Read Online If It Was Easy, They'd Call the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon by Jenna McCarthy - Free Book Online

him, continuing with the folding. Three or four minutes later I realize he hasn’t hit the play button yet. If he is waiting for me to gaze meaningfully into the television set’s lifeless electronic eyes, he’s going to be there an awfully long time.
    “You know what? I think I’m just going to go read,” I say, because obviously boob-tubing is not something we were built to do as a team. He’s got the TV tuned to SportsCenter before I am even on my feet. Joe knows I can’t stand the sound of televised sports, so he courteously dons the headphones he gave me for Christmas one year (they were a mock gift because we both knew he’d be the one wearing them, and because he actually does wear them with loving regularity, they were the best gift he’s ever given me). From this point forward, any attempts to communicate with him are strictly prohibited. It’s hard enough for him to tear his attention away from the screen when he’s not wearing sound-canceling headgear. Should I dare to require his input or consideration then, there’s usually a great show of locating the remote and finding and pressing the pause button before he’ll look at me with a dramatic sigh, because clearly I should know that a man cannot watch, listen, and talk at the same time. When the headphones are in place, I could run through the room naked with my hair on fire and unless I stopped to smolder directly in front of the screen, my bare-assed pyrotechnic show would go entirely unnoticed.

“At Least You’re Not Married to Him”
    He can’t sleep without the television blaring, or more accurately he takes the position that he can’t sleep without the television blaring. Which is complete and utter bullshit because what is the first thing he does upon boarding a plane, sitting in the passenger seat of a car, watching a movie in the theater, or reading a book to his kids? You guessed it: fall asleep. Seriously, he is a strong sleeper. He sleeps deep and long but insists that the white noise and white light of the television remain on until he is into a solid REM cycle. So in order to keep the peace I do one of two things: One, attack him when I get into bed and insist he turn off the TV; or two, wait until he’s asleep and then turn the damn thing off myself.
    VICKY
     
     
    As frustrating as it may be to try to watch TV with my husband, it’s picnicking in Versailles compared to trying to watch it solo. I’m not saying that Joe is smarter than I am, or that he orchestrated this intentionally just so that I would never, ever watch TV of my own accord, but you need an advanced engineering degree to watch a simple sitcom in my house. I discovered this the hard way the first time Joe went out of town after having set up our high-tech new “home theater system.” (The one I still argue should have come with a popcorn maker or something useful and deserving of the name.) He made me diagrams and cheat sheets, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of them. It wouldn’t matter, he assured me, because if I got stuck, all I had to do was press the handy “help” button on the $400 universal remote and it would walk me right through any possible scenario. Turns out the professed “help” button isn’t so helpful if you’re the sort who gets lost trying to find the bathroom in Best Buy and you wouldn’t know a coaxial cable from a crossover conduit if your very life was riding on the correct answer.
    “Is the TV on?” the remote asks right off the bat. Already I am stumped. I study the TV. The screen is black but there’s a little light in the corner. Since “I’m not sure but I think so” isn’t an option, I hit YES.
    “Is the PVR on?” it wants to know.
    I’m sure it would help if I knew what a PVR was, but I don’t. I look around the media cabinet for something that says PVR on it, but I can’t find anything so I randomly select NO.
    “Is the AV receiver on? Is the video monitor set to output 6? Is the DVD/VCR set to input