I love white and nerdy dearly. He is my best friend and soul mate and we have been together over 11 years now. But over the course of our time together I have found a few things out about my man that leave me just shaking my head.
1. He has a touch of OCD. He washes his hands about 497 times a day. He washes them after making the kids breakfast, after doing laundry, after making a bowl of cereal, after tying his shoes, after setting the table, after unloading the dishwasher, and of course after potty breaks and before meal times. He washes his hands after taking out the trash, or putting out the recyclables. He woke up this morning to the alarm, and said "I had the wierdest dreams, now I have to go wash my hands"
No, it wasnt some sort of erotic dream, or anything like that, in his dream he was digging through the trash(and found 20 bucks!), so when he woke up he felt dirty, violated and sick. SO yes, he DREAMS of trash and it makes him wash his hands.
2. When we met he didnt like Chinese food. Honestly, that was ALMOST a deal breaker.
We would go out and I would try and get him to go out to a chinese restaurant and he would stubbornly refuse. "I just dont like chinese food. I have had terrible experiences and I just cant eat it." So after a little more poking and prodding and needling I find the REAL story. WHen he was like 7 he went to a chinese restaurant in EL PASO TEXAS that wasnt any good. So in the remaining 17 years he refused to eat chinese food. So I finally forced him to go with me, he fell in love and now I can't get him AWAY from chinese food.
3. He is completely UN-handy. All the curtain rods, pictures, bookshelves etc are because of ME. Up until about 6 months ago he was so hopeless with power tools and the complete opposite of being handy. We owned all the tools and drills etc, but he rarely used them. Finally, while helping my dad install blinds, he got a crash course on the ways of manliness and power tools. So we're getting there...and it only took 11 years!!
4. He hates ABBA. Again, almost a deal breaker. I personally LOVE ABBA. I Love them. In fact I love them so much I have even seen "ABBA: The Movie" several times. Charles on the other hand barely tolerates them. However the ironic thing is this: One of his favorite Musicals is "Chess"(London version). The music for chess was written by none other than Benny and Bjorn from ABBA, and most of that music has the typical ABBA beat and style. So how he can say he hates ABBA, yet loves Chess is beyond me. Sometimes I will purposely listen to ABBA when he is around, just so he has Chiquitita or Super Trooper stuck in his head all day. Someday I WILL get him to admit he likes them."If you change your mind(take a chance) Im the first in line(take a chance)...take a chance take a chance take a chance chance"
5. He doesnt like onions. A Long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away he went to taco bell and had a burrito with onions. He claims the onions gave him really bad gas and a stomach ache, so now, even to this day, 18 years later, he cant eat onions. Everywhere he goes to eat, "no onions" When I cook I throw in onions and even if I have cooked them so much they no longer have flavor, he has this mental block and it turns him green. We eat a lot of sweet vidalias, which really have very little onion flavor. He seriously starts getting stomach cramps just THINKING about onions. He makes comments like "pretty good. Would have been better without the onions". But if he DOES eat onions at a japanese restaurant or whatnot, he makes a point of telling me "Look honey! I'm eating my onions. Arent you proud of me?" Yes,so proud. Now where did I put your medal??
6.He walks around barefoot 24/7. He comes from a barefoot family. He would mow the lawn barefoot if I would let him.
He really likes to be barefoot. He has about 3 inch thick callouses and dead skin on his feet from it too. I want to take him to the nail salnon to get a man-pedicure. I would love to see that Vietnamese slip of a girl tackle THOSE bad boys. They are like frodo from Lord of the Rings
7. He speaks fluent Portugese(having lived in Brazil). We have a fairly large Brazilian population here and if he hears someone speaking portugese he will find an excuse to talk to them in their native tongue. Of course they are always so surprised that this white and nerdy gringo speaks Brazilian Portugese it is quite humourous. Example: we were at an ice cream store and a group of brazilians walked in. They were looking at the flavours and one was trying to explain to the other group hat passionfruit was. He couldnt think of the portugese word for it(or he didnt know what the english word meant so he couldnt translate) Charles jumps right in and says "blah blah blah blah blah". The could have dropped dead there right on the floor. But they were grateful and were shocked at the same time.I know in their head they were thinking "where on earth did he learn that?"
8. He speaks his foreign words with an over pronouced accent. It really used to bother me, now I am just used to it. We go to a mexican restaurant an he super pronounces everything. Kind of Giada De Laurentis on the Food Network. Burrito(which I pronounce burr-ree-toe) becomes Boor-dee-toh)(the r and d are kind of rolled together)
En-chill-lah-duh becomes En-chi-la-da etc etc etc. Remember those kids in your foreign language classes who thought they were so great because they would over pronunciate everything? yeah, he does that.
9. He is SUPER WHITE. I don't mean white bread or typical stereotype white guy dancing(although thats true too). I mean, he is WHITE. We had one of our friends say "Man, Charles you are so white I dont know where your legs leave off and your socks begin!"
We are talking bike reflector white. Dont take him out in the bright sunlight, you will get snow blindness. He cant tan. He has two colors: white and red. There is very little in between. His arms can get a little color, but thats after a full summer out in the sun. Even in HAWAII he couldnt get a tan.
10. He is a pack rat and trash picker. If I try and throw stuff away he will pull it OUT of the trash and say "Hey we can still use this".(Then he will go and promptly wash his hands)
When we got married we received SEVERAL blenders, mixers, food processors etc. We kept them for about 6 years. Finally one day I went through, pulled out the ones we never used and put them in a box. I put them out by the dumpster with a note saying "free to a good home". He comes home from work and says "Oh there was a box of appliances out there someone was throwing away. I would have brought them in, but I know we already have like 3 of everything". He found out a year later that they were ours.
When we were moving into our house and were packing up, I deliberately waited until he was gone before I started de-junking and throwing stuff away. I threw out some old clothesa nd towels and my roller blades that didnt even FIT anymore. When he got home from work he came in, my roller blades in hand from the dumpster and said "Look what someone was throwing out! They are still in perfectly good condition and they are big enough they might fit you!" My friend Amy happened to be there at the time and she just cracked up. She looked at me and said "I totally thought you were joking about his habit!".
We have a whole house FULL of "we might use that again someday"s, and "I will lose enough weight to fit into that again" and "It's broke? i might be able to fix it. I'll get to it later".
No matter how hard I try to throw things away, they always find a way BACK into the house.
One more funny story. He may drive me crazy, but he makes me laugh.
My kids had a Buzz Lightyear costume from Disney store. It came with that purple stretch lycra cap that you put on your head and velcro under your chin. Well one day he was doing laudry, got undressed, and put on a pair of tighty whitey underwear. He pulled the purple cap all the way over his big head and velcroed it under his chin. He jumps out of the laundry room in nothing but underwear and a purple cap. He puts his hand on his waist, sucks in his gut, puffs out his chest and says "I'm Buzz Lightyear!".
I had to change my pants I laughed so hard. Now every time I see that purple cap laying around (because our kids may shrink 10 inches and they would wear that costume again you know) I just laugh until I cry.
So those were just a few silly quirks and funny things the man in my life does. It certainly makes my life more interesting. I wouldnt be as happy as I am without him in my life.(awwww, arent I mooshy??)
I love you White and Nerdy!
