weekend. It was the first one on American soil and you got it. So you decided to drive up. You were feeling confident, wanted everyone to see the new car. You were going to let them sit in it if they wanted to. And you knew they’d want to. Besides, Boston was only an hour farther from you than the airport, once you added in the flight time and the trip from Logan to the office, driving almost made things quicker. Almost. And it also might snow soon, then you’d have to wait until spring to take it out again. You refer to the car as “it.” You know some men, mostly older men, refer to cars as “her” and “she.” You think that’s foolish, that it’s silly to animate the inanimate.
But then at the meeting, the meeting that was supposed to go well, out of nowhere people started using terms like “scramble” and “rapid repositioning.” At one point a COO who had originally been trained in the navy, said, “We got a real SNAFU here.” You asked him what the hell that meant anyway and he’d replied, “Situation Normal All Fucked Up.”
You had been twenty-five minutes outside of Boston before you realized you’d forgotten to show everyone the car. They didn’t even know you’d driven up.
And now you are looking at the front door, imagining what your wife will want to talk about when you go in. It’s not that she’s not understanding, she is. As understanding as she could be at least. You know some guys whose wives are a real pain in the ass, whose wives start piling shit on them the moment they walk in the door, whose wives the moment they walk in the door say something like, “You have to talk to that edging man, he won’t listen to me.” And then, when your friends say, “Can this wait until we’ve eaten?” when they say, “Can’t this wait until I’ve had a drink? I had a difficult day,” their wives say, “Well excuse me! You don’t think what I do is hard work? You don’t think raising your children and looking after your goddamn house is difficult!?” You know some guys who are so used to this, they don’t even bother to answer, they don’t even bother to say, “I’m not saying what you do isn’t hard work. I’m not saying what you do isn’t difficult. I’m not even saying I could do what you do. I’m just saying there wouldn’t even be a goddamn house or goddamn children or a goddamn edging man without my work!” You know some guys who don’t say any of that. They don’t say anything. They just sigh and walk into the closest room with liquor and pour themselves a glass of twenty-five-year-old Highland malt. You even know some guys who would sometimes rather spend a night alone in a hotel in the city, who would sometimes rather go into work the next day in the same clothes than go home.
But your wife isn’t like that. She’s not like that at all. Your wife is wonderful. She will say “poor dear” if you bother to tell her about today. You frequently don’t even have to tell her, frequently she knows how you feel just by looking at your face. She will give you sympathy, stroke your hair, rub soft little circles on that spot on the inside of your elbow. If there are problems with the kids or with the households, she will know enough to keep them to herself until the right time, will even try again to deal with them herself.
And yet tonight when you go to bed, when you lie there awake all night long, your heart pounding like it’s going to leap out of your chest as you work and rework your strategy, when you lie there once more trying to figure out how to come out furthest ahead, when you lie there like that, by yourself, she will be sound asleep. And the kids will be sound asleep if they still live at home. And you are happy to give that to them. You really are.
But at some point, perhaps around three or four A.M . after you’ve gotten up to make yourself a sandwich but have been unable to because you don’t know where anything is in your own kitchen, as you
But then at the meeting, the meeting that was supposed to go well, out of nowhere people started using terms like “scramble” and “rapid repositioning.” At one point a COO who had originally been trained in the navy, said, “We got a real SNAFU here.” You asked him what the hell that meant anyway and he’d replied, “Situation Normal All Fucked Up.”
You had been twenty-five minutes outside of Boston before you realized you’d forgotten to show everyone the car. They didn’t even know you’d driven up.
And now you are looking at the front door, imagining what your wife will want to talk about when you go in. It’s not that she’s not understanding, she is. As understanding as she could be at least. You know some guys whose wives are a real pain in the ass, whose wives start piling shit on them the moment they walk in the door, whose wives the moment they walk in the door say something like, “You have to talk to that edging man, he won’t listen to me.” And then, when your friends say, “Can this wait until we’ve eaten?” when they say, “Can’t this wait until I’ve had a drink? I had a difficult day,” their wives say, “Well excuse me! You don’t think what I do is hard work? You don’t think raising your children and looking after your goddamn house is difficult!?” You know some guys who are so used to this, they don’t even bother to answer, they don’t even bother to say, “I’m not saying what you do isn’t hard work. I’m not saying what you do isn’t difficult. I’m not even saying I could do what you do. I’m just saying there wouldn’t even be a goddamn house or goddamn children or a goddamn edging man without my work!” You know some guys who don’t say any of that. They don’t say anything. They just sigh and walk into the closest room with liquor and pour themselves a glass of twenty-five-year-old Highland malt. You even know some guys who would sometimes rather spend a night alone in a hotel in the city, who would sometimes rather go into work the next day in the same clothes than go home.
But your wife isn’t like that. She’s not like that at all. Your wife is wonderful. She will say “poor dear” if you bother to tell her about today. You frequently don’t even have to tell her, frequently she knows how you feel just by looking at your face. She will give you sympathy, stroke your hair, rub soft little circles on that spot on the inside of your elbow. If there are problems with the kids or with the households, she will know enough to keep them to herself until the right time, will even try again to deal with them herself.
And yet tonight when you go to bed, when you lie there awake all night long, your heart pounding like it’s going to leap out of your chest as you work and rework your strategy, when you lie there once more trying to figure out how to come out furthest ahead, when you lie there like that, by yourself, she will be sound asleep. And the kids will be sound asleep if they still live at home. And you are happy to give that to them. You really are.
But at some point, perhaps around three or four A.M . after you’ve gotten up to make yourself a sandwich but have been unable to because you don’t know where anything is in your own kitchen, as you
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