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As an engineer, my husband is paid to solve problems. He prides himself on his ability to assess, contemplate, and fix. I have to hand it to him; the man is REALLY good. His diagnostic skills are only surpassed by his work. The man can fix ANYTHING. Seriously. In our marriage he has fixed cars, dogs, cats, toilets, leaks, heat pumps, wiring issues, and virtually any computer crisis I have encountered. The man is a freakin’ genius, I tell you. Except for he has finally met his match. In me. When my husband met me, I was just fifteen. By fifteen I was already stark raving bonkers. Seriously, I was a crazy teen. The kind that they now cast in movies as goth-types with pierced noses who throw screaming angry fits for no reason. Only he met me in 1978 and so I was more a crazed Charlie’s Angel. Still crazy though. Back then he was not an engineer and had recently been accepted to attend the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Let’s just say I was not impressed. “I don’t even know what that is.” I said to him, flipping back my hair. I think he really liked my hair. So he put up with my crazy. We married after college and I WANT to say I stabilized, but I seem to remember a screaming crying fit I had after our first son was born where I took my lactating self to the streets of the officer’s quarters where we lived. I was not the perfect little officer’s wife. Recently, though, I have felt myself becoming increasingly crazy. I am, though fully certifiable, not a dummy. I know crazy, and her name is Kimra. Now, my husband, poor man, has decided that his duty as a husband is to “fix” me. I am one big problem and he thinks this is the motherload of problem solving.’ So as I continue to not sleep, have rants, get angry for no reason, he has taken it upon himself to find out the reason I am so nutso. And fix me if he can. “I have been doing some research into insomnia.” He told me, happily one evening last week. “And I think the reason is because you could be perimenopausal.” Did my head spin completely around on its stalk when he said that? I am pretty sure it did. I narrowed my eyes to the TINIEST slits and hissed like a snake. “What did you say?” “It’s not your fault, baby,” he said, hugging me tight. “It is the hormones. I read all about it.” Oh dear Lord the man was lucky that I could not reach a knife, scissors, nail clippers, or he would have been cut to ribbons. Perimenopausal? Me? Seriously? “I just feel so much better,” he continued, “because I kept thinking I was doing something to make you so crazy. But now I know YOU CANNOT HELP IT.” I was hearing him say these words all the while I was wondering how I could still get the insurance money if I killed him. Crazy? I think NOT! I finally found my voice. “If you EVER say that word again,” I seethed, “I am going to punch you as hard as I can.” (I have been working my arms so this is no idle threat) He hugged me again, giddy with delight that his diagnostic skills had once again been on the mark. “OK.” He said. And then, real quiet, under his breath, “I know you cannot help it.”
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