Cursed Tongue: The Lonely Wonelies

Posted by CursedTongue on October 16, 2006

After being married for a mere six years, I believed that being apart for a few weeks would be no big deal. I knew that I would miss my sweet husband when he went on a business trip, but even before he left I was sobbing. Once he was gone I was hitting the cookie dough ice cream like a woman who has been unexpectedly dumped by text message.

Over the carton of cookie dough, I tried thinking of all of the positive aspects of living alone. There would be two weeks of no severe cases of the Grumpy Wumpies to put up with. Two weeks of no migraines to endure (his, not mine). No late nights where my husband was so mesmerized by the code on his flat screen monitor that he forgot to call to tell me that he wasn’t cheating on me with a sweet twenty-year-old computer savvy intern, or laying in a comatose state in the hospital because he was hit by some meth-addled driver who thought that he was still on his couch playing Grand Theft Auto.

I could put onions on my pizza, I could put ground cloves in the refried beans. I didn’t have to eat meat every night. And there was absolutely no chance that I would decide to make an elaborate dessert at 8 p.m. in the evening. Which, I would have to stay up to taste test, of course, leaving me with taste tester’s remorse for consuming 526 empty calories.

I tried thinking about people in more brutal circumstances than mine. (Usually a sure bet during a pity party.) I thought about the thousands of wives with husbands deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Their husbands are in war zones, with no clue when they will return home. I felt like a wimp and a whiner. My husband was in that sunny tech mecca, San Jose, not a war zone. And he would be home in about 14 days.

But still, I felt like an abandoned puppy in a cardboard box in front of Wal-Mart. When I related the failure of my efforts to cheer myself up, his mother had some reassuring words for me. “He isn’t any less dead on the highway.” So my worries were legitimate, but I was still wrapped in a greasy, crumpled paper cone of misery.

Later that day, I settled down for what should have been a restful night’s sleep, without the merciless night owl, marathon reading, snoring bed-kicker to overcome. But once my head was on the pillow and the room was dark, I felt compelled to flip the lights back on and check the doors again. After I was certain they were secure and I was back in bed, in the dark, I felt compelled to check the windows, which we hadn’t opened since May when the temperature went from lovely to Second Ring of Hell.

Prone, exhausted and in bed for the third time, I flopped around and fluffed pillows for about 20 minutes, unable to find a comfortable position. Finally, I decided to watch late night cartoons until I passed out under the hypnotic blue flicker of the television.

The next morning, bleary eyed and drained, I confronted my empty house over breakfast. I began crying in front of the TV, which I had not flipped on because I wanted informative morning news. Nor had I flipped it on so I could gain more weight while I ate generic Frosted Mini Wheats directly from the bag. The TV was on so there would be human voices in the room.

Suddenly, I stopped when I realized that remote my other hand was clutched around would be completely under my control for two whole weeks. With Suppernanny and chick flicks in my future, I felt a little less like wandering around the house in my pjs and a blanket like a disaster victim for the next 13 days.

- Sarah Letnes

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Tags: humor, marriage

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