Where's the Superglue

I think I've found the secret to marriage.  The goal is to keep the other person amazed at the stuff you say and do.  For some reason, I seem to accomplish this with my husband.

For the most part, I'm reliable/responsible/steadfast and all those other boring qualities.  There's a small part, though, that seems to catch people off-guard.  I suppose it's the quirkiness, the random facts I toss into conversations, the crazy perspective I take when I'm talking about something with someone, being a devil's advocate, how I try to pull the stupid act when all else fails.  The better I know you, the more likely you are to hear crazy stuff from me.

So we were eating dinner on the floor a few days ago.  Yes, we eat dinner on the floor.  You haven't lived until you eat all your meals on a hardwood floor next to a plastic picnic table (welcome to meals with a toddler).  And I ask my husband where the Superglue is.  He tells me what drawer it's in.  Okay, thanks.  And then he just looks at me.  What?  He wants to know why I want the Superglue.  Of course he's probably thinking that I'll screw up the Superglue project and end up Superglue-ing an appendage to something, and he's trying to get the story straight in his head before he drags me to the emergency room.  It IS very likely that I'll screw it up because I have no hand-eye coordination.  But that's neither here nor there.  I just shrug my shoulders because I know it will make no sense to articulate it*.

In any negotiation when the two of us are on the same side, my poor husband just goes along with my antics.  And boy do I have antics.  I am a pretty good negotiator, and I get the job done.  However, there are lots of theatrics along the way interspersed with acting dumb.  My husband has faith in me that I have thought the whole darn chess game through and have a bottom line firmly in mind.  When I do my theatrical pauses, he knows I'm calculating things in my head.  My mental math is pretty good, and having a calculator by your side makes you appear weaker.  If I shake my head, the deal's off.  He trusts me.  And he'll recount all the crazy stuff I did after we get into the car, and I never know whether he's ashamed, amazed, or proud.

I have the same faith in him.  I'm more of the money person, and he's more of the values/ethical dilemma kind of person.  On some voting issues that I don't research as much as I should, I'll ask him which one I should vote for.  He'll give me the Reader's Digest version, and I'll take his advice. He's the voice of reason whenever I'm illogical.

Back when we worked together, there was a dispatcher who I didn't like.  She was one of those gossip-y people who would find out information from you, and then she'd use it against you with a different person.  Hey, I'm all for gossip, but usually I'm a fairly benign gossiper.  I just want to know what's going on, who is dating who, who likes who.  I try to keep most in confidence, and if I do spill, it's because I'm so excited about what I found out and then I only tell trustworthy people.  Well, this dispatcher used all her info to cause trouble.  One day when we were in the very early stages of dating, he was talking about something he told the dispatcher.  I said, "You told HER what?  Are you nuts?  She's the least trustworthy person in this place."  He looked at me like I was crazy at first.  Then I stated my case with a relevant example or two, and then I told him to watch every interaction with her very closely.  Within a week or two, he told me that he saw her stir up trouble in the same way I described.  I think I astounded him with my perceptiveness of other people, and I earned some street cred with him.  That psych major had to be useful for something, right?

But anyway, I think my husband finds me interesting.  He's the only person in this world that I think I can say that about.  I think he respects my opinions, and I keep him on his toes when I say crazy stuff.  And the feeling is likewise.  He has accurate perceptions about topics that I don't understand as well.  Since we have very different strengths, the whole system works well.  The main difference is that when he asks a random question like "Where's the Superglue?" I'm a tad more apt to figure out his ulterior motive than he is when I say it.  I enjoy being mysterious like that.

* My Superglue project: I checked out a book from the library, and the first 10 pages literally fell out of the book.  The library here is compulsive about their books, and they charge fines for everything.  So even though I didn't take the pages out of the book, I know it's likely that I'll get a fine for it.  My thinking was that if I Superglue the pages back in that I wouldn't get the fine for the pages.  It made sense in my head at the time.  When I type it out, it sounds a tad paranoid.  See?  I didn't want to sound paranoid to my husband despite the fact that I am paranoid.