Selective Hearing

I don't hear so good anymore.  At least that's what I think.  SM on the other hand thinks that I tune him out...That I'm just not paying attention to him anymore. 

I think he mumbles when he talks and for some reason he's always in another room talking to me when I'm busy in a different room with some chore that happens to be making it's own noise.  "Seriously, I can't hear you when the washing machine is running and I'm sorting clothes!"

This week a funny thing happened.  

For about a week now, when I'm in our master bathroom, I've been hearing water running under the house.  Like a pipe that's burst or a toilet running.  Flowing water. 

SM came into the bathroom to chat with me Tuesday morning while I was getting ready to go to work.  He's sitting on the tub.  I'm putting my makeup on.

"Do ya hear that?"  Me

"What?"  SM

"That!  There's water running under the house."  Me

"No.  That's the neighbors swimming pool filter."  He gets up and opens the bathroom window.  We both stick our heads out the window and fall silent listening.

"No, it's under the house."  I say, visions of massive water damage dancing in my head.  "Can't you go under the house and take a look?"

"You're hearing things.  Besides I've got to get to work myself."  SM says clearly not concerned.

Two more days go by until SM finally decides to go under the house Thanksgiving morning.  Mostly because I've pestered him into it and he's tired of me nagging about it.  "I'll never hear the end of it until I go check it out.  Geez!"

Flashlight in hand, SM makes his way into the creepy spider filled underbelly of our house.  I'm at the opposite end of the house in the kitchen fixing T-day dinner when the dogs start barking and I hear SM pounding the floorboards trying to get my attention.

I go outside, dogs barking and jumping, and hear him yelling for me.  "Yeah, I'm here."  I holler inside the crawl space door. 

"Get me (such and such a clamp, nylon thingie)".  SM hollers back. 

Like I'm actually going to find this gizmo.  I leave the potatoes boiling on the stove and wander into the garage, the back of his truck, the minivan looking for this "thingie" he wants thinking to myself this would be WAY easier if he'd just crawl back out and find it himself.

"This is why women do women's work and men do everything else..."  I mutter to myself.  I finally admit defeat.  "I can't find it (the thingie)."  I holler back into the black underbelly of the house.

"Fine.  How about some duck tape."  Now that I can find!

I toss the roll of tape somewhere in the vicinity of where he's at and head back into the kitchen.  (I'm not ruining my T-day dinner!)

SM eventualy emerges from under the house.  He's dusting himself off on the back porch and comes walking into the kitchen.

"Good Year."  He says.

"What?" I respond.

"Good Year."  He says again not 5 feet from me.  In my head I'm thinking what the hell does this have to do with Good Year Tires?

"Good Year????"  I say clearly confused.  SM  busts out laughing.  He takes another step towards me and says very slowly and loudly...

"GOOD E-A-R."

"Oh."

My lightbulb comes on as SM is laughing his ass off.  I smile sheepishly.  (He's telling me that I was right.  There WAS a leak under the house.)

SM is shaking his head, laughing.  "How can you hear a tiny trickle, a drizzle of water really...squirting from underneath the house...and you can't hear me talking to you, standing 2 feet away from you..."  He wanders away snorting.

This is a true story.

You be the judge...(Personally I think I've been married too long.  SMs become background noise.)