Cal and I had a shouting match today over the stupidest thing.
I arrived home from a business trip on Sunday night, lugged my bags out of the back of the SUV--and didn't close the hatchback. You would think that a fancy schmancy Acura MDX, which has all kinds of little luxe features, would have a time limit set on the light that comes on when the hatch is open.
But no.
Forty-eight hours later, Cal went out to start the car...and the battery was dead. ARRGH! The day was already full of odd glitches for me, so I figured that the moon must be in a weird place relative to my astrological sign and sort of shrugged it off. The Scarlett O'Hara in me said I'd worry about it tomorrow.
Not Cal. He went and got his little electric charging gizmo from the storage shed, and spent the next I-don't-know-how-many hours strategizing how to get enough power into the battery to turn the engine over.
I guess I should have known that he had some weird energy on the issue when I told him last night that, push come to shove, I could always call AAA. I mean, what do I pay my annual dues for if not this exact kind of situation? Good heavens--the way he went on, you would have thought I had personally insulted the boy with the suggestion. So strange.
Today, after 12 hours on the charger, the car still didn't start. I had the bright idea to call a neighbor to see if he had jumper cables. And, bless his heart, he did one better: He drove down with his mega-charger, connected the clamps to the battery terminals, and switched it on. In about 10 seconds, my motor was idling to perfection.
But the scene between the phone call with my neighbor and his arrival in my driveway was surreal. I'm not sure exactly what happened, and I don't want to make it all out to be Cal, but we ended up in a shouting match, where, in his upset, he said one of the things that really puts me over the edge:
"Trish, what is WRONG with you?"
i don't know about you, but that kind of question (and others like it) never fails to set me off. I blew a gasket and told him (screamed at him, actually) to just leave me alone, that I would handle the thing myself. Which I did.
And in true southern boy (or many boy) fashion, when I came back inside after thanking my kind neighbor, Cal acted as if nothing had happened. He avoids conflict-related conversation as if it were oral acid, and no way was he going to go back to analyze our conversation.
I'm still stumped about why he had to turn a fairly simple problem into something of Mount Everest proportions. There's more to the story about being with Cal than I can write here. I'll fill in gaps over time.
Bottom line is that today's experience has got me wondering why I keep being in factory irregular relationships...and whether there is such a thing as "regular" ones.
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