Since this is a story about a hot tub, let me get the white privilege issue out of the way first.
Being a white person, naturally my life is full of privilege, like all white people. I know I should feel guilty about this, but instead of "white guilt" I have the Jewish kind. This means I'm not sad about all the African Americans whose ancestors might have been slaves or crack addicts and thus they have less opportunity than whites in our incredibly racist nation (so the story goes), but instead I ache for all the starving children the world over, and all the innocent kids suffering with cancer and other horrific diseases, and all the lonely misfits who are bullied on Facebook and cry into their pillows at night and then go on shooting rampages at local colleges the next day, and of course their poor parents whose lives are forever ruined. And sick pets.
That being said, still I have moments of actually enjoying my life, guilt and all, and many of those moments are related to owning a hot tub that's right outside my side door. This morning, the temperature a forbidding 12 degrees and with a blizzard promised for later today, my husband and I decided to shovel off last night's accumulated snow from the deck and the tub and get in for a soak. It was glorious. After that, as always, we took the towels we used to dry off and put them into the dryer. Again, as usual, I put mine in first and waited for Mitch to add his. He did so, but without starting the dryer, in fact leaving the dryer door wide open, and continued on his way to the shower.
He's done this before. Many times. But today, crabby after a week of cabin fever, I asked why. "Why didn't you start the dryer, honey?" Aiming for sweetness, I emphasized the word honey. Honey explained that he didn't know how long the towels needed to dry and besides, he didn't really know how to turn on the dryer. Literally speechless, I said nothing.
It was then determined that, with the possibility of being snowbound tomorrow, Honey might need some cream for his coffee and we were almost out. Since he was going to the gym we agreed he should stop off at the store to pick some up on his way home. "You might get some bananas too," I casually suggested. With that he stopped what he was doing, sighed deeply and said, "Fine, just give me a list."
This is a man who is the chief revenue officer for an 80 million dollar company. He oversees a large staff based in two different and distant cities. He is frequently invited to speak on panels and at seminars. He holds a degree in architecture from a prestigious university, reads both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal every day, has traveled the world extensively and is something of a math wizard. And yet he needs a shopping list if there are just two items to pick up at the market and he can't figure out A, how long a towel takes to dry inside a dryer, and B, how to program said dryer once armed with all the necessary information.
I often joke that Mitch should get an Alzheimer's test. I might actually be concerned about the possibility of his brain becoming addled, but he's been this way since I met him thirty years ago so I guess it's something else.
Being a white person, naturally my life is full of privilege, like all white people. I know I should feel guilty about this, but instead of "white guilt" I have the Jewish kind. This means I'm not sad about all the African Americans whose ancestors might have been slaves or crack addicts and thus they have less opportunity than whites in our incredibly racist nation (so the story goes), but instead I ache for all the starving children the world over, and all the innocent kids suffering with cancer and other horrific diseases, and all the lonely misfits who are bullied on Facebook and cry into their pillows at night and then go on shooting rampages at local colleges the next day, and of course their poor parents whose lives are forever ruined. And sick pets.
That being said, still I have moments of actually enjoying my life, guilt and all, and many of those moments are related to owning a hot tub that's right outside my side door. This morning, the temperature a forbidding 12 degrees and with a blizzard promised for later today, my husband and I decided to shovel off last night's accumulated snow from the deck and the tub and get in for a soak. It was glorious. After that, as always, we took the towels we used to dry off and put them into the dryer. Again, as usual, I put mine in first and waited for Mitch to add his. He did so, but without starting the dryer, in fact leaving the dryer door wide open, and continued on his way to the shower.
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| How hard is this? |
It was then determined that, with the possibility of being snowbound tomorrow, Honey might need some cream for his coffee and we were almost out. Since he was going to the gym we agreed he should stop off at the store to pick some up on his way home. "You might get some bananas too," I casually suggested. With that he stopped what he was doing, sighed deeply and said, "Fine, just give me a list."
This is a man who is the chief revenue officer for an 80 million dollar company. He oversees a large staff based in two different and distant cities. He is frequently invited to speak on panels and at seminars. He holds a degree in architecture from a prestigious university, reads both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal every day, has traveled the world extensively and is something of a math wizard. And yet he needs a shopping list if there are just two items to pick up at the market and he can't figure out A, how long a towel takes to dry inside a dryer, and B, how to program said dryer once armed with all the necessary information.
I often joke that Mitch should get an Alzheimer's test. I might actually be concerned about the possibility of his brain becoming addled, but he's been this way since I met him thirty years ago so I guess it's something else.
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