The Awful Ugly Truth about Rocket Man

My darling husband, a.k.a. Rocket Man, does not read blogs. He especially doesn’t read mine, unless I copy it in a word document and email it to him with some pithy comment in the subject line that might make his blood run cold. Maybe something like ‘Here is what I posted about you on the World Wide Web today’.

Having read those posts, he has begged me to write something that he feels is closer to the truth. He thinks I’m too kind. I think he is silly. Personally, I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I decided to think on it and see if I could come up with a few things about him that he might find closer to the way he sees himself than the way I see him.

So, here it is. The Awful Ugly Truth about The Rocket Man.

Well….he is an engineer. A cute one, but he is an engineer to the core. He is very comfortable in a world of spread sheets, numbers, formulas and data. The man thrives on data. He needs input. He’s not so big on feelings. Or, as he says, ‘feeeeeeeeelings.’ The endearing thing about him is that he can laugh at himself and his ‘engineerial’ inclinations. For example, when we were still in that pre-courting stage of bumping into each other at events and spending all our time with each other at the event…but not really dating, we were at a Halloween party. It was a costume party. He had on a white shirt with a pocket protector, a tie that was too short, his pants pinned up to be high-waters, a slide rule tie tack and duct tape on his glasses. Oh, he had on white socks with his loafers. I saw him and burst into giggles. He came as a geeky engineer! Anyone who can laugh at themselves is a winner to me.

More Awful Ugly Truth about him is that he is male. He is 100% prime beef-cake, scratchin', spittin' man. If he has a feminine side, it is me and the only time he is in touch with it is when he is touching me. Being all male, there are certain things that he does that are just plain awful and ugly. Nasty things. He leaves the seat (and occasionally the lid) to the toilet up. He drinks milk and coke straight from the bottle. He thinks that my hope chest, which we use as a coffee table, is an acceptable place to put stinky, greasy car parts while he works on them. He does not, however, leave his clothes on the floor. EVER. He takes them off and puts them in the hamper or stuffs them back in the drawer if he intends to wear them again.

He does have one other seemingly male trait that could be considered an Awful Ugly Truth. He has an ongoing and serious love affair with the remote control to the television. My competition is not another woman. It is that blasted remote control (and the television). I believe that there is no activity known to man that he enjoys more (well…okay! Maybe one or two activities) than he enjoys clicking the channel up and channel down buttons on the remote control. The joy! The satisfaction! The utter bliss! So many sports channels…the Speed Channel…the Military Channel…the Outdoor channel. Top Gear, The War, The NEWS…we watch it all. The last thing at night is usually Sports Center, which we will then watch again first thing the next morning. Because you just never know what might have happened in the world of sports overnight. Inquiring minds WANT to know. My Daddy observed that The Rocket Man would probably watch a well-organized, televised spitting contest. Rocket Man swears that it would have to be competitive before he’d watch it. Leave it to Daddy to cut to the heart of the matter.

Is that enough? Shall I continue? The Rocket Man can be just a wee bit bossy. I’m not saying I’ve observed this myself. One of his friends from work told me that. He came right out and just said, “Ed can be bossy.” Well, Ed is the boss, so I think we can excuse him for that one.

Another Awful Ugly Truth about The Rocket Man is not really his fault. But since he wanted me to lay it all out for my vast audience (all 3 of you who might read this), here goes. He is color blind. Doesn’t see reds or greens. We had been keeping company for quite some time when he gazed into my eyes and whispered ever so sweetly, “You have the most beautiful brown eyes.” Say what? My eyes are on the green side of hazel. I like them that way. Consequently, one of my jobs in the household is to cover anything that has to do with color. Recently, we were looking for some fabric to have his office chair re-upholstered. The frame of the chair was being painted black and he wanted the seat and back to be red (he’s a Georgia Bulldog Football fan). So there I was, looking at red fabric. I found some and he asked me if it were really red. I cocked my head at him, and said, “Really?” He offered to go back to the car to get a jersey that was, he believed, red and black to match the color. Really??? I asked if there was a problem? Didn’t he trust me? I just threw it out there…”Hey, Rocket Genius—er, Man! Guess what? I’m NOT colorblind.” He promptly bought the red fabric.

The very last Awful Ugly Truth is this. He has Central Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). Oddly enough, so does my oldest grandson. The two are not blood related, but are ever so much alike in some wonderful ways. Anyway, when I took the lad to be tested and was given this diagnosis, I called to let The Rocket Man know the results. I was telling him some of the information that the nice testing lady had given to me. He stopped me and said, “Molli, I know all of that. I have Auditory Processing Disorder.” WHAT? This was in about our 8th year of marriage. All the sudden, so many scenes came rushing before my eyes. I felt a bit faint. The ensuing conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: (with skepticism) You mean all the times I’ve asked you to do things and you haven’t done them…you weren’t just blowing me off? There was some sort of disorder that made you ignore me?

Rocket Man: (aghast) Molli! I would NEVER blow you off. Really? There are times I haven’t done things you asked? I’m so sorry!

Me: How is it that this has never come up in conversation? I’d think that somewhere along the line, you might have mentioned it. Said something like: “Hey, Molli…did I tell you that I have APD and that while it might appear that I’m blowing you off, it is more likely that there is a breakdown in my neurons and the information, even though I repeat it, doesn’t quite make it to the part of my brain that translates and helps me do what I’ve just heard?”

Rocket Man: Oh. Golly, Molli. I thought you knew.

Oh, the things you find out about someone after you’ve been married to them for almost a decade!

So, there you have it. The Awful Ugly Truth about Rocket Man. The most amazing, loving, funny, happy, caring, warm, loyal, faithful, honest, hardworking, creative talking, engineer of a guy I know, who just happens to be the object of my affections. I think he’s the most wonderful creature God ever created. He thought you ought to know the Awful Ugly Truth, and now you do!