I think wives commonly have ambition for their husbands. Some women want to be married to doctors or senators. Others don’t care what the profession is, so long as the result is likely to put them on “The Real Housewives of Your Geographical Area.”
I admit, I feel some esteem from my husband’s brains. He’s genius smart. I feel lucky that I snagged a smart one. Goodness knows I dated enough pretty dumb things. I used to want to be the smarter one in the relationship. I needed to feel superior to another person at all times. It was to make up for the fact that inside I felt inferior to everyone. After many years of therapy, I felt good about myself. Good enough to find me a kind, handsome man with low self-esteem and mathematic genius. That’s who the Cosmo Quiz told me would be my perfect match.
There was a time when I wanted him to be a college professor, because I wanted to be a college professor’s wife. I’m like some chick from “Game of Thrones” who wants her husband to be king, right?
I’m also insecure and jealous. Therapy, shmerapy. As Lady Gaga would say, I was born this way. I was attracted to Odie the second I saw him, and I don’t exactly have low standards. Now he has a wedding ring, graying hair and two kids. Chicks eat that shit up. If I bought him a blazer with elbow patches, I’d have to also buy a gun and get a permit to carry.
Have you seen how adorable college girls are? And technically, it isn’t illegal to date your professors in college. It’s only unethical. My jealous, insecure and slightly nutty center believes that 20-somethings would hurl themselves at my husband with wild abandon, and though he would duck at first, eventually his back would ache and he’d get slow, and one would land on his face.
My fear of college co-eds writing “love you” on their eyelids during Odie’s lectures tends to rise proportionally with my weight.
Odie decided college wasn’t for him. He got the required education and degree to get on the professor track, but he lacks the passion for it. He likes working with public school kids. I’m not destined to be a professor’s wife, alas.
Today he brought home news that he is being pushed toward the AP Physics job at his high school. Good thing they’re pushing him, too; because according to physics, if they didn’t, he would never move any closer to that job.
“My husband teaches AP Physics” has a nice ring to it. Not that I’m not happy with “My husband teaches high school math.” I’ve just always had a thing for science. Plus, physics is real. No one can convincingly say to a teacher, “When am I ever going to use physics?”
This weekend, Viva told her friend that it was dark because the sun was on the other side of the Earth. And when I watched the intro to “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” she pointed at the globe graphic and announced, “That’s our planet, Mommy!”
He taught her those things. It’s what he’s interested in.
And before you get all snarky, YES, I know that’s not physics. It’s astrology. Duh.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I want Odie to be happy. I’m not the only one in this family who struggles with depression. Math can be so dry in high school. It’s all standards and memorization. None of the beauty and creativity that REAL math is. I think he might enjoy trying something else.
I know I’ll enjoy being proud of him. And bragging. I’m good at that.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Mistaken Identity
It happens to around 8 million people, and this month, it happened to us. Odie had his identity stolen.
The first week of January, we discovered that Odie has great credit and so we financed a nice humble little used car. Apparently, we were not the only ones who got excited about Odie’s credit. Within a few days, there were four hard inquiries on his credit report, and three different mail order businesses gave the thief accounts in Odie’s name.
He received a credit alert from freecreditreport.com (you have that song in your head now, don’t you?) and the next day I opened a package expecting a popcorn maker, yet finding a Nintendo Wii, Super Mario Brothers bundle. I stared at it dumbly for a minute. My first thought was “Damn you, Amazon 1-click!” hypothesising I must have accidentally ordered this. But it was addressed to Odie, not to me.
Besides, I would have “accidentally” ordered an XBox 360 Connect (you ARE the controller).
What kind of idiot thief steals stuff with my money and then gives it to me? It dawned on me that these people were not just internet thieves, they intended to watch my house and get those packages before I did. My skin crawled as I imagined being staked out by goodness knows who while I nursed my infant on the couch. Yikes!
Assholes, say hello to my little friend. Actually, my big friend, a 65 pound lab/pitbull mix. She kind of hates people she doesn’t know. Especially men. She’s sort of a first wave feminist that way. And she’s racist. But man, can she cook.
My living room is all windows, and as my sister and her urine-stained trousers can attest, we have an excellent guard dog. She is big, she has a deep, angry bark, and she will spring off the windows so hard, your doubts about their ability to hold will be warranted. As my father can attest, her bark is not worse than her bite. Because she bites.
I never saw any shady types lurking around my house, but I was scared. My local police advised me to call 911 if I saw anyone. Very comforting. I called 911 once. I saw a man in a car punching the woman in the passenger seat over and over and over and over. The phone just rang. No one ever answered.
My house is difficult to find. Halfway down the block, it changes cities, so the numbering is weird. One house is number 35 and the next one is 18945. I have never once invited someone to my house, be it friend or workman, and had that person find my house without at least one phone call to me telling me s/he’s lost. For once, I think this worked in my favor. My house is also at the top of a flight of windy stairs. It isn’t easy to look inconspicuous walking up my front steps and back down with a package. Plus, my neighbors are nosey. God bless them.
One thing did go missing, though. I ordered an old-fashioned popcorn maker. The kind with a crank you have to turn. I read that they are taking microwave popcorn off the market gradually because the lining of the bags causes cancer. They’re phasing the product out gradually between now and 2014. No word on whether the cancer comes on gradually.
I like old-fashioned, popped in oil popcorn, anyway. After reading positive reviews on Amazon, I found one that suited my needs. It just never showed up, despite my account showing that it shipped.
So, it’s Friday night and I just poured a glass of wine. Here’s a toast to the thieves who charged several hundreds of dollars of electronics to my husband.
Enjoy your $26.85 popcorn maker, motherfuckers.
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