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Caution: There’s foul language in this post.
I never know what Mr. Groovy is going to say when he writes self-flagellation posts. I get very nervous that he may share some pretty weird sh*t. Since I’m more emotionally repressed about exposing my flaws, I’m forcing myself to take a stab at a self-flagellation post. Not to be outdone—Mr. Groovy is chiming in from the peanut gallery.
Okay, no time like the present. Here goes.
I have weird hair
It’s red, thick, and heavy—a stylist’s dream but it’s my nightmare. No matter what haircut I get, long or short, I’m never happy. I have to flat-iron the crap out of it every day (and sometimes more than once) to avoid looking like I just escaped from prison. When we take our two mile walk in the park I sweat—a lot. And my lovely hair frizzes up so much that not even a baseball cap can contain the poof. [Mr. Groovy: Really, how many times do I have to tell you in the car to move that Bozo head of yours when I’m making a left turn!]
I’m a menace in the kitchen
I never put gadgets back in the same place. Half a dozen kitchen drawers and it’s always a guessing game. [Mr. Groovy: Can’t you put the one spatula I use for my hamburgers back in the same drawer? Are you sure you have a master’s degree? It’s not that HARD Mrs. Groovy.] When I wash, dry and put away dishes I clank all over the place. [Mr. Groovy: Here comes the crashing of the plates!] I also love coffee and like to experiment with coffee-making. But I once burned myself badly using the inverted method of making coffee with an Aeropress. [Mr. Groovy: I told you to stop playing with hot water.]
I’m a homebody and a procrastinator
Sometimes it takes a village to get me out of the house or to go on vacation. I like my home and my creature comforts. Ask me to do something and I normally don’t say “yes”, I say “let me think about it.” We still haven’t celebrated our anniversary, our 5,000 Twitter followers, or my birthday, partly because either one or both of us have been sick. But since it’s my turn to choose our vacation destination this year—we’re going to Montana! [Mr. Groovy: Let’s live a little, woman! We’ve got 20 years of good health left before we can look forward to someone wiping our asses.] Glacier National Park has been on our bucket list for quite some time. As a bonus, we get to meet Ms. Montana and her family!
I’m fidgety and I talk too much
On those rare occasions I go to bed before Mr. Groovy, I kiss him good night before I head upstairs. And he invariably blurts out, “Why are you kissing me now? You’ll be up and down at least three more times.” I also talk to him at inopportune times, like when he’s writing or getting ready for bed—or watching a documentary. Then I may ask him about what just happened in the film and he’ll say, “I couldn’t hear it. SOMEBODY was talking!”
And I don’t just shoot the breeze—usually I’m reminding Mr. Groovy of the emails he hasn’t answered, comments he hasn’t replied to, or sympathy cards he hasn’t made out since he’s the card-writer in the family.
My latest kick is telling Mr. Groovy to get off the sofa. I began using the Stand Up! app a few weeks ago and programmed it to remind me to get off my butt every 40 minutes at night. Now when I see Mr. Groovy sinking into the sofa like he’s become an extension of the cushion, I ask him, “How many hours has it been since you moved? Do you want to get a blood clot?” And he’ll reply, “Here comes the five-minute Mrs. Groovy Lecture. I don’t see you doing any pull-ups with me.” Then I’ll say, “But not doing pull-ups won’t kill me. Sitting on the sofa for hours will.” [Mr. Groovy: You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you, Queen of the Harpies.]
I’m Impatient
Once Mr. Groovy and I were in the car stopped at a red light. When it turned green, the woman at the wheel of the car in front of us neglected to move. So we waited. And waited. Finally, I burst out, “C’MONE, Grandma with the cigarette!!!” Mind you, she couldn’t hear me, but Mr. Groovy was a bit incredulous nonetheless. Because somehow I managed to insult her three ways in one sentence—I cast aspersions on her driving skills, her age, and her smoking. [Mr. Groovy: You were in rare Mrs. Groovy form that day.] But that was a few years ago and I think by now, North Carolina’s southern graces have taught me to be more patient. I no longer sigh, make faces, or tap my foot when I’m on line at the supermarket or post office. But I still need a lot of improvement. [Mr. Groovy: No argument from me.]
I Get Too Angry
While living in New York Mr. Groovy and I once had a huge argument about how to proceed with a legal matter. The management of our homeowners’ association broke the lock on our storage unit and authorized a neighbor to make it his own. They told him he could take or dump all the contents. Management mistakenly believed the unit was abandoned by someone no longer living in our building.
It was a very upsetting time. We were able to get back some of the more valuable things the neighbor kept, like a $500 vase that was a wedding gift. The neighbor also fully cooperated and provided a statement saying he tried to convince management the items belonged to someone—but they wouldn’t hear of it. So he kept what he liked and threw out the rest, including Mr. Groovy’s hockey equipment and all my old memorabilia. I lost a photo of Jimmy Smits and me in a college play that can’t be replaced, or located through any college friends on Facebook.
