Living Dangerously

I often go to bed before Robbie, partly because I need my sleep and partly because I prefer to listen to the radio rather than watch some of the scary stuff that he likes to watch on television. This works quite well for both of us but there is just one problem - Robbie! He doesn't understand the meaning of the word quiet and he always manages to wake me up when he comes to bed. He then falls asleep as soon as head hits the pillow leaving me wide awake unable to get back to sleep and fighting to hang on to the duvet.

On Monday night he decided to take things a step further. He wasn't quite ready for bed but he decided to come upstairs for a chat. He wasn't put off when he found that I was asleep, he just kept asking if I was awake until I woke up. So what was so important that he needed to wake me up at 1.30am? It certainly wasn't something that could be classed as an emergency even in 'Robbie world'. He wanted to inform me that the cat was suffering from flatulence! I told him loud and clear to 'go away' but I wasn't going to escape that easily. He went into great detail about the exact nature of the smell, then he started rambling on about possibly changing the cat's diet. By then I was ready to harm him and he made a hasty retreat.

The next day I asked him why he woke me up and he said he didn't think I was deeply asleep because I wasn't snoring - I give up!!

Baffled by Technology 28.03.07

Robbie seems to be in shock after tidying his desk on Monday. Apparently he has even admitted to being baffled by technology, usually it is the other way around - technology is baffled by him! He loves his gadgets and geeky stuff and I suppose I do too, but sometimes I have to beg him to shut up! I like to know how things work, but the intricate detail that Robbie treats me to leaves me begging for mercy. My mum brought me up to believe that a woman could do anything better than a man for two reasons, we think about it first and we read the instructions!! She was absolutely right of course, she was almost always right (that’s where I get it from!). Robbie knows a huge amount about computers etc, but he doesn’t always find the simplest way to achieve things. Being a train person his attitude seems to be ‘why go from A to B when you could go the scenic route via C,D,E and F’ Fair enough for train spotting and certain other activities, but when applied to computers, cooking or most other daily activities it can be infuriating!

Robbie has a dreadful sense of direction and his map reading in the car always causes a heated argument. He has the attention span of a goldfish and rather than following the map he tells me the route the train would take, or he gives detailed train time or he manages to remember when the line closed to passenger traffic and how long freight continued after that! All very interesting I suppose, but not when it causes me to miss my turn and travel miles out of my way. He has even caused me to make an emergency stop (not recommended on the motorway) when he yelled LOOK at the top of his voice. I thought he was warning me of a hazard, but he had only spotted a train in the distance!
I shouldn’t moan, listening to his stories about his work mates it is clear that some of their wives have far worse to put up with!

Meticulous Attention to Detail

Now that you have been introduced to Sam you can see that he and Robbie have a lot in common. They are like 'me' and 'mini me'. Sam is like a Sherpa, he carries all that is essential to him in a huge rucksack and he becomes very distressed if he is parted from it. Robbie is just the same, he carries a ton of ironmongery in the bottom of his rucksack so that he is equipped for an array of potential train emergencies should the need arise. He even took it on honeymoon with him! Sam often provides too much detail and bores people rigid - sound familiar?

It was very windy last night and Sam told me he was concerned about his rabbit and about the garden fence blowing down. A couple of years ago he had similar worries about his hamster Seth the Second who usually lived in the hall. He kept taking his cage upstairs and parking him in my bedroom. There was absolutely no way that I was going to share my room with Seth, I may have to put up with things going round and round inside my head but I drew the line at Seth going round and round on his wheel! Sam thought Seth could get cold at night so I asked him where hamsters come from. I was attempting to point out that they are used to cold nights, but Sam completely misunderstood me and announced that they come from Petsmart! I said "no, where do they come from?" Sam gave a deep sigh and gave me a very detailed account of hamster reproduction; he seemed to know more about it than most hamsters!

By this time I had given up on the conversation. It reminded me of an episode that happened two or three years before. I came downstairs one morning to find Sam in the lounge with two hamster cages on the floor. At first I didn't notice that one cage was empty, but when I asked Sam what he was doing he explained quite calmly that he was breeding the hamsters. He said "they have done everything properly so they can go back to their cages now" He knew exactly when the babies were due and he watched for signs of pregnancy, but to my relief we did not witness a population boom in the world of hamsters. When it was clear that there were no babies Sam decided to try a different tactic. He got up early one morning and I found him reading to the hamsters from the chapter on reproduction in the hamster care book!!