Tag Archives: smartassery

My train wreck loves your smart ass.

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This is not the blog where we talk about PMS. Some people post about it regularly, but it just isn’t something I feel the need to discuss. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever posted about it on the Cowardly Feminist. So for the dude readers that just did a collective eye roll over the prospect of a lady-day post, this is not a story about PMS, it’s about my husband.

All hail the smartass king

My husband is the California King of Smartass Ville. It’s in his blood, and he can’t help it. Fortunately for him, he is also one of those individuals funny and likeable enough to pull off the most brazen of sarcastic quips and still have people like him. I guess it’s a gift.

I’ve also posted previously about the complete lack of predictability in his job. It changes all the time, there is no set schedule, and we never really know what’s going on until the project actually begins. Long time readers might remember around this time last year when we found out at four in the afternoon he was leaving for the Philippines the following morning. Yeah, that was completely shitty awesome. Over the years I’ve learned to roll with it. Life is much easier for both of us that way.

Which brings me to yesterday.

PMS hit me like a freight train around midday. Within an hour I was irritable, feeling gross, and in general, bitchy. A couple of hours later my husband called. The details of what transpired are a little confusing, but suffice it to say that over the span of two hours and two phone conversations, his schedule did a complete 180, changed again, and then again. The last change was accompanied by the discovery that he was on his way home, several hours before I expected him to be. Ordinarily I would have been happy he was coming home early. My hormone-addled brain, however, processed things a little differently than usual. I was in the middle of writing, and instead of being glad he had an early day, I felt like my work was interrupted. I could have continued to write, and normally I would have, but instead I seethed at the disruption. And the more I thought about all the scheduling changes, the more annoyed I became, even though it was no different than any other week.

Needless to say, when my husband walked in the door twenty minutes later I was in full-on cranky pants mode. So, we’re standing in the kitchen, and all of my answers to his idle chit chat were short and ill-tempered. He leaned against the counter, folded his arms, and said, “What’s wrong?” I, of course, gave the standard answer of pissed off women everywhere, “Nothing!”

A look of confusion crossed his face, because clearly by nothing I meant screw you. So he replied with genuine concern, “No, something is going on, and you should really vocalize it.”

At that point, I totally lost my marbles and went something like this, “MARGMARGMARGBLAGITYBLAAAAACK!” There was a lot of yelling and gesticulating involved.

After that I fed the dogs, and we each took one for a walk. I stomped off in one direction, and he went in another. While watching Lil Stinko sniff every blade of grass in the lawn, it occurred to me I had just acted like a total lunatic. Now, guys won’t get this, but women will. Sometimes when PMS first hits you, you don’t actually recognize it for what it is, you only know you are angry. Anyway, the realization of why I was freaking out only made me more upset, because there is nothing worse than knowing you’re behaving badly and not being in control of it. So I marched upstairs, and when my husband walked in the door, I explained, while yelling, that I had PMS, that I was angry, and sorry, and it had nothing to do with him, and finished with, “And I’m not going to cook dinner!”

By that time I was nearly in tears. In other words, I was a total train wreck. My husband calmly gave me a hug, told me he loved me, and asked me what I wanted to eat. For the remainder of the evening he put up with me in all my grumpiness. Bless that man – he is one laid back dude.

Flash forward to this afternoon.

Most of this morning my husband left me in peace to work. This afternoon he waltzed into the office and informed me his schedule changed yet again, leaving him with the next four days off, and so he had decided to drive up north to take photos. Unfortunately, there are some logistical problems with that plan. As I pointed each issue out to my husband, he literally danced around the room with a camera in his hand and zinged out one smart ass remark after the other in reply. Each and every line was said with a wiggle and a shake – I can only assume the effort of not uttering a single wisecrack all morning and the night before was too much for him, and so the pent up sarcasm just oozed from his mouth, causing him to dance with joy.  He was in rare form, I’m talking SmartAss Extraordinaire. My mood, however, is not any better than it was yesterday. But he knows the deal – I’ve used up all my bitchy cards. I already had my little meltdown, and had a pouty pants fit for most of the evening, all of which he bore with good grace. Now all bets are off.  He’s like a kid with a stick, trying to poke a sleeping bear at the zoo.

All I can say is, you better run fast, boy.

Anyway, I’m not a particularly romantic person, but the point of my story is that I can be a nut, and my husband always, always knows exactly what to say, when to say it, and when to shake it. I love him for that.

Don’t knock it.

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So, I’ve posted in the past about boring workouts. Mine consist of pedaling away on the treacherous stationary bike plus light weights, mixed with the occasional power walk (don’t make fun of me). I’ve looked for other things, but until recently hadn’t come up with anything good. A couple months back I was inspired by Karensomethingorother to try a workout DVD, after her series of posts about her love/hate relationship with Jillian Michaels. Yes, yes, I know. You are probably thinking Jane Fonda and leg warmers. I was too. Netflix, however, has a number of streaming workouts. After trying a couple of crappy ones, I found a boot camp workout and a cardio Pilates routine that I really liked. Sure, I probably look like a total dufus. But you know what? It goes by much quicker than pedaling away on that stupid bike, and it’s cheaper than a gym membership.

Sure, she makes it look easy, with her perky smile and perfect hair. But if you're balance-impaired like me, it isn't quite so simple.

My husband finds this amusing. And by amusing, I mean he feels the need to make a comment about the DVDs in our instant queue every single time he sees them. My response is, it isn’t Richard Simmons, Mr. Sarcasmo, so don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Because let me tell you something, they aren’t easy, which is the point.

