Sometimes everybody's wrong...

When you are married, sometimes you need to step out of your own view of the world & embrace your spouses view.  Even if he IS wrong. 

The trash can - again with the trash can!  I walk into the kitchen to hear my husband tell my son, "Don't put that orange juice carton in the garbage.  You will fill it up."

Words of wisdom - translation:  Don't put that trash in the trash can.  You will fill it up.

Hmmm.  Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that what the trash can is FOR?  There really aren't a lot of other things you can do with a trash can - laundry hamper maybe?  But, then that same thought process might apply:  Don't put those dirty clothes in the hamper. You will fill it up.

"Where," I wonder aloud, "should he put the orange juice carton - seeing as how it's empty & all?"

Get this - "On the counter."  he says.

"So you think we should put all the trash on the counter?"

"No, not all the trash!  Just the big trash."  He shakes his head as if this should be obvious to any imbecile.

Words of wisdom - translation:  It is okay to fill up the trash can with little trash, just not big trash.

"Look,"  I prepare to explain to my husband of 16 years my inner-most feelings about the trash can, which somehow I have kept hidden from him all these years.  "The trash can is here in the kitchen for the sole purpose of receiving garbage.  That is it's raison d'être (hey, the guy's french after all, never hurts to try to sway him by way of a little smooth talking!).  The whole REASON that I have a trash can in the kitchen is so that I DON'T have trash lying all over the counter!"

A stubborn shake of the head tells me I have not won him over.  "If you put the big trash in the trash can, it will fill up faster so that we will have to take it out more often."

"So, we will pile big trash on the counter until, what, there is no counter space left?  The cockroaches move in?  They put us on that Hoarders show?"

"No - when you get a couple big pieces on the counter you take them out to the dumpster separately."

Note the pronoun here.  YOU.  Meaning ME.  Notice that people are quite free with ridiculous chores that are being delegated to OTHER people.

"Why on earth would I want to do that?  You are suggesting that instead of filling up this nice big trash can with all sorts of trash & taking it out maybe every two days, I instead run outside several times a day with BIG trash, so that the bag full of little trash can sit fermenting in the house a few days longer?  Not likely!"  I laugh, shaking my head as if this should be obvious to any imbecile.

He goes off to work;  having stated his wishes, he assumes they will be followed.  What really happens is that I hide the big trash UNDER the little trash.  I have never been particularly obedient.

My children are not stupid, either - contrary to what I may have indicated in other blog entries.  Which must be why there are 3 orange juice containers in the fridge, each with an inch of orange juice in the bottom...