The Sneeze

Something awful happened to me last night. I was sitting at my desk with less than 5 minutes left of work. As usual, I was wearing my yoga pants and a tank top with no undergarments of any kind. The awful thing that happened… I sneezed. 

Despite years of kegel exercises, being a woman who has given birth the old fashioned way, bad things can happen when you sneeze, or cough, or laugh unprepared. I didn’t feel it coming, so the requisite crossing of legs, bracing of muscles, etc didn’t happen. Yes, I peed my pants. This wasn’t a little, embarrassing spot in my panties; I wasn’t wearing any. This was, wet pants and a spot on my chair. I wanted to curl up and die. The only upside was the fact that I had reached a safe time so that I could ensure I wouldn’t have to take any more phone calls for the night.

Being the time of the evening that The Mr. gets my attention, he had just walked into the room. I was holding back tears and had lifted my chair cushion up to air out but still hadn’t logged out of work. He looked at me confused and asked what had happened. The ‘sneezing unprepared causes bad things’ thing is something he had never heard of.”So, every time you sneeze, you have to cross your legs or you pee?”

I knew I was being overly sensitive, as the stress of my schedule change has caused a major increase in ‘Crazies’ this week. That said, his remark that he needed to use the bathroom before I got in the shower and ‘pee IN the toilet’ caused a full-blown meltdown. I became a toddler who had just failed at potty training. 

He stayed in the bathroom while I showered, brushing his teeth and making small talk. I woke up this morning and aside from the laundry I couldn’t let sit one more day, I had tried to forget about it and move on with my day. I poured my coffee, sat down to the usual Facebook and saw that the Mr. had changed his profile picture. Rather than the kilt shot from St. Patty’s Day, he had the picture of himself standing by an official sign looking all serious-faced. I teased him about it in a comment then kept scrolling. He had also changed his cover photo to this:

I lost my shit right then and there. 

No, not literally, the coffee had not taken effect just yet!

We had been chatting about an upcoming concert and dissecting the reality verses idea of taking off work on a Monday night to see 2 of my favorite bands from my angst-ridden teenaged years. I said, “Nice cover photo.” 

He all but ignored my comment, and when I brought it up again he said he’d totally forgotten about the night before and was pretty much clueless as to why I was upset. 

We continued the conversation and eventually I was able to dam the flow of crazy, start dinner and clean house for a bit. But I couldn’t let it go. I was turning over and over in my head the possibility that this would be the thing we would have our first real fight over. I wondered if this was the first glimpse of an inner-asshole he was harboring that I had never seen so much of a glimpse of. I fantasized about putting his hand in a bowl of warm water the next time he fell asleep in his recliner as revenge. 

Another hour passed and I brought it up again. I told him, “I have to tell you, I'm still stewing over the cover photo thing. Trying to not take it personally, but... I've gotten past the crazy. Just motivated now.”

He started off with, “Huh? So confused!”

“Your cover photo after what happened to me last night. You SERIOUSLY forgot? Because I was fucking mortified over it… Can you see why it might strike me as slightly dickish?” 

“oh...I forgot what it was that I even put up there.....Had to go look at it again. Grr....foot tastes bad.”

And then my Prince Charming emerged in full force. “Pictures, plural, changed.” 

He had taken down the ‘Mr. Serious Face by a Government building’ photo and replaced it with one of the two of us on the way to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The picture of himself in full-on Dr. Frank-N-Furter Drag, fishnets and my corset. He also changed the cover photo to the group shot from the night.

I told him, “Smiling LOTS right now... but I totally understand if you don't leave that up long.”

His reply, “Hehe...fuck it. Fuck it all.”

I am so in love with that man! And I am so wearing underwear during working hours from now on.