Time for a new plan.
Nick and I fight about three things: housework, sleep, and my Time magazine. I have had a subscription to Time for as long as I can remember. I read it from cover to cover every week, except for the Man of the Year issue. That one gets pitched immediately. Many years ago, I'd read the entire magazine the day I received it. After I married Nick, I handed it to him once I was finished. Once Jacob came along, I couldn't read the magazine that quickly. It takes me all week to get through it now, in 5 or 10 minute bits. And therein lies the problem.
Nick somehow manages to carve out entire hours of his days to read magazines. Once he makes it through his two subscriptions, he starts eying my Time like a vulture eyes carrion. As soon as I leave it defenseless, he swoops in. Then he takes it off to some secret hidey hole. Well, perhaps not so secret. He generally takes it into the bathroom, out onto the back stoop, or to a truly secret location. Later in the evening, I sit down with my tea and a cookie to and discover that my reading material is not where I left it.
I really don't mind sharing my magazine. What I mind is Nick's complete lack of understanding that it is my magazine. He can read it, but he needs to put it back where he found it. This is a tricky concept - this idea that things belong in certain spaces. If he wants to drop his own magazines all over the house, then that's his business. But I expect my magazine to be returned to me. And so the fight begins again.
In the past, I have threatened to buy Nick his own subscription to Time. It's an empty threat and I know it. Not only am I too cheap to shell out the cash for two subscriptions, I know that Nick will lose his own copy and steal mine anyway. On Monday, purple with rage after a 15 minute hunt, I wrote "PUT ME BACK! I DO NOT BELONG TO YOU!" in black marker all over the front and back of the magazine. Then last night, I saw it on the back of the toilet, which is most assuredly not where it belongs.
I think I'm going to start hiding it. I have the perfect location - near my chair but out of sight. Nick will be a little less informed of the world's affairs, but we'll be fighting about one less thing. It's really for the good of our marriage.
7 comments:
Can't you arrange it so he's a week behind you? Although it sounds like he burns through them pretty quickly.
Oh sure. He can have it when I'm finished. But not until then!
I quit subscribing to TIME because I don't have the TIME to read it. Hee. I crack myself up.
But you're right - you're going to have to hide it. LOL
Oh, are you singing my song!
Unfortunately, it isn't just my husband who borrows my things (which are always conveniently exactly where I have put them, i.e., where they belong), but my children do this too. My scissors, knives, spices, hairbrush, nail clippers, the athlete's foot medicine, hot water bottle, aspirin -- all of these and more are poached from where I have carefully placed them and then left wherever the hell the pincher feels like leaving them.
I've done everything I can do to get them to stop this, but no amount of begging, nagging or lecturing has any effect on them. Now I just hide the things I don't want misplaced and put up with their whining when they can't find them.
Oh yeah, that would really really get on my nerves too. That's the whole reason I bought Albin his own set of nail clippers and tweezers. Of course, like you said, he loses them and takes mine anyway.
Good pun, Heather! Dare I admit that I love a good pun? I even love a bad pun, honestly.
Ohmygoodness, Mary, I completely forgot that the children will steal my stuff! I might have to invest in a lockbox.
Kelly - Maybe if you buy some really girly grooming tools. I wonder if nail clippers come in pink?
I cannot disagree more with the statement that the magazine doesn't belong on the back of the toilet. That is where ALL magazines belong.
Here is my solution - place it on the back of the toilet and the only person allowed to move it out of the bathroom is you. So he will get to read bits of it as long as he's sitting on the throne, satisfying his need to hide somewhere and read it - and you will always know exactly where it is!!
I guess its easy for me to say - magazines never leave our bathroom. I am sure I have some Today's Parent magazines from 3 years ago. Its like a doctor's office in there. I read all of Serge's hunting and fishing magazines even though they're of zero interest to me, because I will read A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G on the toilet.
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