“You’re going to lose the house!”
It was a statement, not a question. Howled into the phone at tremendous volume, the kind of volume you are liable to believe.
Except that we’re not going to lose the house. Yes, we were both laid off within two days of each other. Yes, it is an unfortunate event. Yes, unemployment is up, the economy is in the toilet and lots of other bad stuff. And if we hadn’t just disconnected the cable, I might have more dire statistics. But as it is, I mostly just have this one: We are both at home and loving it.
Andy had just told his mother about the layoff when she shrieked the house announcement. He tried to calm her, but she stayed in a high-speed wobble over the news for the rest of the conversation. And as she called most of the relatives over on that side to relay the news and beg people to find her son and his wife a job. Because the house is in jeopardy, you know.
All this as we basked in the glory of sleeping in, wearing PJs all day and fussing with projects around the house that we’ve been putting off. In effect, we are retired. And loving it.
Yes, we know we can’t live off the government dole forever. Yes, we’re going to get tired of watching Hulu instead of a real TV with a remote. And of course, we are looking on all the major job sites. But for the time being, we are luxuriating in our newfound availability to run errands at 10am instead of 6pm.
In fact, we’ve been luxuriating a little too much. We only just started going to the gym again, and even now, it is sporatic. I think I’ve got myself on track by promising myself that if I get to the gym by 4pm I can watch Oprah on their TVs. Hulu doesn’t have Oprah. This is a big incentive.
I also promised myself I would write myself silly with all the free time I was going to have while unemployed. This thought buoyed me though the layoff at the office, signing all the papers to get my paltry severance check, the driving around in order to make my separation from the company official. All this I did with a smile just thinking about writing.
And what do I have to show for it? Zip. Apparently Hulu is more time consuming than I expected. Oh, and all the wine. There’s some lost time there too.
But in actuality it seems all day is just not enough time for me to get all my activities done.
Getting dressed in the morning is a significant roadblock. First I have to decide to what level I am getting dressed. Full makeup or half? Hair washed, moussed and tressed out, or a pony tail? Pants with a zipper or elastic waist?
Husband an I are seeing a lot of each other. A lot. Like we are finishing sentences for each other. My husband spends a lot of time in rooms that I am not in. If I move closer to him he finds a reason to scoot out and do something on the other end of the house. Sometimes we just end up looking at each other. We spend a lot of time talking about the cats.
At some point one of us is going to stab the other in the head over something very important, like the “Did you lock the back door?” conversation we have every time we leave the house. Every flipping time. Not sure if the stabbing will happen because I forgot to lock it again or because he asked again, but know this, if we are stuck here with each other for another month or so, it will happen.
But we won’t have lost the house.
FaithieP Online 