Hubs got a new cell phone the other day. He spent the entire
evening getting it all set up, and he loved every minute of it.
I’m the exact opposite, and it drives Hubs crazy. Here’s how it usually works
when I get a new phone.
I’ll start whining about some aspect of my cell phone that
annoys me. Hubs will tell me about a new phone that supposed to be super
amazing and starts selling me on it. I’ll hem and haw and drag my heels, and
say no, my phone is fine. But then I’ll keep complaining about it, so then I will
finally cave and let Hubs do what he does best – research the latest technology
and then find a kick ass deal on that new technology.
I know I’m totally spoiled since I don’t even have to think
about these things, but Hubs really enjoys this stuff. In fact, I
think he gets an even bigger thrill out of finding the deal than choosing the
right cell phone.
A few days later, my new super amazing cell phone will arrive
in a shiny box. “You’re phone is here,” Hubs will say excitedly, in hopes that
I will open it. I imagine him hopping back and forth from one foot to the
other, clapping his hands, and saying, “Open it! Open it!” But he’s a 35
year-old man, so he doesn’t actually do that.
“Oh, great,” I’ll say with forced enthusiasm. “I’ll get to
it later.” And the box will sit on the counter for weeks with the packaging tape still intact. And every time Hubs
walks by that unopened box, a little part of him dies.
He’ll say, “Mel, are you ever going to open your phone?” Then
in my most noncommittal tone, I’ll say, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I will.” And like
a smart man who knows me well, he doesn’t buy it.
So why don’t I just open the damn box? Good question. I know
the new phone will be a vast improvement over my current phone, and once I get
everything set up on the new phone I will love it. But it’s the “getting it set
up” part that I dread. It’s so time consuming. I have to reinstall all of my
apps, reconfigure all the settings for all my apps, and redo all the shortcuts
to the apps. I have to login to all of my accounts. Then I have to reset all of
my alarms, ring tones and notifications. And bleh, bleh, bleh. Hubs loves all
that stuff, but it’s just not fun for me and definitely not how I want to spend
my limited downtime.
After going through this exasperating experience with me
several times over the years, Hubs has just started opening my new phones for
me when they arrive. “I’m going to start charging the battery for you,” he says.
Then even with the new phone charged and ready to go, I still let it sit on the
counter for quite a while before setting it up. I’m pretty sure this makes Hubs
start visibly twitching, so now he just starts the process for me. A few times
he hands me the phone so I can enter a password, but he pretty much did
everything else. See, I’m spoiled.
“Why do you care so much,” I asked him once, amused rather than
annoyed. “It’s not even your phone.” I admit, I find it kind of funny that it
drives him crazy.
Then suddenly I had the answer to my question when I
recalled a similar situation from many years ago with a former co-worker. A few
colleagues and I were walking over to the vending machine for an afternoon
pick-me-up, and my friend, Michelle, asked me if I would get a Reese’s Peanut
Butter Cup for her. When I brought it back, we chatted at her desk while we
enjoyed our treats. Then she did something that totally baffled me. She ate one
of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, wrapped up the other one in a napkin, and set it aside.
“Aren’t you going to eat that?” I asked her. “Of course,”
she said. “I’ll eat later.”
LATER?? WHAT?? That
totally did not compute in my brain. “How can you possibly have the willpower
to save that for later?”
She gave me the same amused look that I now give Hubs, the
one that says, “I really don’t understand why you care about this, but it I
find your mild aggravation wildly entertaining.”
So yeah, now it makes perfect sense to me why it bugs Hubs
when I won’t open my new phone right away. It’s his Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
