A Portal into Space and Time

Chip-Atom-1I yelled across the house, “Hey honey, are we out of crackers?”

“No,” my wife yelled back.

“I don’t see any.”

“Are you looking in the pantry on the second shelf?”

“Yes.”

“Look again.”

“Still nothing.”

“Did you move the things in front and look behind them?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have to come in there?”

“No, I’m just saying we are out of crackers.”

Up to that point, it is a scene that could play out in any household anywhere. But this is our house – and in our house things get weird.

My wife came into the kitchen.

She did not do this out of sympathy for me, mind you. She only wanted to prove her point: that we are not out of crackers. Opening the pantry door, she reached into the second shelf and pulled out a big box of Saltine crackers.

There is only one way to explain this.  She had accessed a portal into the space-time continuum.

In my universe there were no crackers on the second shelf nor any other shelf and now there were. I once watched a Twilight Zone episode that went something like this and it did not end well for the husband. He was cooked and served with crackers.

In our house, my wife controls the space-time continuum and she uses it to maximum advantage. If I am running late, she speeds time up. If she is running late, she slows it down. If we get into an argument over something trivial, she shuffles through space and time until she finds an alternate reality where she is always right. If I insist I already did a chore that she asked me to do…. guess what happens?

But it is not a perfect system.

Occasionally, when we are rushing on our way somewhere, she will stop halfway to the garage and look puzzled.

“Where are my keys?” she will ask.

“In your purse,” I will say.

“I looked.”

“Look again.”

“They are not there.”

She will then check the key hook in the entryway. She will rummage through all the stuff on the kitchen counter. She will search the living room end tables.  She will hunt in the bedroom and finally out of desperation, she will look once more in her purse.

That is when she will give me this strange other-worldly look – as if I controlled space and time.

Yeah right….

Author: Almost Iowa

www.almostiowa.com

43 thoughts on “A Portal into Space and Time”

  2. Funny you should mention keys. The husband was looking all over for his house and van keys at our daughter and son-in-law’s place yesterday. He searched b/n sofa cushions and then pondered that he may even have left them at home. (He was driving the car.). I then reminded that I have house keys in my purse. Duh. So why did he need these keys, which he may also have lost at the airport when they slipped out of this slippery jacket pockets? Then he opens the car door. And there are the keys, right there on the seat.

    I am always finding items that he cannot, somehow, see. Perhaps a vision test ought to be administered in Guy School.

    1. Been there, done that. It isn’t a matter of vision, it’s a matter of focus. Guys have so many other important things to focus on: [insert items here]. 🙂

  3. Gosh I thought I commented on this yesterday – it’s so good !! But the space-time continuum ate my comment or it’s in your wife’s purse with her keys or Rod Serling stole my note.

          1. You could be crafting your own 🍻 now that you’re retired. My brother and nephew both do that on a very small-scale in their basements.

  5. I have this happen to me all the time with my glasses. I will look and look and look and they are no where to be found. After about five minutes of yelling, I find them. You know where they were? Right where I put them. Kind of makes me wonder if I don’t have a clone walking around, misplacing things.

  6. Keys don’t count. This made me laugh out loud. You and your wife have obviously snuck into our home. Oh and I frequently worry that I left the coffee on. Which is incomprehensible to my husband.

    1. Leaving the coffee maker on all day is my job. I have left it on for an entire weekend when we were away. I need an app on my phone so when we are across the state and my wife says, “Did you leave the coffee pot on?” I can click the coffee maker off button and say, “No, why would you ask that?”

  7. The Engineer has his mysterious control over electronics, which only act disabled around me until he walks into the room to “help”. It’s only fair that I should take advantage of my wifely ability to locate every object in my nest, blindfolded and drunk.

  8. Ahhh yes. I see your dilemma. Actually, I have a theory (about this, and more or less everything else)… You have an evil leprechaun lining in your house. It gets a perverse pleasure out of hiding things in plain sight. It’s the same leprechaun that lives in your spell check device. There is a reason it is called evil…. They hide socks, pens, keys, and sometimes phones as well. As soon as your other half arrives to search for it, poof! It magically reappears.

    1. I doubt if it is a Leprechaun. When we moved in last March, the previous owners filled out a disclosure form. They listed Poltergeist, an easily annoyed Wendigo (an Ojibwa evil spirit) and a portal into space and time – but no leprechauns. I find it sad though. Having spent a summer walking around Ireland, I found them to be excellent drinking buddies.

  11. Oh buddy – do you make your wife laugh as much every day as I can only imagine?! Your wit makes my day! 🙂

    1. Is that why she hides stuff in the space-time continuum? I think so. By the way, I did show this to her – and she did get a kick out of it.

  13. And God forbid a manufacturer changes the packaging on say, for instance, the ketchup. Evidently this makes it invisible to the male eye. I normally am not stingy about sharing terrific blog posts with BH, but in this case I am not going to give him the opportunity to toss the Portal excuse into our next discussion.

    1. but in this case I am not going to give him the opportunity to toss the Portal excuse into our next discussion.

      Too late, it’s the first thing you learn about mothers and wives at Guy-School.

  14. Yup, our house too. Including the yelling from the front of the house to the back. He, of course, being hard of hearing. I, of course, not caring to yell and sounding harsh and irate when I amplify my voice.

    1. He, of course, being hard of hearing.

      We are going through much of the same; the too-quiet/too loud voices, the annoyance… It is sad but an inevitable part of life. I have lost 75% of my hearing in one ear. It has its advantages though, when she scolds, I simply shift position.

      1. Don’t think she doesn’t notice that.

        My father didn’t even try to be subtle. He was born hard-of-hearing. When he didn’t like what my mom was saying, he would reach up and flip off his hearing aids. Ni-ice.

        I am sorry about the hearing loss, Greg. That’s a huge loss, and atypically asymmetrical. Do you know why it has occurred?

        1. I’ve seen people do that hearing aid trick in the office. Rude but effective.

          I have no idea why I lost hearing in one ear. It’s just one of those things that you get used to with age. I’ll never be able to run a fast marathon again, either. Oh well….

          1. When I’m out hill walking, and feel I’m walking quickly, I am still–still–not used to watching younger folk stride past me easily, breathing easily and silently. I do not resent them at all, but I resent my puny body, which still looks hale and hearty, but is heading downslope now even as it attempts to stride upslope.

  15. Those are the sorts of experiences I used to go through with my mother on a regular basis. Sometimes, I thought she would drive me crackers.

    1. Mothers are the worst for this. My mother routinely invoked alternate realities that bore no resemblance to the reality that her children inhabited.

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