the man pt 2.

The man is a big guy. Strong and tough-like. He can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Really?

No, not really.

Regardless, he's big and strong and fearless and so totally not delicate in any way, shape or form.

I refer to him as my bull in my china shop.

Yes, it's my china shop and he is my bull.

This is starting to sound dirty which is not where I was going at all.

Picture it: the man in his Italian suit.



Okay, so you don't have to picture it. So picture this instead: he is teaching Sunday School to a room packed full of the 'elderly'. (I don't know why that has quotes, because they really are elderly. Most of them.) Before he begins his lesson, which is the reason the room is packed, people love him, he prepares his space. He has a tiny little podium and he sprawls his stuff out. And when I say sprawls I mean throws things around in a very loud, seemingly destructive manner. He has a look of consternation on his face.

"What is he so upset about?" people wonder within their minds. I know they are wondering within their minds because for the first two years of our marriage I wondered within mine.

"What is the matter?" I would ask.

"What do you mean?" he would respond.

"Why do you have that look on your face?"

"What look?"

"The one that looks like you might be plotting my murder and body disposal."

"Oh, I'm just thinking."

"About my murder and body disposal??"

"Um, no, honey. I was thinking about whether I want Vietnamese or Chinese for dinner tonight."

Dinner choices invoking such looks was something I would always remember from that day forth.

Good to know.

So, as the years passed, when I would see him sitting quietly with 'the look' upon his handsome face, I would ask what he's thinking about and without fail it was never about my murder and body disposal. For you, this may be good to know.

He likes me, he really does.

It is also something I had to teach my family and our children.

"Oh that's just his thinking face." I would explain.

He's heavy footed and if you didn't know any better you'd think he was coming after you in a fury that could only equal total destruction and ultimate loss of life. A rampage that would most certainly end with a murder and subsequent body disposal. One always knows when the man is around. He's loud.

He thrashes around in bed like he's possessed. When he turns in the night it's like someone has picked him up, flipped him over, and thrown him back into bed with such a force that anyone underneath him would be destroyed instantly. We bought one of those fancy 'bowling ball not knocking over the wine glass' mattresses in the hopes of me not being interrupted in my already fragile slumber by his 'tossing'. Nothing could sleep through a grown man flailing about as if wrestling dragons with his bare hands.

It truly is only a small miracle he doesn't move much in his sleep. Nor does he snore which endears this brute fellow to me.

(When we are apart and I sleep alone I sleep like a dream. He does not sleep well at all. I'll bet it's because no one is there to disrupt. Or terrorize.)

In the mornings when he is ready to get up he lifts the blankets off himself and hurls them at me. He raises them up high, and then throws them down with all the early morning strength he can muster. Right on top of me. When I confronted him about it he said he wasn't hurling them at me but merely removing them from his body.

If by removing he means hurling then yes, I agree.

"How about you just gently roll out of bed leaving the blankets where they are?" I suggest in the nicest tone possible.

"You're up anyway."

"Yes, you're right. I am up. I just had a duvet hucked at my head."

This morning, the man gently rolled out of bed leaving the blankets alone.

Will wonders ever cease?