We live in a civil marriage of ten years. No time to go to the registry office. Raising two children, although the plural “raise” would not be quite right. Growing up is the right thing to do. My wife does nothing in the house. All activities are reduced to either increasing domestic chaos, or watching the TV screen.
Turned off the antenna. It didn’t help: I stare at my smartphone until it runs out of gigabytes, then rushes to top up the cell phone and keeps on watching. He complained to his mother-in-law, he and his father-in-law live in the country. “You’re the husband, you teach!” Short and simple. How do you teach? I don’t want to slap him, but he doesn’t understand words. Now she’s sitting in an armchair, and she won’t move until midnight, when she’ll watch the last episode.
Walks with the children, she comments briefly: “You want to go for a walk, go for a walk!” In all this time she has not made any friends, just acquaintances. She doesn’t need them.
Asked me to buy a knitting machine. Got excited, bought a Japanese one, according to the manual – it can do wonders. Saw 500 pages of instructions – threw it away. Didn’t even bother to knit a scarf. Tufts of wool is gradually being eaten away by moths.
At the market – only as an attendant. I run between the rows, choose, bargain, agree, drag to the car.
The house is on the edge of the forest. She herself does not go, afraid to get lost. She knows mushrooms only thanks to the frying pan. She still gets confused about berries, she uses inscriptions on jars of jam.
Between shows, saw an ad for a treadmill: “Buy it!” Offered to run at the stadium next door to the house. Looked at me like I was an idiot. Bought a treadmill. Sometimes I dry clothes on it, the track has not been exploited in another capacity, although the absolute weight of my wife beats her own absolute records every day.
When I absolutely cannot stand it, I send the children to my parents and disappear on a fishing trip for a couple of days. When I come back, I see the same picture. If I and the kids disappeared for a year, I don’t think anything would change, except the mess and piles of stuff in the corners would increase.
A month ago my father-in-law and mother-in-law came to visit. They brought bags of food from the village. My wife was overjoyed, and my in-laws didn’t even drink tea when they saw our apartment, just like in that joke.
So that’s how we live. If you finish reading this, you’ll probably start throwing rocks at me. I won’t even dodge it, throw it, I deserve it, but tell me, what should I do?
