At 7:30 am last Sunday morning, while barefoot and wearing my bathrobe and my ‘three hours of sleep after a long night out’ hair, I dropped Paul off at the airport. He was headed to Chicago on a business trip, and is not scheduled to return until tomorrow evening. In his absence, I have learned a few valuable lessons:
1. Without Paul, certain tasks will never get done around the house. I mean NEVER. For example, I ran out of paper towels on Sunday evening. I am still out of paper towels, and will most definitely remain out of paper towels until Paul returns and goes to the grocery store. I have used actual towels and toilet paper instead, and would probably use my own hair or underwear before going and purchasing paper towels myself. Additionally, I filled up the kitchen trash can on Sunday morning and put the bag outside the front door. It is still there, and will continue to sit there until Paul comes home and takes it to the dumpster, or until the swarming raccoons prohibit access to the door.
2. Without Paul, however, certain tasks don’t need to be done. The bathroom counter has been absolutely free of razor droppings for three blissful and sanitary days. It is completely refreshing to wake up to a sparkling white counter and not feel the insane rage that causes me to use Paul’s toothbrush to scrub stubble and mold from around the faucet clean obsessively. I’ve also noticed that the trash cans and the laundry hamper have remained virtually empty, which either means that I eat my trash and dirty clothing, or that Paul generates the majority of the waste in the house.
3. The Starbucks near our house has gone out of business as a result of Paul’s absence. It seems that he was the source of the majority of their revenue, and without his bi-hourly purchases, they went under in a mere two days. Okay, that’s complete bullshit, but it would not shock me if it were true. The saddest part of this is that I have been completely without Starbucks for THREE WHOLE DAYS now. Yes, I could easily drop into one of the 3,000,000 local Starbucks to get my fix, but that’s just far too much effort. Instead, I go without and subsequently suffer in misery.
4. Having the entire bed to myself is not enjoyable when the substantial dents in the featherbed do not permit me to move out of my preestablished “rut”. Evidently, when you skimp on the purchase of a featherbed, the result is that the down becomes completely conformed to the general position of the user’s body. In translation, if I try to sleep an extra six inches towards the middle of the bed, it feels like I am sleeping on the side of a steep hill. I can’t help but roll back into my scrunched position on the right side of the bed, which means that the 50% of the surface area of the bed goes unused. That is, until Kobe wiggles himself under the covers and starts snoring.
In conclusion, I have decided that it would be best for all parties involved if Paul were to come home sooner rather than later. The dogs are pining for him, I need paper towels, and I could really use a cup of coffee. Oh, and I guess I miss him a little bit too.