Sorry Babe, I Don’t Have Time To Talk About This Sh*t Anymore

Dear Loving Husband and Devoted Father of My Child,

As you were going on last night about the merits of adding finely chopped onion to egg salad, I realized that we are not on the same page about what is a good use of my time. As you know, I work at least 40 hours a week (if you need me to do the math that’s most of most days). I barely have time to socialize, wash my face or pee without the interruption of our child’s unrelenting gaze and non-stop bodily functions. After I spend an hour holding her hand to sleep every night, I have but a few precious hours before I have to go to bed and so the time has come for you to practice something I’d like to call ECONOMY OF CONVERSATION. I love you, I love to talk to you, I just do not have the time nor the bandwidth to participate in conversations about which I absolutely do not care.

I want to remind you (once again) of the article I sent to you about the mental load and the unequal distribution of emotional labor that is eroding marriages across the country at an increasingly rapid pace. You probably don’t remember it because you didn’t read it, even though I sent it to you six times. I’ll shoot it over again later tonight. Part of carrying the mental load includes reading articles about it, but I wouldn’t expect you to know that.

Without further ado, the below topics should now be considered OFF LIMITS, and please note that I will be adding to this:

EGG SALAD, obviously.

I am proud of you for making it yourself, I guess, but there is nothing for me here. I know all I’ve ever wanted to know about egg salad and your complicated feelings about the texture of mayo based salads. By extension, tuna salad conversations will no longer be happening in our house. No, really. It actually isn’t interesting that I like tuna salad with crunch but not egg salad and you are the opposite. Finally, please note that mustard as a conversation topic has also been exhausted. Spicy, yellow, Dijon — not worth my time.

BOWEL MOVEMENTS, You’re done.

Unless it is a health EMERGENCY, I don’t want to hear about your poop, our daughter’s poop, the dog’s poop, and I don’t have anything to share about my own poop. I don’t want to know about the color, the consistency, or really, anything about any of it. I never have. I’m sorry. I love you. READ THE ARTICLE.

LEBRON JAMES.

Sorry. He is amazing, I don’t deny it but I just feel like I am at full Lebron James capacity. On that note, PLAYOFFS, your time has come. FINALS, SEMI-FINALS, WHATEVER, goodbye. I only have room for one sports-related passion and my darling you have already chosen College Basketball. If you would like to switch your one sports-related passion for discussion, please submit a request in writing. I’ll read it after you READ THE EMOTIONAL LABOR ARTICLE.

ROCKY BALBOA, and I know this one will be painful.

We’ve covered it though, honey. CREED, too. I know how much you love the movies; I know how amazing it was that Sylvester Stallone wrote/directed/trained/etc etc etc and I would like to live the rest of my life without reaffirming these “facts” every other month.

WHAT YOU’RE SCRATCHING IF NOT YOUR BALLS EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY SCRATCHING YOUR BALLS.

I’m sorry if something I’ve done has made you think that I want to hear anything about this. To be honest, I’d love it if I could stop seeing you scratch your balls entirely, but I understand that is a lot to ask. Kind of like asking you to READ THE ARTICLE.

In closing, I want to remind you that this list is just the beginning. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to anyone other than me.

Yours forever and always,

Wife