THE GREAT PANTY DEBACLE OF 2015

I have a pile of laundry in the “computer room” which is less of a computer room and more my laundry room. My laundry gets put away – sometimes. The room is a disaster. Full-on, absolute disaster. It probably puts Bub over the edge every time she walks in there to drop off more of my laundry.

(We had a closet collapse a few years ago, and the room just never fully recovered. I got the closet shelving reinstalled, but that’s about as far as I managed to get. It remains a mess even though I continually promise Bub that I will take care of it.)

Well, one morning (3:30am) while rummaging around in my pile of clean clothes to find something to stuff into my gym bag to wear at work after my morning run, I found a pair of panties.

Not mine.

Black.

Slinky and sexy.

You know – the kind that you own when you’ve been married for a couple of years but eventually give up as you (and your body) age (meaning get fat).
I’m a cotton-undies kind of gal, now. Most women in their 40s are…

It was too early to wake Bub up and shove the panties in her face and demand answers. Not because I wouldn’t love to do this, but because one – or both – boys inevitably ends up in our bed every night. So, in waking Bub, I would also be waking both boys on this particular morning, and that just wouldn’t be fair to them. I would have loved to wake her, though. I was pissed. PISSED.
Great. She’s having an affair AND doing her mistresses laundry. Brilliant move, bone head.

So, I threw them back onto the pile of laundry, collected something lame for work (beige, I’m sure – “I’m the same color as the DMV!” – excellent quote from The Banger Sisters), and went for my run.

Then, I fumed about it ALL DAY LONG. When I talked to Bub, it was short and terse. Of course, she didn’t notice because she was busy trying to keep one or both boys happy or out of trouble or focused on homework or….
I wasn’t any less mad when I got home. In fact, I was probably even angrier, but how was I supposed to have the “are you cheating on me” conversation in front of two 7-year olds? I can’t. I don’t. I have to wait.
Until, of course, Bub made some sort of (what sounds like a) crappy remark about something and then follows that with a “What is your problem?” remark. Well, then, I just hinted at the level of anger I had stored up inside. I made sure to indicate that I was very displeased for some reason, and that she had no clue how much worse it was going to get.

She then decided not to talk to you for the rest of the night, went to bed early, and didn’t wake up when I REALLY want to talk about it. I opted to sleep on the couch instead of lying next to “the cheater” for any amount of time. Because, screw it and screw her.

Then, I had to get up at 1am to let the dogs out to pee and because I had to pee, too. (But, I always blame the dogs – it makes me sound less OLD.) While in the bathroom, I suddenly figured out the entire problem. (Some people do their best thinking while exercising and some while in the shower. Me? I get my best ideas when peeing in the middle of the night.) I released any anger I had. I felt remorse for ever second-guessing the love that I have for Bub and vice versa. I went to sleep relieved, calm, and content.

The trouble with this is that I hadn’t told Bub that I was no longer angry and that all was fine. Partly because I hate to wake her up due to her insomnia and for whom sleep is a gift from the gods. Partly because I forgot to say something before I quickly fell back to sleep. (I always blame the insomnia – it makes me sound like a better person.)

So, I get up, grab my stuff, go for my run, go to work, just tra-la-la-ing about my day. Bub, on the other hand, spends the entire day completely freaking out. COMPLETELY.

By the time I get home from work, Bub is practically in tears, on the verge of an anxiety attack, short tempered, stressed, and, well, freaking out. Convinced that all is going to go straight to hell in short order, she decided to go take a bath to try and calm herself.
Once I got the boys settled into their dinner, I went into the bathroom to talk.

“If you’re going to leave me, just do it! Are you going to leave me? Don’t answer that. Please don’t leave me,” she says through tears.

I have no idea where this is coming from. After all, I’M the one who was mad. I’m the one who thought I had been wronged. What the hell is going on?

So, I go into my pile of laundry, and I get the panties. I bring them into the bathroom, and show them to her. She starts crying like crazy. “I know. I saw them. I know that you’re going to leave me. Whose are they?”
“Uh…. I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“Me neither,” I said. Then, I tell her what I think.

You see, our dryer broke. Kaput. Done. Dead and gone. So, we had been running to the laundromat to dry things.
SOMEONE from the laundromat who used the dryer before Bub is missing a pair of panties.

We. Cracked. Up.

And the slinky, sexy, black panties went into the bathroom garbage.