Friday, January 09, 2009

Scenes From My Marriage


Jack and I wanted to watch a DVD last night, but the remote control had disappeared. We are the proud owners of the world's shittiest DVD player, which cannot be worked manually at all. (Unfortunately, we bought it new for 20 bucks after rebate, which was such an awesome deal that neither of us can bring ourselves to replace it.)

We tore apart the downstairs looking for the fucking remote. "I know it was down here this afternoon," I said as I tossed all the throw pillows off the couch. "The kids were watching The Electric Company, so I must have used it then."

"Maybe you took it upstairs," grumped Jack, who gets a little nuts when he can't find something.

"Maybe," I said doubtfully. "Or maybe one of the kids hid it. Did you look under the couch?"

"I looked under the couch 5,000 times," he snapped. "It's not there. It's not anywhere."

"I'll look upstairs," I offered. "Maybe I took it with me when I had to run upstairs to answer the phone."

"Yes, because once again, all the phones have mysteriously migrated upstairs." (Leaving all the phones upstairs is another one of my charming habits. Along with misplacing my keys, my purse, my library card. And the remote.)

Twenty minutes, I admitted defeat. "I don't know what I did with the fucking thing. I must have left it someplace weird."

Jack threw his hands up in the air. "It's lost forever."

"What do you mean, it's lost forever? It's still in the house."

"Not necessarily," said Jack ominously.

"What, you think it disappeared into extradimensional space?"

"No, I think my demented wife accidentally tossed it in the trash."

"Oh, that's nice. Real nice." Not for the first time, I cursed myself for having told him about the time I threw away my retainer when I was 11.

I managed to maintain my air of wounded dignity until Jack went to brush his teeth, and then furtively crept into the kitchen and peeked in the garbage. I have to confess I was surprised and a little disappointed that the remote wasn't there.

I asked JJ about it this morning. "Oh yeah, I saw it yesterday. It's under the couch."

And that's exactly where it was. Of course.

Image by jaqian used under the creative commons attribution license.

2 comments:

followthatdog said...

We lost a Tivo remote a few months back and I had to order a new one. It was a huge mess. We found the old one much later, it had slipped into a hole in the couch lining. Damned remotes.

And I have lived with a bad DVD with no remote (my dog ate it) I finally gave it to a friend who was willing to live with a DVD player that only has a play and stop button. I'd bet she still has it.

Anonymous said...

thats kind of nasty, looking under the couch 5000 times and not getting the remote but its there...crazy indeed.