But what is it called when you are simply irrational? I'm sure this is a disease state, a mental disorder akin to phobias. At least, I hope it's a disorder. Because if it's not, I'm just a horrible person with no regrets about being horrible.
Let me back up.
I married a very tall man. Long legs. Broad shoulders. Size 13 feet.
And you know what they say about men with big feet.
Yep. They have very large tonsils.
And large they are. I mean, if Indiana Jones ever saw them he'd think that boulder had finally found him. And they're not just big when he's sick. They're big all the time. Which means when he drinks anything, loud gulping noises issue from his throat like a flash flood in a Colorado canyon.
So here is where I become that vile, unapologetic, irrational person I intimated about earlier.
You see, I can't stand the gulping sound. When Husband gulps, I want to knock the glass from his hand and yank his overly large tonsils from his throat.
I know how repugnant I sound. I do. He can't change the fact that his enormous lymph tissue makes a glass of water burble like a hot tub. But I just don't care that he can't help it, which makes me sound even worse. So let's just go all Dennis Lehane and make a horrific tale even more horrific: I don't contain my hatred of the gulping. I have told him I hate it. I audibly sigh with frustration and visibly ball my fists when gulpfest goes down in my vicinity. I should not have ever relayed my suffering to this poor innocent man, but try as I might, I just can't hide how apoplectic I become when he consumes a beverage.
Husband, for his part, is completely nonplussed by my dislike of his gulping. Maybe he thinks this makes us even for my never-ending expositions on Star Trek. I don't know. For whatever reason, he doesn't apologize for or hide the lunar bodies that reside in his throat. Nor does he try to curtail the gulping. If I get to enjoy the size thirteens, I apparently have to deal with the whole package.
In my defense, I was not in control of my senses when my distaste bloomed. I was in my first pregnancy, carrying our beautiful Daughter, when I discovered Husband's gulping problem. It is my personal theory that being pregnant with a girl doubles the estrogen a woman is processing. And double the estrogen - at least for me - meant that all my sensibility went haywire. I mean as gone as Gillian Flynn's girl.
Poor Husband became the target of all my insensible rage. I spent nine months constantly incensed. I grouched at him. I refused to share a bed with him. I developed The Crumb Theory.
Oh, The Crumb Theory. To this day I am still ribbed - and riddled with guilt - over The Crumb Theory.
The basis of The Crumb Theory came from the crumbs that I would always find scattered across the kitchen counter long after I had wiped it down. I hate counter crumbs, which is nearly as stupid as detesting Husband's gulping. If you're going to have crumbs, shouldn't they - wouldn't they - be in the kitchen?
I would carefully wipe down the counter after dinner. And inevitably, later in the evening, I would find crumbs on that same counter. Again I would wipe down the counter. And later, maybe even the next morning, there they'd be again. This seemed to happen every day of the nine months I was pregnant with that kid.
My theory became that Husband, during food prep, would hoard into a baggie any crumbs produced. Then, in a dastardly plot worthy of any of Indy's arch rivals, Husband would wait until I had wiped down the counter. Once my counters were gleaming, he would produce the baggie and scatter the crumbs. Just to infuriate me.
That's The Crumb Theory.
Husband, of course, did none of this. But that's how off the rails I was, and he did slake his thirst in my pregnant presence. The gulping was auditorially pronounced in my overly-estrogened, under-boozed, under-caffeinated, under-sexed state.
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| Please don't take a drink. Please don't take a drink. Please.... |
I retained certain aversions I developed during my pregnancies. Yogurt. Duck. Husband's gulping.
Fortunately, large tonsils are hereditary. And dominant. Both of my kids have large tonsils that - yes - cause them to gulp when they drink.
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| That's Daughter's enormous tonsil on the right. Do you know how people have screened her for some sort of disease? |
So now I'm an even worse person because my children - my sweet, innocent, cherubic children - make me want to jam pencils in my ears to drown out the noise. You don't know mommy guilt until you realize you're Googling "how to ground a kid for having large tonsils." It's horrid.
And of course, all three of my family members - Husband, Daughter, and Son - know that the gulping sound makes me loonier than Mr. Carroll's Hatter. And so, when we eat together, they will, occasionally, coordinate their gulping. Intentionally. And giggle and snort at my poorly hidden frustration.
Which makes it easier to hate.
And love.
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