Don't poke the bear, even when laundry is involved.

Yes, there's an age gape between us.

Good afternoon!

My dear Hubby got another year older two weeks ago.  Now, normally for Hubby's birthday I just giggle and tell him he's a year older than I am  (He's three months older). I figure it's payback for when we were both 17 and the government decided to change the drinking age from 18 to 21  but anyone who turned 18 before September 1 could still drink.  Hubby made it by 11 days. Me?  Well, unlike most of my friends in college, I couldn't legally imbibe until MY SENIOR YEAR!

That was a big deal back then. Now, it's all about how big that number is for your age, and right now his is one year bigger.

Now, we haven't yet crossed that magical line of 50, and we're both sort of healthy and keep ourselves in A shape.  So yeah, I don't really think of us as old.  (Well, except when I think about how I'm the oldest person in my company now...then I feel old.)  But something happened this morning and I have to share it with you. I don't know if it's old age, or maybe we're just that oblivious to everything. You be the judge.

This is awesome. I would like this.

So for his birthday I got Hubby two very fun t-shirts to replace two of his fun t-shirts that our idiot #4 cat destroyed. See, we have three nice cats and then there's the Idiot #4 who thinks every piece of clothing, bedding, towels, rugs, rubber mats is all his to drag around the house.  We've had to cover all laundry, clean or dirty in the laundry room.  I can't have kitchen towels hanging on racks or drawer handles and now, since we're on to his game, I can't put towels on the racks in the bathroom.

Several of our shirts have been shredded with claws (getting the shirt out of the basket) and teeth (dragging it up the stairs and around the house.)  Many of those are Hubby's.

Anyway, so he has these two shirts. And he's going to see his sister in Colorado for his annual two weeks of being an unshaven mountain man.  So this morning I told him if he wanted anything washed before he leaves tomorrow night he should put it in the basket.

He says, "Well, if you find those two new shirts you got me, that would be great."

I say, "I washed them and put them in your basket."

He says, "Did you put them in Skippy's basket?"

I say, "I don't do Skippy's laundry with ours."  (We are all about the same size and we all wear t-shirts, usually black, grey, or red in color.)  "I'll check my basket, maybe it got in there."

So I went downstairs and checked my laundry basket. Nope. Not there. I then checked the dirty laundry. Also no.  I was very close to knocking on Skippy's door and WAKING HIM UP...  

Let me pause here for a moment.  Since Skippy's baby days we have one rule in the house.  "Don't Poke The Bear."  Skippy is NOT a person who wakes up well.  Even as a baby, if he woke up on his

own, fine.  But if something startled him awake, or if we moved him while he was sleeping or if someone woke him up on purpose, he would cry and yell and be generally unpleasant.  The same holds true now, almost 23 years later. If the boy is sleeping, we do not wake him up.

And I almost did, because the other rule we have is "Don't Go Into Skippy's Room."

No one wants to see what's in there.

Well, I'm not stupid. Before I subjected myself to Grumpy Skippy, I went upstairs to do something I haven't done in a good long time:  Go through Hubby's drawers.

Some wives put away every one's laundry, but I don't come from that kind of stock. My mother washed, dried, sorted, and folded the wash and then put it on the stairs.  Now, if you were smart, like my father, you'd pick up your pile of laundry and carry it to your dresser or closet and put it away right away.  If you were dumb, like my brother and I, you would let it sit there, the pile getting bigger on Mondays and Thursdays (because that's when you do laundry.) You'd get what you needed, underwear, sports uniform shirt, whatever, from the pile, but you never actually MOVED the pile up to your room until it became so LARGE one of the parents would trip on it, sending all the clothes, and usually the parent, down the stairs in a flood of textiles and yelling.

I don't do that either because we live in a ranch and the stairs to the basement are narrow enough.  So I put them in COVERED laundry baskets  (because of Idiot #4) and that's where it all sits until they decide to get their clothes. And if the basket gets too full and Idiot #4 knocks the top off and drags their clothes around I'm not rewashing them.

My point is,  for the last 20 some years Hubby has put his clothes in his own drawers.  So today I went up there and looked in his drawers and it was in the third drawer I opened that I found the following:

The two shirts he was looking for.

On the top of the pile of shirts in the drawer.

With the logo right side out so you knew exactly which shirt it was.

And oh yes, did I mention the shirts were RIGHT AT THE TOP OF THE PILE?  Do you know I almost poked the bear to find these shirts and there they were...right at the top of the drawer, literally the last thing he tucked into that drawer yesterday when he put his laundry away.

Now, I don't know if that's a sign of old age or what, but I know I had a good chuckle. In fact, I laughed the whole time I sent him the above sentences in three texts.

And then...this happened.

Hubby texts back:  Thanks. I guess I'm in the blog...

Old age...BRING IT!

I HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THE BLOG!

Friends, I very nearly forgot that I have this beautiful, lovely blog where I can poke fun at myself and others for the amusement of you fine people.  

THAT is old age for sure!

Yikes!