Having known my husband for over four decades, and married to him for nearly 37 years, I thought we were completely in sync on many things.  The things in which we are not in sync are typically well known to us and not an issue.  For example, we are only partially in sync about watching college football on Saturdays. I will watch, avidly, the Ohio State game.  Then, I will move out of sync with my dearest and allow him to watch a number of other games.  Meanwhile, I read, work jigsaw puzzles, or shop. None of these activities wow my hubby, so we are delightfully in sync about being out of sync.

               Now what I mean by “in sync” is that we almost always understand exactly what the other person wants or needs. We’ve just had so much practice that he knows when I ask “what do you want to do for dinner tonight?” in a certain tone of voice, that what I’m really saying is “please take me out.”

               I know when he says, “Can you help me for five minutes?” that I need to clear at least a half hour from my schedule.  When he says he’d like me to help on a project for a “couple hours,” I clear the entire day.

               When we go to a play or movie, we always take the car.  When we go antiquing, we always take the truck.  If it’s time to winterize our home or prepare garden beds, we rarely have to confer about when to do it.

               That’s why yesterday caused us to laugh so hard at ourselves we were nearly late.  We were so convulsed in hysterics that neither of us could move for many minutes.

               You see, we were supposed to go to a meeting at our church at 8:30 a.m.  I had promised to babysit our grandson at 10:45.  When we looked at the calendar together about a week ago, I said, “Oh we might as well drive separately.  Then I can leave if I need to and you can stay until the end.”

               The plan was firmly cemented in both our minds.  Then two days ago, my grandson’s mom texted me to say she had misspoken about the date of her dentist appointment.  It wasn’t on the day of our meeting, so there was no time frame, but could I still come over afterwards and play?  Of course, I agreed, and it was nice not to have a time limit.

               So yesterday, we gathered our keys, phones, masks, and my purse and headed out to the garage.  I had to move several items off my front passenger seat, and two boxes of things out of the back seat that needed to go into the house. As I was doing that, and not really paying attention, Matt went over to his truck.

               Finally, I got everything squared away, opened my garage door, and slipped into the front passenger seat.  Meanwhile, Matt had opened his garage door, and had his truck fired up.  He began to back out and looked over at me, sitting calmly in the front passenger side of the car.

               I looked over at him, and immediately had a puzzled look on my face.  “What are you doing?” I mouthed.

               He put down his passenger window, and called, “What are you doing?”

               In his head, the plan to drive separately hadn’t changed. But in my head, there seemed no point in driving separately when I didn’t have to rush out.  So there we sat, in separate vehicles, staring stupidly at each other.

               That’s when the absurdity hit us and we laughed so hard and so long that we were very nearly late for the meeting. 

               Occasional out-of-step behavior does make for a good belly laugh.

My phone and I are engaged in a war, one that has been raging for several years now.  While this is (at this point), a non-violent conflict, I consistently lose every battle.

               First there’s the health app.  This came with my phone and keeps track of my daily activity. It will record my steps, the number of flights of stairs I climb, and tell me if my gait is fast, symmetrical, and evenly paced.  All this information is available to me completely free!  All I have to do is carry the phone with me, on my person, to get an accurate reading.

               It can’t be in my purse or in the cart at the grocery store.  It has to be either in my hand or in a pocket on my clothing.  Since I need my hands for a variety of other tasks, I usually slip the phone into a back pocket.

               Not a great idea.  Either my phone hates me (and this is the choice that I really believe), or my body is designed so that my derrière is able to open the phone, make calls, and send text messages.  Hence, when I’m walking up the stairs, I’m often calling people or texting them strange symbols.

               This is embarrassing enough when it’s my husband or son, but when it’s people I know only through work or church, it’s downright humiliating.  Then I have to text or call them back to explain that, well, I’m an idiot.  Because I am sure they will not believe the truth – my phone hates me.

               The other day (and this has happened numerous times), my hubby and I were driving home from dinner and I kept saying “What’s that noise?”  We thought it was the car behind us, or that there was something malfunctioning in his radio.  Then he suggested I check my phone – the phone I had carefully placed into my purse without touching any part of the little switches.

               Naturally, the phone had turned on the Instagram app, and was playing something called “reels.” While I have noticed “reels” as an option, I’ve never deliberately selected any to watch. 

               So, without me poking any icons or buttons, the phone just opened up Instragram and selected reels.  Last night, the reel it selected had strange music and showed scary, dangerous roads and people speeding around them.  So I’m trying to figure out what the sounds are in the truck – and it’s me! (well, my phone).

                Speaking of going to dinner, we went to a place we often frequent.  We go there so often that I scanned their bar code a few months back to earn points toward free food.  It seemed relatively simple, but of course, since I added that app, we’ve gone there three times and I’ve forgotten to scan the bar code on the receipt.

               So the last time we went, I was intent on getting our points onto the app.  When we got our check, I whipped out my phone and took a picture of the barcode.  Nothing.

               So, I read the little paragraph on the receipt.  Ah!  You have to open the app and scan the bar code.  I opened the app and saw that it gave me several options.   Locations, menu, rewards, redeem, and info were those options.  Nowhere did it give me the option to “scan.” 

I took another picture, but that didn’t do anything.

               I took a video of the bar code.  Nothing.

               Finally, I took my receipt up to the desk and paid, asking the lady to show me how to scan the bar code.  She said, “Oh, just give me your phone number,” which I did.  She entered it and the points popped up on my app.  But that didn’t exactly help me understand how to scan myself.

