Why Can’t I Have a Little More Marsha in Me??

David and I are opposites. We are opposites in a “cute way” where he’s calm and I have a tendency to freak out at times. He’s charming and social and I tend to be awkward and shy.  (Everybody loves David…..I even think MY co-workers like him better than me! ha) I like to make plans and take adventures and he’s happy to go along as long as he doesn’t have to come up with the plan or idea. (i.e. Let’s go here, let’s eat there, I saw “this” in a magazine…I can decorate the dining room from top to bottom and he doesn’t care as long as Evan and I are smiling) He’s the older and wiser one….He’s a caretaker and responsible and I tend to be a little more “carefree” shall we say? Silly, perhaps? I’m the “frustrated admin/suppressed party planner” to his “IT” personality. We can pull each other out of moods by the things that make us different. Things like that. We balance. We make each other better by being together. We’re a good pair in that way.

But we are also opposites in the “I’m gonna tear my hair out” kinda way…..the way that’s not as “cute” especially after you’ve been dating a while and when real life kicks in. In ways that make me nervous about thinking about living day in and day out together……the differences that…..well, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me take you back to Tuesday…..

Jean is out in the office. So, I am working at her desk for our President. That has its own challenges. The days usually feel twice as long and three times as stressful. It’s crazy filling in for someone and being away from “my systems” and then trying really hard to not make a mistake…plus, I have my other guys still breathing down my neck. My shoulders usually ache by the time I get in the car at 5:00. Such was Tuesday. When I opened the back door, I saw it….POURING RAIN! Not sprinkles. Not a gentle summer rain. It was pelting down giant drops of water that almost hurt your face. I got in the car soaking wet and turned on the CD that David had burned for me before he left. (Have I failed to mention that David is away this week in New Hampshire with his entire family for vacation?  Yes, it’s just me this week in Hebron.)  It’s the new Brad Paisley CD with the Pat Green “What I’m For” song at the end.  I skipped right to it. #17. I listened to that one song over and over on the way home.  Play…repeat…it calms me as best I can be calmed driving in the traffic and the rain after an already long, tense day.  I’m worn out. 

I have been staying at David’s this week, so I pull into the garage. I’m already wet, so I walk out to the mailbox in the rain. Whatever.  I get the mail and a few of my belongings and fumble into the house. Dinner, tv, bed. I’m worn out, have I mentioned that? I’ve pretty much been having pasta every meal lately. It’s so easy. My latest thing is throwing whatever veggies I have into a pan with salt and pepper, hot pepper flakes and oil olive. I roast them and throw them on any type of pasta. Sprinkle with good fresh grated parm, drizzle of garlic oil, a few more red pepper flakes and it’s a feast fit for a king, or a hungry tired admin, whatever the case may be. Tonight I didn’t even really have the energy to do that. I put a pot on to boil water for the pasta. I put some asparagus tips in another pot to boil for a few minutes as well….throw ‘em together as above and that’s good enough for tonight.  Easy. 

I head upstairs to put on my tv watching comfy clothes. I had a load of laundry to do, so I went out to the car and got it. I went downstairs to put the clothes in the washer.  Here’s a classic example of David and I being different….I throw everything in the washer at once…..towels, jeans, tops and dress pants….whites and colors…whatever.  I put the load in, a cap of soap and go.  I don’t mess with it. If something shrinks or fades or turns pink, it’s too much hassle and I didn’t need it anyway.  I don’t buy clothes requiring dry cleaning if I can at all help it.  (Don’t I sound like the guy??)  David has spot remover and bleach and detergent and dryer sheets. He does towel loads, separates his colors…..he’s precise and deliberate.  I’m sure his towels are fluffier and his shirts stay brighter longer, but whatever. It’s “cute” now because we live in different places and it doesn’t really matter. I have a feeling one day, it may come up.  ;)

ANYWAY…..I head back upstairs and both pots are boiling over. I have a tendency to do that. I turn it up to high to get it to boil. I turned them down and went on with making dinner. I didn’t think a thing about it.  I ate and watched tv. I came back down to clean up and washed the dishes in the sink. I grabbed the pots off the stove where I had set them and noticed there as a black ring under each on the stovetop.  (David has one of those electric, flat-top glass burner, type of stoves. You know what I mean?) Yikes….I better clean that up.  I have been shown the proper “procedure” for cleaning the stove. I few small drops of this special ceramic cleaner and a soft sponge and it should come right off.  Huh…..a few larger drops of the special ceramic cleaner and a bit harder scrubbing.  Nothing.  Oh boy. I start to panic. 

Now, let me take a minute and say, I know I have a tendency to exaggerate or embellish or whatever for the sake of making a blog a little more entertaining. Not lying, but like my mom said, I can make going to Wal-Mart sound like an adventure if I try. But you have to know that I am NOT exaggerating this story even a little bit. It was really this dramatic in my head. 

It was 6:23pm when I realized that I had a problem.  I know this because there is a digital clock on both the oven and the microwave. I grabbed a dish rag and started to scrub. I really put my back into it. I could feel that the black rings were raised a little on the surface. I just had to get up that gunk.  That’s all. 

What is all this? What made the mark? I was boiling a veggie and a pasta. So, maybe some starch? But it wasn’t sugar for candy or some thick sauce. It wasn’t anything “serious”.  And it’s not a ring around the pot like where it boiled over. It’s where the pot was on the stove - in the middle of the burner? What had I done? Like I’d boiled all the water out of a pot and burned a pot or something…..but I hadn’t and the pots look FINE! So bizarre.  I didn’t even know you COULD burn a stove top???  What the heck?  

