Joe Has Three Sisters

For my husband, living in a house with three women must have its advantages.  Sure it does.  For instance, good smells wafting through the air most of the time.  It could be from his wife's amazing culinary talent in the kitchen (snicker), or perhaps the candles we're constantly lighting (and occasionally forgetting to blow out).  Maybe it's the dainty feminine clouds of perfume emanating from bedrooms or even various cleaning supplies we use, guaranteed to turn your house into a "country lane" or "apple orchard", and also, um, well…

Ok, the advantages just may stop there.  Three women in the same house?  It's a special kind of hell.

He was wise to us almost from the beginning, though, almost seven years ago, having grown up in the same house as three sisters.  (Refer to the famous concerto, a piano piece entitled "Joe Has Three Sisters" plinked out in A minor.)  He's experienced with the “feminine way”; he had to be to survive.  He's smart...knows how more than one woman in the house can lead to the following events. 

a) Snarky comments, ranging from the phony, ostensibly helpful, "oh, you must not have had time to do your hair." to the far more dramatic, going-for-the-jugular serious, such as "imagine...you have $20 yet I'm missing $20.  Hmmmm."

b) Women all “cycling” together, resulting in a noxious black cloud, visible from space, hanging over just our house approximately once a month.

c) Interminably long waits for the bathroom, even though we have two.

d) his shaving cream and shavers mysteriously disappearing and magically reappearing in the bathtub.

He has handled it with aplomb and grace for the four years we’ve been married, even if he has had to stop for a beer from time to time after work to mentally gird his loins for the insanity surely awaiting him at home.

Such as, you ask? 

Well, mostly (meaning never) it's actually calm around our house.  That is, if the dog isn't chewing up something important or having horrifying bathroom accidents in unlikely, hard to reach places.  Or if the girls are sniping at each other.  Or I am sniping at them...or the dog, or the husband, or the son.  Sometimes the sniping results in me tearfully hiding out in our bedroom all night in the dark, armed with a cell phone, a flashlight, and a container of Betty Crocker frosting, reading articles on weight loss and snarling at anyone who dares crack open the door.  (wait, did I say frosting?  I meant carrot sticks.)

It's pretty well known by anyone with girls (let's say, oh, 18 and 20 years old) living at home that mostly, they're picking on each other.  It's guaranteed.  Yet, if needed, they will gang up and turn on their parents faster than a snake in a skirt.  That, too, is guaranteed.  If there should ever be a time when everyone is in perfect harmony that is when I will run to the medicine cabinet and check the level in the Nyquil bottle.  Again.

Luckily, I married a man with many wonderful attributes that seem to be greatly contributing to his longevity, most notably a high tolerance for "crazy-psychotic-woman" behavior, an incredible sense or humor, when to give good advice and/or maintain a lip-biting diplomatic silence...but mostly an uncanny sense of when to just quietly, sympathetically pour two Southern Comforts over ice.

I’m sure it was not an easy decision for him to marry someone with three older children but I, for one, am so glad he made the decision to take the chance and dive headlong into a ready-made family, especially after being carefree and single for so long. 

Even if our recycling bin has lots of empty frosting containers but there are no cakes in the kitchen.

(Here's to you, Bear.  Happy Anniversary!)