               It wasn’t until I was in the car when I realized that if I had swiped up, I would have seen a little icon that said “scan.”  Geez.  Funny, phone, you got me.  Swipe up, eh?  I’ll swipe you, allright!  I’ll take you out and….

               Sorry.  I’m just not a good loser.  But I live in hope that one day I will outsmart my phone.  Or at least know how to use it correctly.

My husband and I are big Ohio State football fans.  Typically, we watch the games on Saturday together in our family room.  Occasionally we are actually at a stadium either here or away.  It’s always a great day, although better when we win, of course.  For forty years now, I’ve not had too much of a problem keeping the games straight.

               Let me pat myself on the back for a second to mention that this – keeping the games straight – is no easy feat.  Because while I only care about and watch the Ohio State game, my husband watches every Big Ten game that is on television and at least one or two others.  Because, as he can explain much better than I, these games have some impact on Ohio State’s ratings and future game outcomes.  Or something like that.

               This means that during timeouts, commercials, and before or after games, the remote is hotly used to switch to a variety of other games to “check out the scores.” And, as I say, for forty years, I’ve kept up admirably.

               That came to a screeching halt a couple of Saturdays ago.  It was Ohio State’s homecoming game and they were playing the Maryland Terrapins.  Our colors are scarlet and gray.  Maryland’s colors are red and something else.  We were wearing red and they were wearing white.

               Meanwhile, Nebraska, wearing white was playing at Minnesota, whose team was decked out in a brownish color.  But the Nebraska fans were largely wearing red, since that’s their other color.

               So before our game started, my husband was switching back and forth to the Nebraska game.  Red and white.  Both games.  All over the field and in the stands. Meanwhile, I was texting on my phone.

               I looked up at the television screen and remarked, “Gosh, there’s a lot of red in the stands.”  My husband smiled and said, “Of course, it’s our homecoming.”  To which I replied, “But isn’t that Nebraska?”

               He looked at me oddly for a second and said, “Well yes, but their colors are red and white.”

               After watching a few more seconds, I said, “Wow, isn’t that great?  We brought the band to the game!”

               That really did get me a strange look.  “Of course the band is there,” he replied.  “It’s our stadium.  We’re at home.”

               Naturally, this would have been more easily deciphered if I hadn’t been texting and looking at my phone periodically.  Because of this, I wasn’t noticing when he changed channels – which apparently he was doing every four or five seconds. 

               That’s when the short-term recall and the general blonde ditziness really came to a peak.

               “I’m puzzled,” I said, staring stupidly at the television.  “Usually it says ‘Ohio State’ in the end zone.  Why did they put ‘Minnesota’ on there this week?”

               That really did get me a totally bizarre look.  Plus hand gestures indicating I had delved deeply into the dumb zone.  “This is Nebraska- Minnesota,” he said with a slightly exasperated tone. “What aren’t you getting?  This is our homecoming.  We’re at home.  Playing Maryland.”

               With that, he changed the channel to the important game.  I was no longer confused.  And if I was – well, I certainly wasn’t going to ask a question or make a comment.  I just watched us win. And I believe I may have seen Minnesota win, as well.  But not going to ask that, either.

               It’s not unusual for any household to have the occasional mishap.  Things get lost, broken, or used incorrectly all the time.  But this week, we’ve had a number of these occasions that have led me to walk around on eggshells. Not literally, but you know what I mean.

               It all started with the piano stool. It’s an older stool that we had placed in front of a vintage upright grand piano that belonged to my husband’s great-great grandmother. Or great-great aunt.  Well, somebody in his family long, long ago.  It’s really pretty and it’s also incredibly huge.  We took it so that no one would burn it or throw it away, but we already had two pianos – the one I bought in my 20’s and the one my husband’s mom left us when she passed away.  So three pianos being two too many, we gave the upright grand to our niece.  Then this week, we discovered the piano stool that always sat in front of it.

               No problem, I thought.  We’ll pass that along, as well.  But before we did that, I decided to sit on it to see if it was a bit better than the bench we use on Mom’s piano. 

               It may have been better at one time, but we’ll never know.  The stool collapsed in about six pieces the minute I tried to sit on it.  Thankfully, I had not placed my full weight on the stool and was able to quickly stand upright, so the pieces fell to the floor but I did not.  These pieces are now up at the burn pile.

               Then a few days later, we decided to clean out the basement.  Two hundred Ball jars later (and I’m not exaggerating), I had boxes and boxes of jars in the kitchen to wash.  Several dozen of these were so damaged that they could not be cleaned or saved.  We managed to clean and box 70 for a dear friend who cans, and 60 for a niece who cans, and saved about 20 for ourselves (in case I ever find myself wanting a terribly hot hobby that results in yummy food). 
               Of course, it wouldn’t be normal for me to wash a lot of glassware without breaking a piece.  I did, in fact, only break one jar, and in cleaning it up, naturally I cut my finger.  The tip of a finger, which meant keeping a bandaid on it was nearly impossible.  But, it healed in a day or two.

               My husband cleaned the whole house three days later.  I will never complain about this in any way – it’s amazing and I love that he does this!  In cleaning the downstairs bathroom, he placed the scale in the shower to clean the floor.

               To be fair, the scale hasn’t really weighed accurately in several years, so it’s not a big prize in our house. 

               And it was I who turned on the shower without looking and drenched the scale. 

               Now the scale weighs incredibly inaccurately.  Or it doesn’t if I gained ten and a half pounds overnight.  The one thing I do not need in my life is a scale that weighs heavy. Nobody needs that kind of stress.

               So, if these things come in threes, then our household mishaps should be over – at least for a while!