Respect Me. Don't Touch My Shit.

I don't ask for much from Puff. But I do have 2 major rules for The Bungalow:

1) If there are guests coming, the house needs to be cleaned & picked up
2) If there are guests, they are not to touch anything on our shelves... especially children

One recent Saturday, we had friends in town with their kids. Except, I was stuck working 10 hours. Puff and I discussed what their plan was for the beautiful sunny day and he promised me that they were NOT coming to the house. This was a total relief, since I had worked 15 hours the day before and 13 the day before that. I didn't have time to worry about the house being presentable. After my long day, I called Puff and found out they were still downtown. I was so ready to throw myself into bed and nap the afternoon away. Except, when I turned down our street, I saw our friend's car in our driveway.

Uh oh.

I immediately called Puff who reassured me they just met in the driveway to consolidate cars. Since he's my husband, I trusted him. I was so thankful too, since the house was a mess. A sweater I had washed was still laying on a table to dry. There was a jacket thrown over the back of a dining room chair. The blanket in the living room wasn't folded. And there were pj pants laying next to the bed. Totally embarrassing! Except then I noticed a glass on our dining room table that we don't normally use. And I knew he had lied about them being in the house. My blood started to boil and the disappointment in his lies made me sigh. Oh... but then I rounded the corner into the living room and saw my replica of Texas Stadium sitting on the coffee table. And that's not where it lives.

The total and utter rage that spread from my toes to my ears was unbearable. I raced to my cell phone. Not only had he broken BOTH rules I have about the house, but then he flat out lied to me about it. He basically blew me off on the phone and didn't think he did anything wrong. That made me even more mad. Of course, I was so mad that I couldn't get to sleep and sat there and stewed for 2 hours before he finally came home. I battled myself on how to confront him, or if to even confront him at all, but there was no choice. He had to know how disappointed and upset he made me.

The letting people in the house, was really a minor offense. I could have even ultimately forgiven him about lying to me about it. Had that been the end of the story, we would've made up by the end of the night and moved on. The thing I was having trouble with was his total disregard for my personal property. What he fails to comprehend is that when I moved into The Bungalow, I basically got rid of anything and everything that didn't have real sentimental value to me. Our house is too small for random knick knacks. So every bit of memorabilia that I have on display is 10,000% irreplaceable. And I just couldn't look past the fact that my ill mother had searched to find me that stadium replica, when it's so hard for her to shop (or do anything for that matter) and I just burst into tears thinking how my heart would've been totally crushed had it been broken.

After some choice words were exchanged, we sat in silence and watched TV, while I honestly had to tell myself that punching him in the face was a bad idea. Eventually, I went to bed, with a note in the back of my mind that I would need to re-learn to trust Puff, but was hopeful it would happen quickly and easily. Except around 3:30am, I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. And in the frustration of total exhaustion, my mind went right back to the entire situation and I tossed and turned, getting madder and madder. No, nothing had gotten broken, but what would he have done if the hand-carved cross from Ireland would have fallen and shattered to pieces? What would he have done if the plate we bought in Mexico on our honeymoon would have gotten broken? What would he have done if they walked off with the surfer I have from my my trip to Hawaii, which was the last trip I took as a family with my biological parents?

He couldn't have done ANYTHING to make it right. I'm just grateful it didn't come to that. And hopefully he'll realize his mistake and never, ever, make it again.

I just know that when I was a child, if I touched anything without asking in someone else's home, I would've gotten scolded and probably spanked. The total disregard for my wishes and the total disrespect for me and my things is just hard to stomach. Especially from the man I love.