About Me

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I'm a life-long New Englander, father of 4 challenging kids (I know: I'm supposed to say "wonderful", but while that'd be true, technically speaking, it'd also be misleading), and fortunate husband to my favorite wife of more than 20 years. I've got over 20 years experience breaking things as a test engineer, quality engineer, reliability engineer, and most recently (and most enjoyably) a Product Safety / EMC Compliance Engineer. In the photo, I'm on the left.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

How does my wife know...?

My lovely wife is an amazing woman. She really does have an internal chronometer, like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation had. It's a remarkable ability that has nearly unlimited applications:

She tends to call me NOT when I'm sitting in my chair looking for something to watch, but:
  • As I visit the “library”, sometime between getting my ass cheek on the toilet seat and the first tensing of my abs;
  • Right after I've started washing the chicken for tonight's meal (and there's about ten minutes of washing left to do...don't you hate that you have to wash chicken in cold water? Why is that, anyway; you're only going to raise the temperature of the chicken in a few minutes! Are bacteria gong to “get used to” the temperature and NOT die in the oven / grill / roaster?);
  • As soon as Mr. Happy breaches the multi-toothed cavern to exorcise excess fluid from my “guzzattah” system (when I'm at the urinal);
  • 5 minutes after my eyes close....*just* when I fall asleep;
  • When I'm almost home: “Where are you?” “In the driveway”. Actually, the answer is, about 80% of the time “On north street”, which is within 3 minutes of home, but about 5% of the time, I'm just pulling onto our street or into the driveway;
  • As soon as the shampoo is lathered.
I think that she picks the times because she knows when it's most inconvenient for me.

She can even internally set the time when she wants to wake up in the morning. I've witnessed this countless times over the last 20+ years that we've been married: she'll look at the clock as she's going to sleep, and she'll say something along the lines of “I've got Dr. Wantstofeelgood (pseudonym) at 9:15; I'll have to be up by 7:30.” The next morning her eyes spring open at 7:29:35.

When I try to do that, I'll have a meeting for 8:00 am, and I'll wake up at 8:17 am.

It was funny day when she texted my eldest and his text came back that he was in the “library”, and how did she DO that?!?

I suppose I really should have seen this ability of hers coming, even though ever since I've known her she's been a very organized woman who always kept an appointment book and had things written on calendars and such; I'm not sure why someone with an internal chronometer needs such organizational tools, since it's built in. I think that's her way of lulling me into thinking that she's a bit more “normal” and has no super powers.

The real tip-off for me should have been during the delivery of our first child, about 19 years ago. We had been at the hospital seemingly forever. We arrived in the afternoon and went through all manner of voodoo, from walking around the L&D floor, squatting in a ritual fashion at the foot of the bed, rocking to and fro, rolling from side to side, etc.

We were at it all night long (admittedly she more than I, but that's a different blog), with sparse intervals of sleep. Nothing significant was happening. The sun graced the next day with much the same stuff going on. A lot of trial-and-nothing. I decided around 10:00 am to run through the shower.

As soon as I had lather in my hair, the frantic pounding came to the bathroom door. You gotta be frickin' kidding me!! Kid was born at 10:20, and she did that on purpose, just to because she knew it was an inconvenient time for me!! :)

5 comments:

  1. We women are like that. Snicker, snicker.

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  2. There is something about the birthing process that gives us women an internal clock. From then on, everything is about being here, there, and everywhere and managing every moment of our lives.

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  3. She got hers when *she* was born! She amazes me in many ways on many days.

    Welcome to both of you, by the way. Thanks for taking the time to read; I hope that I can entertain you to some extent. :)

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  4. Delores sent me over and I'm glad she did! I decided to focus on this story, because I had to learn more about your wife's super powers. Looking forward to seeing more of you. Julie

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  5. Thanks for stopping by. I hope to be able to entertain you to some degree, and I have no doubt that there will be additional thoughts about the various super powers that my wife possesses.

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