It didn’t really seem to be working, but I kept scrubbing. Small circles, like buffing, then long hard strokes, then back to scrubbing one small area.  If I could get the color to come off a small space, then I would know that it was removable. I just needed that glimmer of hope. It was REALLY 7:00pm when I started to think I was making progress. There was one small spot that seemed somehow lighter.  I had hope….a renewed energy of sorts.  I hopped up on the counter to scrub. I stood and leaned in with all my weight. I laid my head down on the counter. No matter what I kept scrubbing. I went from sponge to rag and rag to sponge. I was determined to get this stain off.  About 8:00, I PROMISE I stopped and went to the bathroom. I turned up the radio. I went to the stove and got back to scrubbing. I am not kidding. I had been scrubbing two spots for about an hour and a half, hoping that persistence would somehow “count” and the stain would come loose. The raised rough feel was gone. Now it was smooth.  (How could be any other way….it had been scrubbed to death). I compared the two burners to the other two perfect, flawless burners.  My burners looked used and worn with the black rings.  Had David never let a pot boil over?  Not once?  Why was I the one that made the stain?  And when he was out of town no less. Ugh. 

By now there were giant tears streaming down my face.  Not a line of tears running down my cheek like an old-movie, but giant, runny red-nosed, ugly-face, flat-out boo-hooing tears. Why was this happening? Why is it always me who makes the mess.  Why can’t I have a little more Marsha in me??  I bet things like this never happen to her! She’s  precise and deliberate…..much like David.

I don’t drive his car….EVER! I know better. I don’t do his laundry. I try to touch very little over there that I’m not sure about. I don’t bother the electronics unless I’ve been “trained”.  I would never use his lawnmower, tools.....I don’t sit at the new table, or eat dinner in bed. I try to not make a mess.  I try to be careful.  But there always seems to be something…..like a little kid….always making a mess but never really meaning to.   

The last time David left me for a weekend, I put a Tupperware lid in the dishwasher and it had fallen through and melted in the bottom. My heart sunk then. I brought him over one of mine that was similar to replace it. That had seemed like a bigger deal until now. One time I used beaters in a pot to make mashed potatoes like I always has at home….like I did at my apartment now….but he had these coated pots and I messed it up with the metal beaters. I didn’t know…never thought about it. I didn’t mean to mess it up. Why hadn’t I learned my lesson then?  Why was I still in the kitchen??  Why hadn’t I done take-out every day? Or eaten at my place then gone over?

I got a spot on my new beach chair because I got suntan oil on it from my leg because I didn’t put a towel down. It doesn’t seem to want to come out either. But it’s a beach chair, not a large expensive appliance. It’s just that I’m the girl who loses jewelry and tears up shoes…..who has scratched sunglasses and smudges pages in books. I don’t mean to….I’m just rough on things I guess.  I’m one of “those people”.  And it’s not that David’s going to be furious with me.…or yell at me…or be mean to me….but I know it’s just something that never happens to him.  I’m always the messy one….the one who folds wrong….the one who “smudges things” or leaves marks or stains or tears.  Why can’t he be the typical bull in the china shop guy? Why can’t he be the smudger for once or at least the guy that wouldn’t even notice the smudge? But then I guess he’d be the guy that didn’t notice a new pair of shoes or a new blouse, who wouldn’t notice a new perfume or a  look on my face….he wouldn’t be that great guy that I love. 

I look down at the stove, crying harder, getting more and more frustrated. I look at the two perfect burners.  I look at the two messed up burners.  So classic.  Such a metaphor.  The mess and the “perfect” one.  I can’t stand it. I keep scrubbing. I’m going to get it off if it kills me. And then it hits me…..Q-tips. I go upstairs and get a few. They seem to help a little. I can’t decide if it's my crazy state, the fact that I’ve been looking at this stain for hours now, or that it’s really working, but it looked a little lighter. There are no rough spots, so I’m not sure what I was doing (short of having a mini-break down that is). I try turning the burner on for a minute to heat it up. The glass is still clear….I can see through it when it’s lit up…..it doesn’t look stained per say. It seems to help a little too, although after blistering my index finger, I quit that. It was 9:40pm (over three hours later of constant scrubbing) when I finally gave up. I was physically and emotionally drained. The stain was there. It wasn’t coming off. It was lessened. And there was always tomorrow. In fact, there’s a few days.  So, if I can lessen it a little everyday, maybe it will work.  If he wants to ship me back to Texas when he sees it….well….I wouldn’t blame him.

I collapsed in bed with a terrible headache. My arm, hand and shoulder hurts. I was depressed and defeated. I couldn’t make the stain go away. I am a mess. I fell asleep right away from the drama of it all.

I got up this morning……perhaps the stain had magically disappeared. I went down the stairs and around the corner like a kid seeing if Santa came. Sadly, the stain was still there. No magic elves or divine intervention. Again, lessened, not as bad as the original stain that I remembered, but still there. I scrubbed for about 10 minutes, but had to go to work.  I couldn’t get OCD about it this morning.  There was always tonight for that. 

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I called David on the way to work to confess. I got voicemail. I hung up.  Didn’t have the nerve to leave a message. I got to work and googled “how to clean glass stove tops” and got a few ideas. I wrote David an email apologizing and telling him what I had done….maybe he could fix it when he got back. I was really sorry.    

His response?  “Yeah, you need a razor to clean it. There’s one on the kitchen window.  I did that last week. Don’t stress about it.”  ………. Ummmmm, yeah…...….. “David and I are opposites. We are opposites in a “cute way” where he’s calm and I have a tendency to freak out at times……”  ;) 

It’s almost 4:00pm here and I have an hour to go. I can’t wait to get home and see if it helps. Hope springs eternal…..but the realist in me thinks it’s not coming out…..BOILED STARCHY WATER?????  Really?????  I’ll let you know…...

....Yeah, it didn't work.  Taking suggestions on "creatively" covering it up.....couldn't feel worse!  Ugh.