Man status

If you are a woman and have been in a relationship with a man for any length of time you know what it is for your significant other to ask you for a certain object that they can't find only for you to find it in the first place you look.

The point of that last run on sentence? Men don't LOOK for things.

They walk into a room, stand in the middle and scan the area around them. They don't pick anything up and look under it. They don't get down on the floor and look under furniture. They don't take a moment to think about the last time they saw whatever it is they are trying to find. They give up after about 30 seconds of "searching" and then come ask you where it is.

I have experienced this to some degree with Andy. He's pretty good about keeping up with his stuff and to be honest we spend more time looking for my cell phone than anything else.

Until today.

This morning Andy got up and got ready for work. I was still in bed (like always) and he came in to kiss me and tell me goodbye.

Maybe five minutes later he came back in the bedroom and asked me if I'd seen his flip flops. No, I hadn't, but I suggested he look under the sofa.

He left and I didn't know if he found them or not. I didn't really care, they're his shoes after all.

Fast forward to lunch time.

He came home and I said, "Hey! How are you?" He said, "My toe hurts."

I laughed. A lot. What a silly complaint.

But I took the bait and asked him why his toe hurt. He told me he had stubbed it this morning when he went out to his truck, barefoot, to look for his flip flops.

My brain skipped right over the part about his skinned toe and to the part about looking for this flip flops because he had asked me about them earlier. I asked if he found them, though it was clear he hadn't because he was wearing his sneakers.

So I started to ask him questions about the flip flops.

Where did you last see them? I don't know!

Do you remember taking them off anywhere? No! I don't know!

When was the last time you wore them? I don't remember!

Well, Andy, they have to be around here somewhere. What could have happened to them?! They're missing! What did you do with my flip flops?! (I'm not exaggerating, he really did say that)

So I started to look for them. I started by looking under the sofa like I told him that morning. I suspected he hadn't actually looked there. Alas, the flip flops weren't there.

Then I took a second to ask myself where I usually see Andy's shoes. He likes to wear the flip flops around the apartment at night and often doesn't take them off until he gets in the shower or right before bed. So usually the flip flops are in the bathroom or next to our bed somewhere.

I knew they weren't in the bathroom so I went into the bedroom.

I walked around to his side of the bed. Every night Andy throws one of his pillows off onto the floor and last night was no exception. I looked by the bed and there was the pillow. I picked it up, and guess what?

His flip flops were there where he left them last night when he got in bed.

I laughed and then yelled to him:

Congratulations honey! You have reached full fledged man status! We should throw you a party tonight to celebrate!

At which point I walked into the kitchen and laid his precious flip flops at his feet.

He proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes telling me about how he hurt his hurt toe, showing me the injury, pointing out the small blood stain on his sock and emphasizing how much it hurt.

I had to restrain myself from pulling down my pants and showing him my bruise so we could compare war stories.