Jackie Wells-Fauth
The seasons have rotated at our house, as they do every year. Oh, I don’t mean we’ve moved from winter to spring; no, no. At our house, we rotate from tax season to marriage reality season. And sometimes the adjustment to having the other partner around much more can be tough on us both.
Being married to an accountant, I have always known that tax season can be rough. It is Roy’s season to shine, but it requires quite as many hours in the day as a farmer at the height of harvest. And since it lasts for several months, I have a tendency to slip into a somewhat slip-shod, self-centered, single mode of living.
During tax season, laundry only has to be kept up so there is a reasonable amount of underwear and clean dress clothes available. No need to wash all those pesky everyday clothes, since they are not likely to be used right now. They accumulate in a pile behind the washer and Roy is too busy wearing business clothes to the office to notice.
And during tax season, it is possible to be very lax on what passes for a meal—it’s consumed so fast and in such a state of distraction, that I believe I could serve peanut butter sandwiches and Milk of Magnesia and it wouldn’t cause comment—at least until the Milk of Magnesia kicked in!
I get very used to my television during tax season as well. I adore my re-runs of Monk and Murder, She Wrote and every feel good, snot-inducing, sentimental overload movie there is. And there is no one in the house (who is awake) to make gagging noises and rudely mock the main characters (Roy does an imitation of Jessica Fletcher which would be amusing if it weren’t so annoying). But during tax season, Jessica finds the killers without the running, derisive commentary from the accountant.
Tax season, however, has faded into the season, which I like to call marriage reality season. This is where we remember that there are two of us in the house and our views on living with another human being don’t always jive. Take the other night; I really wish someone would!
Roy came home all excited. “I’m going to fix that water head in the toilet and hang the new curtain in the kitchen, but before that, I’m going to go out and mow and fertilize the lawn.”
“Maybe you should pace yourself,” I respond. “You don’t want to run out of fun too quickly.”
“I am ready for something besides taxes,” he says, rubbing his hands together as he stands before the dresser, searching through the clothes. “Where is my green plaid shirt? You know, the one I wore when I spackled the basement? I want to use that to work in the bathroom.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s clean,” I remark, kicking it further into the pile behind the washer.
“But I spackled the basement last fall,” he protests.
“Exactly, what was the rush? And while we’re at it, the kitchen and the bathroom are none too clean right now. I was meaning to get at that this month, but I was distracted.”
“By the frozen pizza we’re having for supper?” he said, checking the oven. I think he was trying to make some point there, but I refused to get it. So, he became more direct. “There’s a lot of hamburger in the refrigerator, maybe you should use that up first?”
“I had a busy day,” is my excuse. “And I don’t need you to be a back-seat driver when I’m cooking.”
“Jessica Fletcher and Monk too busy repeating their accomplishments finding the criminals?” he asked, adding sarcastically, “Or maybe you spent the day using up kleenix over the Hallmark channel. By the way, the timer’s going off on the pizza. Looks like a gourmet meal tonight.”
When I next went into the living room, he was not watching Murder, She Wrote, or Columbo. No sir, he was flipping the television back and forth between the Timberwolves, who are just getting ready to wrap up their basketball season and the Twins, who are just getting started on the baseball grind. Nothing in anything he was watching made me think, “Aww, what a fun evening of television we have ahead!”
Yes, indeed, the seasons march forward. And when I am in the midst of marriage reality season, cooking actual meals and washing all of the clothes every week, to the background sounds of a Twins game gone wrong, I always wonder, “What was it about tax season I didn’t like, again?”
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