I have only been allowed to go on walks since my eye surgery. No impact, nothing that will strain my eyes in any way, shape, or form. So no weights, no Pilates, just boring walks through my neighborhood (which I enjoy a couple times a week, but not every freaking day). Finally, as of two days ago I am free to exercise in any way I choose. So my husband asked what I was going to do for a workout, and I told him I planned to do the Pilates dvd. He began to spastically fling his arms and legs about, sort of like the Elaine Dance. I asked what he was doing, to which he responded,

“Pilates.”

Instead of laughing, I half got my panties in a knot and told him that was most certainly not Pilates. He said, “No?” and continued with the herky jerky motions.

I’ve watched my man workout. He languidly pedals for 20 minutes while either watching Family Guy reruns or dicking around on his phone, does an arm curl or two, and calls it a day. To be fair, it must work for him because he’s thin and in good shape – homeboy can still drink beer and eat chicken shawarma wraps every day without gaining an ounce. I don’t drink beer, or eat chicken, and I don’t even know what a shawarma is, but I guarantee that if I did, I would bloat up like a marshmallow cow.

Anyway, this morning I decided to do the boot camp video (side note, I actually think I prefer the yelling in that one to the calm and collected instructions from the Pilates lady. All I can think, as I watch her move her legs through the air with the most amazing stomach control ever, is, couldn’t you at least pretend it’s difficult?). I haven’t done the workout in several weeks, and sort of forgot the whole routine, so when we came to the dancey-aerobic-ish portion, I found myself completely out of step and flinging my arms and legs about in a most uncoordinated fashion. Guess who I looked like? Mr. Smarty Pants, that’s who. In fact, I’d say my husband’s imitation was spot on.

My only consolation was that I wasn’t doing the Pilates workout, which to be honest, wasn’t very consoling at all. Dammit.

It’s a family thing

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21

My intention was to post a version of this yesterday, but I got so caught up pontificating on genetics and breeding and predicting the traits of my nonexistent children, that by the time I was done with the post it was freaking ridiculous. After I read it, I thought, well aren’t I blowing smoke up my own ass? Maybe if I had pictorial evidence of that, I would have considered posting it anyway. But I don’t.

So I scrapped it and started over. Let me begin by saying this post came about after a combination of things; a friend sent me an article from Science Daily about the Neanderthal demise, the text message my father sent me when I asked him to test my phone to see if I could receive texts, and the text message I received from my husband after I specifically told him not to text me.

Smartassery – it’s a genetic thing.

It’s very interesting to discover what you inherit from each parent. I have so, so many traits that come from my dad’s side of the family, and it seems the older I get, the more they show. Most of them I love (my grandma’s coloring). A couple others, not so much (problems with blood sugar, suck-o). I also got the smartassery gene from my dad’s side of family.

But let’s take a step back and look at my dad’s colossal smartassedness. The man is clever and quick. And bless the heart of so many food servers over the years that bore the brunt of his sass. When I was a kid, I dreaded going out to eat with my dad, especially if there was a wait to be seated. There was no telling what on earth he would say to the hostess. We were lucky if he said Rufus McFly. Once he gave the name Vernel, and when the hostess called him, he grabbed my sister and I and introduced as Verbina and Vernessa Odessa (that was me), and he nodded towards my mother and said her name was Vernilla (who, by the way, was frequently immune to his clowning around). The hostess didn’t give a damn, she just wanted to seat us and get back to her job. But I was mortified, and I’m sure I spent at least ten minutes giving my dad the silent treatment. In fact, to this day, a full 22 years after that particular incident, my father still refers to me as Vernessa Odessa. Frequently. Actually, my dad called me a couple hours ago. I asked him to give some smartass examples and for what might have been the first time ever, he couldn’t think of anything (actually that’s not true, but he insisted none of them were appropriate to print, which means they were really good).

I don’t think my sister ever went through the stage of being embarrassed, which made it all the worse for me because she would join in, and then they would gang up on me. A simple trip to the grocery store with the two of them was the equivalent of having the dream where you show up to school naked. You are deeply embarrassed, and there is nowhere to hide (because they would chase me down, both with their fingers up their noses, calling my name just in case one of my school friends were around).

Flash forward a couple decades, and I cackle like the biggest hen in the house over my dad’s antics. I’m not twelve anymore, and therefore I don’t give a rat’s ass about what the hostess, or whoever, thinks. My step-grandmother, who is 80, will hightail it into a restaurant to make sure she gives the name before he does, and that makes both of us laugh all the more.

I wouldn’t characterize my mom as a smartass. Her sass would better be described as snark. So the smartass gene definitely came from my dad, and I carry one copy of it.

You can clearly see the smartassery in his face

So, it should come as no surprise that a) I married a major smartass, and b) my dad and husband get along splendidly.

Smartassedness oozes from my husband. Before we started dating, he used to come into the bar I worked at and spend hours. Most of the time his, um, witticisms, were directed at other people. But occasionally he zinged something in my direction. So, I told him to stop that shit. It’s fine to do it to other people, but don’t do it to me.  So he stopped. Until we had been dating a few weeks, and then I came to understand it was deeply imbedded in his character and I was going to have to get used to it. Obviously I did. The nice thing about a super smartass is that they can usually take as much as they dish out.

And that brings me to why my unborn children will come out of the womb spouting inappropriate jokes.

This is why we shouldn't be parents

Somewhere one of you is saying, “But Vesta, that’s a personality trait, not something you’re born with!”

Whoever you are, you are wrong. It’s a gene. A dominant one.