"Darling, have you seen the tape measure? It was by the fridge."
"No."
"Are you sure you haven't moved it? I definitely remember seeing it there."
"No, I haven't moved it. Have you looked in the kitchen drawer?"
The kitchen drawer was the first place I'd checked. It's directly below the work surface where I'd seen the tape measure and where it normally resides.
"Yes, it's not there. You definitely haven't moved it...?"
"No, I haven't touched the tape measure! Why do you always blame me when things go missing?"
The conversation was starting to get a bit heated at this point.
"Because you're always the one who moves things to places I can't find them and I'm sure I didn't move it!"
So as not to rile my wife even further, I resigned myself to go hunting for the bloody thing. First of all I rechecked the kitchen drawer, just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind and it was there all along. No luck. Next I checked the dining room sideboard. Not there either. Maybe it had found its way into the toolbox? Nope. What about the drawers in our bedroom? Zilch.
In the end I searched every room in the house but to no avail and by now my temperament was definitely becoming Fawltyesque, though there was one place I hadn't looked...the garden shed. Now a search of our garden shed is not to be undertaken likely. All manner of sharp implements wait to impale the unwary, but off up the garden path I went, muttering all sorts of expletives along the way...and guess what, no sign of the wretched thing (though no serious bodily harm done either).
Back to the kitchen I go, contemplating a trip to B&Q, and what scene awaits me on my return...? My wife with tape measure in hand and a smug look on her face.
"Well you didn't look very far."
No, just over the entire bloody house.
"Where was it?"
"Under this pile of washing."
The pile of washing in question was about 2 feet from where I'd seen the tape measure.
"Why'd you put it there?"
"Well I must have moved it while I had the washing in my hands." Said with no hint of remorse.
"So why didn't you just put it back in the drawer which would have been the logical thing to do?"
By trying to understand my wife's actions, my brain at this point started to experience a divide by zero error. This often occurs during our arguments, and at these times I often think of the quote from As Good as It Gets where Jack Nicholson, who plays an author, is asked by a fan "How do you write women so well?", to which he replies "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability!".
Anyway, here comes the killer rebuke...
"Well if you did the washing, then I wouldn't have had to move it at all!"
Damn it. No matter what the argument, it always comes down to being my fault for not doing my fair share of the housework. There's maybe a grain of truth in that statement, but in my wife's eyes gardening (of which I do it all) is classed as a hobby and so doesn't count towards my share.
But the true lesson of this tale is not to argue with your wife, you'll never win. Unfortunately, it's a lesson that I'm still in the process of learning.
