Maybe He's Just Stupid

I had something I hoped was a realization this morning, and it was kind of funny. We had a fight on the way to take my husband to work. We were running a little late, and I needed both to stop for gas and to show our house guests where the bank was. I handed my phone to my husband and asked him to call our guests to give them directions to the bank since I was driving.

My husband sighed, looked at the phone as if he didn't understand how to work it, pushed some buttons randomly, and sighed again. Frustrated with his seeming incapacity, I took the phone from him hastily, opened it, and called our guests myself. My husband didn't like it that I took the phone from him so quickly, and I explained that I was trying to help and that we were hurrying to get him to work, so that's why I snatched it.

This is a lot of background for a silly story...

Anyway, after I dropped him off at work, I realized that I was really frustrated because his refusal to do the mental work to figure out how to find our guest's number in my phone contacts list is typical of his habit of mental laziness that I'm finding really frustrating lately...and I started thinking...what if it's not mental laziness? What if it's not a part of his addictive personality's spoiled, self-absorbed insanity? What if he's just kind of stupid?

What if he is actually incapable of picking up a phone and figuring out how to find a number? Just because I can figure out how to find a number in anyone's phone in about 15 seconds doesn't mean that he can...I'm really sharp, and I am constantly surprised by the things that demonstrate that I'm smarter than the average bear--you know? It really doesn't take too much to be more competent than most people.

So I started running with this theory--and it made me so happy! My husband isn't an asshole! He's just kind of dumb! I could deal with dumb! Dumb could be accomodated in a way that assinine, selfish, rude, and mean just can't. As I do in most situations, I tried to call Jeni and Meagan to confirm these theories, but neither of them picked up. So my mind continues constructing a whole new life where I help my husband compensate for his low IQ, where I stop expecting him to be able to do things that someone who isn't so sharp can't do, and where we live in peace and love forever.

Finally Jeni called me back, and within about 5 minutes we had deconstructed my new theory. He's too manipulative to be stupid.

Ahh well...I liked it for a moment...