HOW WAS YOUR DAY? - a cranky re-run

HOW WAS YOUR DAY?

This re-run is from January 2013.  Several ladies beat me up for being unsympathetic, several more thanked me for the perspective.  *

 When I was a non-retired man, virtually every working day ended with a wife asking, “How was your day?” My answer was the same as every other working man’s answer when posed with that daily wifely inquiry, “Fine.”

As sure as the sun rises in the east, this response was then followed by thirty minutes of why my wife had just experienced the worst day ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I know a SAHM’s** day is no picnic.  I just wonder if the average SAHM has any idea that her husband’s job also is not a bed of roses.  How could they, we never tell them. 

“How was your day?” is wife code for “brace yourself, have I got some shit to tell you!”  Well now I am going to finally answer that question.  Skip to the next blog if you wish, I understand, my wives would have never listened either.

“How was my day you ask?”  Here was my typical day.

The alarm woke me at 6:00 am and I hopped in the shower. After showering and shaving, I dressed using a tee shirt I found in the dryer which was still slightly damp, but I didn’t have time to run it through again. Dressed, I did not have time for breakfast.  

I jumped into my car to find the windshield was frosted over. I did not have time to warm the car up, and the defroster didn’t work, so I melted a hole in the frost with a Bic lighter. With four inches of visibility I drove for the train.

At the light on Rt. 1, the car stalled out because the gas filter clogged again.  I jumped out, pulled the gas filter and blew out the crap causing the clog.  I only missed one light doing this so I still had a chance to catch my train.  I did in fact catch the train, but only after running full speed and hopping on just as it was pulling out of the station.  It was a good day; I managed to get a seat.  I did not have time to get a paper or coffee which I could have used to get the taste of gasoline from the filter out of my mouth.

 I almost caught a nap but first Joe “The Blind Guy” woke me to ask if the seat was taken, and then the conductor nudged me because he could not read the date on the ticket I had displayed in the seat ticket holder.

After 40 minutes we got to Newark and I changed for the Path train to downtown NYC.  I did not get a seat. There were lots of sweaty people with arm pits in my face for another twenty minutes.  At 9:00 am I arrived at work just before starting time for my job as a supervisor for a brokerage firm, processing security orders and executions.

One of my clerks, Lou, was late to work again and I had to reprimand him after listening to his lame excuse.  I got into a fight with an arrogant broker who demanded I adjust the price of a trade or he would have me fired.  My boss told me if I changed the price I would be fired.  The computers went down three different times and we had to process orders manually, which pissed off several other brokers who demanded to know why we took so long to enter their orders.  Lunch sucked because I had to eat it at my desk while I fought with the traders on the floor for reports.

The afternoon was pretty much the same, another five straight hours of answering questions and arguing over the phone.  There were no breaks, there was no quiet. Telephones and high-speed printers provided a constant noise.  I left the office at 6:00 pm and caught the Path train back to Newark.  The train had no heat, but I did get a seat next to a dude who kept falling asleep and nodding off on my shoulder.  His breath rivaled that of a St. Bernard.

The train from Newark to home was uneventful, and I was lucky enough to have a seat handle to hold on to while standing all the way to New Brunswick.  At the station I ran to the car to get out of the lot before all the other commuters jammed the exit.  Four stop lights and my usual 20 minute drive home and I walk in the back door.  At 7:45 pm I was finally home.  I made the monumental mistake of asking, “What’s for dinner?” and got an earful about what an insensitive ass I am for worrying about dinner without first asking my wife, “How was your day?” Then I heard forty minutes of how miserable her day was.

I wolfed down a cold dinner because everyone else had already eaten.  I clean up the kitchen, help two kids with their homework and yell at another for something he did while I was at work.

That was how my day was.
  
That was how my day was every day for forty years.  

Well it was not every day.  On a good day the gas filter didn’t clog and the car didn’t stall.

*This "day" was clearly exagerated to make a point. Cranky respects and appreciates how difficult it can be for a SAHM. 

In addition, those who work in an office have their coworkers to whom they can vent. SAHM's are without adult conversation all day.

I get it!

**SAHM – Stay at home mom (For Cranky’s friends who have yet to crawl out from under the rock.)