A long time ago in one of my first columns, I informed my readers about a very damaging and invasive disease that affects many married couples — fingerpointingitis. This condition afflicts many more men than women, and usually causes the pointing finger on either hand to become inflamed and enlarged from over use.
The Center for Disease Control never talks about it, there is no known cure, and most couples, not wishing to bring it out into the open, prefer to keep it on the hush-hush.
I have to admit, it has been quite a long time since my marriage was afflicted, but like all bad viruses, it reared its very ugly head not too long ago.
I had taken a very leisurely shower and emerged feeling refreshed and calm, something that is a rare occurrence for me, especially when Bri is away and driving upstate in her very own car for the first time on roads filled with trucks and falling rock zones.
I was primping and preening in front of the mirror admiring my hair cut, when all of a sudden I hear this buzzing noise.
I immediately shut off the exhaust fan in the bathroom, checked in my daughter’s bedroom and then called Bob, who was reading the papers, to investigate the sound.
“Go open the back door and see if the sound is coming from outside,” he said.
I did and it wasn’t. So I called him again.
“Bob,” I yelled, “Go in the basement, maybe it’s coming from there.”
It wasn’t.
After determining that the only place the noise could be coming from was the bathroom, we both crammed in and started the search. Bob emptied the cabinet and I searched the draws.
“I told you not to keep this stuff under the cabinet,” waving his finger at me. “I still hear it but I don’t know where it’s coming from.”
He punctuated each word with a point of his pointer.
Just as his voice hit the highest crescendo, I discovered where the noise was coming from.
You see, I had a battery powered lint remover in the draw and I apparently knocked into it when I put my brush back in, which started the gizmo buzzing away.
Most people would find this hilariously funny (I know I did), but Bob did not.
The finger pointing became so agitated I feared for the safety of his finger. It looked like it would pop off and fly around the room any second.
Which is strange, as it seems made me laugh just a bit harder.
Not for Nuthin™, but I think because there was such a long span of time since the last incident, the tirade went on and on far longer than necessary. But then the finger, finally exhausted, just stopped pointing, shrugged its shoulders and went back to texting.
I, on the other hand, was left with a mess on the bathroom floor and had to clean up all the junk that was shoved in the cabinet since the last century. Hopefully the Center for Disease Control will come up with a cure real soon.
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