I was livid, fit to be tied, and in total MAKE THEM PAY mode. I had no doubt whatsoever that we were going to get a few thousand dollars for our belongings and for damages. (We did.) Mr. Groovy wasn’t as sure and remained very calm and very tentative. Finally, I shouted at him “Why aren’t you getting mad?” And he said “Oh, you want to see me get mad?” And in once second flat he punched a hole in our bedroom wall.
So not only do I get angry, I get other people angry.
But most of the time I’m angry about nonsense—silly crap like spam phone calls and people ringing the doorbell at dinner time to sell me something. Or when I find out I’ve been overcharged for a nothing doo-hickey expense. Mr. Groovy will tell me that I’m OR-ing (over-reacting) and to get over it. [Mr. Groovy: And I’m usually right.] A minor annoyance can ruin my day—although I’ve been making a real effort the last six months not to sweat the small stuff. [Mr. Groovy: You are? I hadn’t noticed]
But sometimes a bit of anger is warranted—like just last week when Mr. Groovy published his post about his inaugural episode of “Talking Trash with Mr. Groovy”. At 8:00 on the morning the post was scheduled to publish (at 8:50), he gave me the go-ahead to proof it—I get final edit and veto power. I logged into WordPress, opened his post, and went completely batsh*t crazy. This is basically what he wrote:
Not a great first attempt at vlogging but here it is. Enjoy this piece of crap.
That’s it, seriously. No setup, nothing about why he decided picking up trash was a good fit for him in retirement. He wrote no intro—he just plopped out two sentences and showed no pride, no joy at all. So what’s a good wife/co-blogger/editor to do? I called him on it. I said “THIS is how you’re going to introduce a project you’ve been talking about for weeks and months?” And do you know how he responded? He whined, “I’m T-I-R-E -D.”
Well, that got me even crazier. Then the yelling began. “I don’t CARE if you’re tired. You’ve been building this up to Ty and Fritz and Claudia and Ms. Montana and Joe Saul-Sehy—either fix it or trash it!”
To set the scene further—the previous night Mr. Groovy spent more than 3 hours trying to edit his 4 minute piece of crap for his vlog debut. And he was in a MOOD. His editing tool didn’t recognize the MP4 format from his phone he used for the video, and I don’t know what the hell else was going on because I was downstairs staying out of his way. But every 20 minutes or so I asked if he needed help and he grunted “no”. He wanted to be left alone.
At one point I thought, “Wait a minute. Vloggers make millions of dollars off of their content on YouTube. There must be a way to edit directly in YT.” And sure enough I found posts, blogs and videos with instructions in less than five minutes. But by this time, Mr. Groovy had already put the video up on YouTube and was OK with it. He still needed to compose a short blog post to introduce the video but said he’d do it in the morning. And regarding the YouTube editor I told him about? He said, “Well, now we know for next time”.
Well Yahhh—now we know for next time because the “idiot” figured it out!!! Every time he does something the hard way I figure out an easier way but I’m always the idiot he doesn’t want to listen to. There’s a word for this—marriage!
Needless to say, the morning of his vlog debut he decided after all to rework his introductory blog post. Now “Talking Trash with Mr. Groovy” is OK for his first time out of the gate. [Mr. Groovy: Why is it that whenever you talk about YOUR flaws you end up talking about MY flaws?]
I have a potty mouth
I have a potty mouth and I’m not proud of it. And as you can see from the above, I’m guilty of directing my anger at Mr. Groovy. I have a few choice words I call him, especially when he does things he knows will annoy me—like touching our cat with his big feet, with his size 10½ SHOES on! I’ll yell at him “You idiot” and he’ll say “I’m just giving him love taps”. And then I slap him. Hard. Or Mr. Groovy will say “He likes it!” which absolutely infuriates me. So then I call him a jerk-ass and some other choice words I won’t say here. [Mr. Groovy: Jerk-ass is one of your better ones.]
Jerk-ass came into being when Mr. Groovy got me so frustrated one time, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to call him a jerk or a jack-ass. So jerk-ass came out of my mouth and it stuck. Oh, I know I don’t fight fair. Mr. Groovy doesn’t curse at me or call me names, except for Queen of the Harpies and Crusher of His Dreams. The latter is due to things I’ve put the kibosh on like him taking the wrong job or installing blue counter tops in our kitchen. [Mr. Groovy: Again, isn’t this supposed to be about YOUR flaws?]
Then there was the time we went shopping for a car. It was my first introduction to the wild world of used car salesmen. At one dealership the fellow was so slimy I just got up and walked out while he was mid-sentence. He was one of those typical “Tell Ya What We’re Gonna Do!” salesmen who ran back and forth to his manager “kicking and screaming” on our behalf to get the price down.
On our way home I was steaming and I referred to the slime ball as a “c*ck-sucking vulture.” [Mr. Groovy: That’s my girl. You’re really great at coining new insults!]
Final Thoughts
So there you have it—Mrs. Groovy, warts and all. I think my flaws are much worse than Mr. Groovy’s. As a matter of fact, I am known to say “He’s the nice guy and I’m the b*tch”. But I feel the personal finance community is helping me become a kinder person.
To quote Mr. Groovy—what say you? Am I a terrible person? What personal flaws are you trying to fix? Please let me know in the comments.
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