Not a Fan

 Today is the big Superbowl game. 

I am not a big football fan. 

Usually, we take turns hosting another couple but we disconnected from our television server and we no longer get the game. We generally go to their house, share a meal that we alternate cooking and the guys watch the game. Sometimes, his wife and I might watch a bit of it too, but last year, we just visited. 

This has been just such a high stress time, keeping Tim contained after his surgery, dealing with a grumpy man who may or may not have wanted to listen to good sense. That is isolating and lonely. Christmas. The drains. Nothing huge, but just a succession of things that made it impossible to feel as if I'm 'on top of it all'. 

Does that make sense?

Anyways, the husband is a talker. He's not a bad person, but he is opinionated and he likes to hold forth on his opinions. Loudly. Clearly. "I'm going to tell you something..." 

He is not a bad man. Really, he's not. 

But he's an expert on everything, even when he is not. I wanted to wring his neck last fall when he explained to Tim that his surgery was 'nothing', and he'd had it. He hadn't. He'd had a TURP, something that is a completely different procedure for a completely different condition. He was the one who called me to get information on Tim, speaking in a comforting soothing voice, asking for predictions on a future that was not, at the time any way all that clear. His questions were intrusive but wrapped in a veil of concern. I told him then that he was not being helpful which seemed to come as a surprise to him. 

Now, we are in the middle of this drain issue, and his response was an airy, 'Well, look at it this way: your drains will be all new." 

Great. 

While we are happy about that, we're a bit unhappy about the fact that this is going to cost thousands of dollars and (to borrow a phrase) "I'm going to tell you something:" the drains were perfectly fine before all this and we have a long held philosophy in this house: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

Tim was a bit aggravated by the comment and just quietly excused himself and came home, but when he told me about it, he was irritated, because his friend is a man who is given to great gnashing of teeth when he has a problem. 

After thinking about it, I asked Tim if he still intended to go to their house to watch the game. He decided that he would.

I bowed out. 

I try very hard to be patient, but I have a harder time being patient when I'm emotionally depleted. And I am. I'm at low ebb, and have been struggling since last fall. I just felt like I did not want to be around this man. 

He is not a bad man, I want to make that clear. 

In any case, I decided not to go. I just don't want to go. I will stay home and watch some benign comedy on television. Or maybe quietly read with a cat on my lap.