The art of man management

Yesterday, when I asked David for his opinion about my blog, he said it was a bit too nice and girly.  Fortunately, he has provided me with sufficient material in the past few hours to ensure that today's blog will neither be nice nor girly.

My husband has many attributes - they just don't immediately spring to mind today - however his three biggest flaws, in my opinion, are:

1. His ability to faff
2. His inability to understand how much time things take to do (as a result of flaw no 1)
3. His propensity to be late (as a combined result of flaws no 1 & 2)

David would probably claim that my biggest flaws are:

1. I'm not a morning person
2. I nag too much
3. I am bad at leaving and arriving at places

I would argue that these flaws did not pre-exist my marriage with him and in fact all of them are a direct result of his own deficient behaviour.  This morning's activities give me the perfect case study to illustrate this point.

We had an appointment at 9.45am at the Immigration Department to apply for our Hong Kong Identity Cards.  David set the alarm for 7.30am, I set my alarm for 7.45am.  I got out of bed as soon as my alarm went off,  jumped in the shower and gave myself sufficient time to apply my make-up, dry my hair and decide what to wear.   As usual, David hit snooze repeatedly and after about 45 minutes, by which time I had had a shower and finished applying my make-up, he started to stir and moan that his back hurt and I would need to massage it better so that he could drag his corpulent torso into the shower.  When it became apparent that a back massage was not forthcoming, he then started rasping that his throat was hurting and he believed he was developing the crippling and debilitating disorder that strikes down male members of the human species - man-flu.

With a heavy-heart, I offered him some Strepsils, which he refused to take - making me suspect that perhaps this was not a terminal case of man-flu - and gently coaxed him to get in the shower so we could buy a coffee and make our appointment on time.  After a further futile attempt to persuade me to massage his ailing back, and a few pathetic sniffs - David finally got out of bed and took himself off for a leisurely shower.  While he was busy luxuriating in the warm water, I was watching the clock wondering how much longer he was going to be and whether I would have time to get my coffee before reaching the Immigration Department.  Occasionally I would ask practical questions of David in an attempt to expedite our departure  - such as 'where is your application form?', 'do you know where we need to head to or should I look it up on google maps?' - all of which were met with a terse, condescending response, the tone of which said:  'Listen you silly little woman, I have everything under control.'

Eventually David emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam asking me if I was ready to leave - which I had been for a good fifteen minutes at that point.  Then he proceeded to painstakingly set-up the iron and ironing board across the entrance to the bedroom - preventing me from entering the room - while muttering that had I ironed his shirt for him, we could have left by now.  I dared not point out that we could hardly have left while he was still parading around in a pair of saggy boxers.  I patiently waited while surreptitiously glancing at the clock to see we were fast running out of time to grab my critical morning coffee, before heading for our appointment.

After what seemed like an eternity, David was dressed and ready to leave - and still deluded enough to believe that there would be time to sit down and enjoy a 'relaxing' coffee in the Mid-Levels before heading to our appointment in Wan Chai.  When  - quite reasonably - I suggested that it would be a good idea for us to arrive in Wan Chai, see how much time we had left before our appointment, and then go for a coffee - I was snapped at and arrogantly assured that it would only take 20 minutes to get there by the MTR.  

Just as we had stepped into the lift and appeared to be on our way, David snapped that he had left something behind and ordered me out of the lift again.  As he fumbled for his keys, I inquired as to what had been forgotten and I was aggressively  told that it was the Strepsils I had offered him earlier but he had refused to take.  After collecting the Strepsils, David went to lock our apartment to find that the lock had jammed open, leaving us unable to shut the door, let alone lock it!  Having experienced this issue before, I hurriedly grabbed the screwdriver, trying desperately to avoid looking at the clock that was fast ticking down the minutes to our appointment.   Having rammed the screwdriver into the lock to no avail, David suggested we left our apartment with the door open as, and I quote 'we have our wallets and our passports with us'.  I didn't have the time or energy to point out the two lap tops, two iPads, TV, DVD player and jewellery enticing any potential thieves to come on in and nick them.  Realising that I was not going to leave until we could lock the apartment, David set to work dismantling the lock.  Miraculously, this was clearly a simple task as he managed to un-jam it fairly quickly and once again we were on our way to our appointment.

Still desperate for a coffee, but realising that I was going to have to forfeit it, I headed at pace to the escalator towards Central MTR, while David dawdled behind and then suddenly disappeared from view.  Scouring the crowd of people I finally heard an irrate voice ordering me off the escalator and down on to the road where he was standing looking furious.  It became clear that David had decided that there was no longer time to get the MTR to Wan Chai and we were now going to get a taxi instead.  As this had not been communicated to me, I was a little perturbed to receive a penetrating scowl for forgetting to switch on my psychic skills.

Finally, we arrived at the Immigration Department with a few minutes to spare and hastily managed to grab a take-away Starbucks before scurrying up eight floors of escalators to our final destination.  Now David would argue that he got me to the appointment in time and I got a coffee.  I would argue that although we got to the appointment on time, the whole process from waking up to getting there had been unnecessarily stressful and rushed.

So, let us go back to David's flaws and my flaws - just in case you had forgotten:

David's flaws:

1. His ability to faff
2. His inability to understand how much time things take to do (as a result of flaw no 1)
3. His propensity to be late (as a combined result of flaws no 1 & 2)

My flaws:

1. I'm not a morning person
2. I nag too much
3. I am bad at leaving and arriving at places

Now, let's take a look at the above case study and analyse my flaws:

1. I'm not a morning person:  actually I am, I wake up quickly and get up as soon as my alarm goes off.  My only pre-requisite is that I get a good cup of coffee before I start my day properly.
2. I nag too much:  if I didn't nag, David would faff even more and would never arrive anywhere on time.
3. I am bad at leaving and arriving at places:  there is nothing I hate more than being late or being kept waiting.  To avoid this I have to nag David to stop him faffing and to help him understand how long it takes HIM to do things - which inevitably ends in an argument, and arriving flustered with no time to spare.

So David - I hope you find today's blog a little less nice and girly, and also realise that your wife is in fact flawless.  You will also note from the photo accompanying this blog that your flawless wife was sufficiently well-prepared and organised to bring some Man-Flu remedy from the UK to Hong Kong especially for you.