"Oh crap, it's the police."

As many of you know, my husband and I don't get to spend a lot of time together. The first six years of our relationship was long distance. The next two I worked 50 hours a week and went to graduate school while he chased Monica Lewinsky, Ken Starr and other Washington players down with his camera for multiple news agencies. Then we got married, and he obtained full-time employment with United Press International (where the news never stopped, not even for holidays, birthdays, anniversaries or blizzards) and I spent my time working for a foundation for journalists that worked under similar expectations (although they paid much, much better and had no problem with comp time for weekend assignments).

Then we moved here when we discovered no one had been tending the "marriage" garden. He still traveled all the time, only now for Apple. And I stayed home working one temporary, part-time job after another so I could get some quality marriage time on his schedule. 

Then we had a baby, some postpartum depression and still the travel. 

So communicating things about our marriage through the telephone has been a skill we've both learned to deal with. In short AT&T has substituted as our marriage counselor for several years. So when the company has any kind of financial woes, I sure as hell know they can't blame us for not giving them an insane amount of money over the years.

But last night, we got into one of those "state of the marriage" discussions on my way back from Decatur. And mostly, like my previous post, I was expressing my concerns about feeling unappreciated and relegated to forever being the Mommy or the Maid in our relationship. 

I had stopped my car and parked it on the street across from my driveway for the discussion. X-man was in bed, and we were finally getting to the grit of how MacTroll felt.

Warning: As I type this, I might vomit a little.

Apparently, the last five years of making our home a home in Champaign. Caring for it. Painting rooms. Hanging photos. Cooking for it. Paying the bills. Cleaning for it. Planning vacations. Running errands. All those "homemaker" duties... 

"Aren't special. They're all things a good roommate would do."

Cue the headlights from a car approaching. It stopping. A police officer beaming his light on the back of my car. I can't get my street plowed when it snows or drains cleared when they're blocked and the entrance to the subdivision is flooding. But a cop noticing me sitting quietly in my VW. Sure.

Needless to say once he ran my plates and my license and made sure I wasn't a potential domestic violence case, I was let go with the suggestion that I maybe park in my driveway to finish the discussion with my husband because the cops sweep my street to watch on the apartments next to us. 

The minute I entered the house, what MacTroll had said was gone. We talked about other stuff for a while and laughed a little about the cop, who was very nice to ask me three times if I was sure it was safe for me to go home (which was good of him), and then at 1 a.m. I drifted off to sleep.

At 3:30 a.m. X-man woke up crying. I went to see him and hugged him. He settled back down and fell asleep, and I went back to the bedroom. I sat awake in bed. MacTroll and Riley were snoring. I went to the guest room. Couldn't sleep. His sentence turning over and over again in my head. 

Yeah. Here comes the vomit.