Friday, October 22, 2004

Some Things Never Change

There are some things that one can never really change. Say who we are or how we react to other people. We will always have a certain manner of reacting to certain types of people.

Take me for instance. I got in a row with the missus a few mornings ago. I had gone with a friend (after work) to help her install a cd-rom drive into her computer. I texted the missus to tell her I won't take long. Problem is it took me a while to open the case. It was one of those branded old Pentium II pc's from HP. It took me a while to figure out how to open the darned thing. It didn't have any screws and the locks were pretty well hidden. Anyway, it took me some time. When I finally opened the case, it took some more tinkering to install the drive in the case. Several boots later, the drive couldn't be "seen" by Windows '98. I called my unofficial tech guru friend and asked for his opinion. He said check the hardware. I eventually found out that the cd-rom had a bent connector. We took it to the vendor. It was a replacement unit bought second-hand, but still under the one-year warranty. They replaaced the connector, no prob. Only it took them the better part of an hour to test the darned thing. I got an angry call from the missus by that time asking me where I was and why I wasn't home yet.

I have always had this problem. When I'm doing something, I can't leave it. I have to finish it, otherwise I'll be racking my head the whole day thinking about it. I need to finish it or else. That bothers my wife. It seems I'm in an impermeable bubble when that happens. Nothing gets to me. Time seems to rush by and I don't even notice.

And so my saga continued. I installed and tested the darned thing thing in under 20 minutes. The ride home wasn't as enjoyable. By that time, I was already smelled a lot. I still hadn't had the chance to shower yet and I was really hungry. The trip home took too long. I tried to bear with my smell and my hunger. Plus the fact that I was really realy sleepy already. All that to prove I could be a geek. Wait. Correction...A wannabe-geek.

When I got home, the wife wasn't talking to me. I let her be. I knew any mention of what had happened (even an explanation) would be risking a direct confrontation. I just offered to do the errand she was supposed to do that afternoon. That's it. As always, I didn't get any thank you's anymore. I have come to expect that. I mean I have conditioned my mind not to expect any thank you's anymore. It's better that way. If I don't expect I don't get disappointed anymore. It seems that in today's world, the phrase "thank you" has lost its place.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey! you have to call your wife as your "errand" progresses so she can feel your frustration while you're doing it. do not make promises you can't keep -- like you said you were going home at a particular time and you didn't. if you had been calling your wife all the while, you will not get an angry call. you always have to make her feel that she comes first above anything and that is something you have to learn --- fast!! ****lany****

Ed said...

Thanks, Lany. Unfortunately there are times that I can't help but be that way. Times flies when you're frustrated and defeated. I can't take it when I can't figure out something. It bothers the hell out of me. Anyway, I get the picture. My wife says the same. I guess I had it coming. Previous incidents (totally unrelated, I might add) were not dealt with as they should've been. Outcome was one very frustrated wife on the morning of October 22nd.