Monday, April 19, 2004
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Did you say what I thought you just said?
Some of you may recall that last week, my husband and my sister had words over feeding a corgi leftover meatloaf. A week later, I finally have enough information to see what really happened, and it wasn't about meatloaf, except in the most superficial aspect.
The way I understand it, when my husband saw my sister feeding the dog meatloaf, and teased her, she said something like, "You need to take this up with your wife."
What my sister meant is "Juliet gave me this meatloaf last night to feed the dog. Your issue is not with me, it is with her."
What my husband heard is "You are not important enough for me to waste time discussing this with you. Go talk to someone who gives a damn how you feel."
When you have a miscommunication of this magnitude, how do you fix it? It seems unlikely that talking it out would help.
My husband takes things wrong all the time, but sometimes I have no idea what my sister is thinking. For example, one of the things my sister does to me and anyone else she visits is wash the dishes. She feels it is helpful, and there are many people who do the same thing, so it is not peculiar. However, I have some pots that I only like washed a certain way, and I like my dishwasher loaded in a certain way, so I really would prefer that no one mess with my dishes. This is one of those impasses that I have with my sister, and basically I let her wash things if she insists, as long as it isn't my stoneware or egg pan.
While she was here, she did the breakfast dishes, and told me that she thought the dishwasher was ready to run. I got up to put detergent in and start it, and I saw that my stoneware was in the dishwasher (big no-no!) and gasped, and after I got the stoneware out I moved the bowls around from the top rack to the bottom (just because that's where I like them) and I look up at my sister and she gives me a look like "I know it's your house and your dishes, but I'm 40 years old, don't you think I know how to load a dishwasher" and I just exasperatedly said "Don't wash the dishes!"
At this point, my sister told me a story of a time she was visiting a certain person's house, and that person told her to stop washing the dishes, and my sister kept on washing the dishes, and the person said to my sister, "I expect guests in my house to do as I tell them", and my sister thought to herself, "Well I'm not coming back to this house again."
How does that sound to you? I know how it sounded to me.
I didn't have any response to this story, except to start the dishwasher. My sister immediately backpedalled and said that she didn't really like that person anyway, there were other problems, stuff like that, but...
She made her point. If she wants to wash my dishes, fine. My sister is more important to me than my dishes, even my favorite stoneware.
Note to anyone who tried to call me this weekend - my regular phone is not working (serviceman is due to come fix it Tuesday), and my daughter left my cell phone under the seat in Jim's truck, where it was pretty useless to me this weekend until Jim heard it beeping because of a low battery and brought it in to charge.
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Comments (10)
You can't say that you have an uninteresting life. Maybe you can get your sister to vacumn the house while you do the dishes. :o)
LOL! you made me think of Patrick sooooooo much, this pas december my family was here for our wedding, and my cousin and my brother would volunteer to help with the dishwasher. Only problem was that every night, Patrick would take out all the dishes and put them back in HIS way. My cousin of course found this quite annoying, but I didn't get why she just stopped helping around, until my brother told me. I am so used to patrick do things his way even after I have already done it,that I don't see it as a problem any more. I think my little bro understood and just decided taht it was more fun to brush our dog... as for my cousin, she just began piling the dishes on the sink, and I was the one to put them in the dishwasher... for Patrick to take them out again at night. But I don't mind, that is the way we work.
EEEEEK! No soap on the Stoneware! O_o
That comment by your sister didn't sound all that nice to me, and I think she realized it when you started the dishwasher. As far as miscommunication goes, I'm not too sure how you would clear that up. *sigh*
Steve
Mrs Pete's family are all so touchy and they all say the wrong thing all the time or they hear the wrong thing. Mostly they just don't listen to what they say or hear.
My family is just as normal as gravel pie! lol
Pete
Re: the miscommunication between Margot and Mr. Juliet, it is such a shame when this happens, and so awful when it becomes confused with emotion. I hope a simple explanation helped.
Re: the dishes, I side with Margot that if someone said that to me, I would think the same thing. However, if someone told me in a serious manner to stop washing dishes, I most likely would. Note that I didn't say I absolutely would, only most likely would.
But, I absolutely would not appreciate someone telling me that I will do as they say--whether I'm in their house or not.
As far as you telling these stories, I don't know how you do it without everyone hating you. How can you be totally honest about your feelings when the people you're talking about read your blog?!