I don't usually subscribe to the belief that men are a different species, that they don't understand the true nature of women, and that they cannot communicate with their female counterparts. That's not to say I've never used tears and tantrum-throwing to get what I want under certain circumstances. I am a woman, after all; and if you've got it, use it. Or flaunt it. Whichever applies at the time.
For the most part, my husband is a completely rational and loving man. I always say that he is my voice of reason, especially during those emotional times when I just want to tear my sister's head off (oh come on, like you never feel that way) or tell some incompetent parent exactly where her child needs to go and how he should get there. And it is not to therapy.
But when he gets sick, all reason flies out the window and I am left with a big, old, slobbering baby who wakes me up at night with his snorting and honking. Now, it would be one thing if this creature next to me was tiny, cute, and still in diapers. I would gladly awaken to rub his back, wipe away his tears, and even suck the snot from his nose with one of those blue bulb things. Instead, I get a grown man sitting on the side of the bed, coughing loud enough to wake the dead, and telling me, in his Darth Vader-meets-Ernest Borgnine voice, to stop bothering him and just go back to sleep! Some married couples argue in the night about seeing other people; we argue about seeing the doctor.
Just to please me (or to shut me up), my husband finally did see a doctor, accompanied by a medical assistant named Tiffany Flowers (I swear on all that is holy). I made some crack about a stripper taking his blood pressure, and he assured me that she was "not that hot," before asking if all the glitter was off the front of his shirt.
And now, as I lie awake at night, carefully listening for my husband's next rattled, uneven breath, I pray that he will survive to see the light of day. So that I can kill him with my own two hands.
"Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow..."
