One Headlight

We keep a running list of items needed. You empty the box of Cheezits? Put it on the list that’s always on the microwave with seven pens, six of which don’t write. If you’re me, you will always have to try all seven pens to fine the ONE the works. But you won’t bother to throw away the six that don’t work. I mean, who do you think you are?

One recent Saturday, I went to get the grocery list and found Tom’s debit card on top of it with an item (or two?) listed. A stop at Auto Zone was going to be necessary to pick up this particular item.

He’d written “headlight bulbs, set of two, for 2012 Chevy Equinox.”

I was immediately disgruntled.

Wait. I know. Let me acknowledge right here that I KNOW I’m a brat. I also know that I’m spoiled.

But seriously, what the hell is the point of having a HUSBAND if said husband won’t go and fetch these sorts of things himself? So what if these particular bulbs were for MY car? Also so what if I didn’t even know I had a headlight out. I rarely drive after dark, so I had no idea how long I’d been driving with one headlight. Sue me.

So yes, since Tom was at the post office (as he is often on Saturday mornings) I had a mini tantrum over having to stop at Auto Zone and get bulbs for my car.

By the time he got home, which was right before the girls and I were leaving to go buy groceries…and stop at Auto Zone, I thought I’d gotten my little snit out of the way. I blandly said I’d seen the addition to the list and he joked that at least he wasn’t expecting me to go to Walmart and try and find the right bulbs myself, that at Auto Zone you just tell them what you need and they go get them for you. I may have rolled my eyes like a big old baby. I can’t be sure, I wasn’t looking in a mirror.

Apparently my ambivalence toward purchasing those bulbs came through, though, because we’d been on the road for maybe three miles (not long enough to cross the state line into Indiana) when Tom called.

Alyssa answered my phone because, hello, I was driving. She spoke briefly with her father.

When she hung up she said, “Dad said you don’t have to go to Auto Zone. He’s going to go to an antique store later today or tomorrow so he can stop and get the bulbs himself.”

Huh.

Well.

Never let it be said that I’m not contrary as hell.

Now that he’d said I didn’t need to stop at Auto Zone, guess who was going to Auto Zone.

My mom laughed at my bratty behavior and said that I was lucky to have Tom.

Yes, Mother, I know.

I really do know that. But I also STILL wish he’d just gotten the stupid bulbs, changed them and told me about it after. Sure, the trip into Auto Zone took less than five minutes but now I have to spend about five more minutes feeling bad for being a spoiled brat.

AND! And I had to go home and apologize to my husband for it. That’s just annoying.