clock radios that wakes you up gradually and spritzes essential oils into the air. My husband says I’m a clock radio nerd.

  6. Be glad your clock-radio-related marital dispute can be resolved so easily. I’ve read posts about marriages in which one spouse feels the need to set the clock radio to go off ONE HOUR prior to the time when anyone actually needs to get up – and then hit “snooze” every ten minutes for that hour. And of course the other spouse is then wide awake from that point on, vainly trying to return to sleep during the ten-minute intervals.

  7. And he probably didn’t go to Costco. Talk about resentment.

    And LadyHash asks a valid question.

    LisaDay

  8. Since you asked…I get up so early because I practice yoga at that time – I’m at the studio at 5:20 so I finish and get home before husband leaves for work at 7. I used to set the alarm for 5 but I actually need the extra two minutes for putting on layers and boots in the colder weather 🙂

    So I know there is a 4:58 am, but I don’t actually know there is a 10:00 pm, since I am passed out by then.

  9. Kudos to you for waking up so early to exercise!

    I try to exercise every morning after getting the kids to school. On the days that I volunteer, I have to wake up at 5:20 to squeeze it in. It is HARD to get up so early! I don’t know how you can do so everyday!

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