The Proof is in The Underwear Drawer

Jayson's cheese done slid off his cracker. Living in separate cities for the past 4 months has taken its toll on him and quite frankly I'm a little concerned.

After Taylor and I got to Houston and got settled in on Sunday, I saw that Jayson had some laundry that needed to be done and I didn't mind doing it. He had some clean socks and undies in the laundry room so I folded them and went to our closet to put them away.

The last time I was here, he had one shelf for all his socks and undies but now there were only socks on that shelf. I held up the 5 pairs of clean undies I had in my hand and asked him where the rest of his panties were. He said, "That's probably all of them".

Well I knew that wasn't right because he doesn't have any left in his drawer in Lafayette and his shelf was full the last time I was here. When I pointed that out to him, he remembered that he moved them to one of the drawers in our new dresser.

I'm willing to bet just about anything that he forgot that he'd moved his all his underwear into that drawer and has been using these same 5 pairs for the last month but I didn't say anything.

I opened Jayson's panty drawer and found this.

 I asked, "Is this also the drawer for your socks?"

"Only the dark ones", he replied.

"But I just saw a bunch of black socks on the shelf in your closet. Why are those there and these here?"

"Well, I'm in the process of transferring everything over", he said as if it's some kind of enormous task that must be broken down into manageable increments.

"Where are your white socks?" I asked, almost afraid of what the answer would be.

He said, "Those are in the drawer on the left." I opened the drawer on the left and this is what I saw.

I pulled one tan sock out of the white sock drawer and then pulled its mate out of the black sock drawer. I asked Jayson, "Is there any reason why these 2 socks were in different drawers?"

"I said it's a process!!" he snapped back.

Okay, okay, I get it. He's having sock issues. I got the rest of his black socks off the closet shelf and put them in his underwear drawer. Then I said, "You know, we have enough drawers in this dresser so that you could have one white sock drawer, one dark sock drawer and an underwear drawer. You don't have to keep your dark socks in with your underwear."

"I like them there", he said.

Fine. We were done with that conversation. I thought. When I started to put his socks and underwear in the drawers where he wanted them he said, "You know...I've never liked my socks folded. I like them loose in the drawer."

We've been married for almost 23 years during which time I have always paired up and folded his socks with no complaint from him. Now suddenly he tell me that he's never liked it and would like for them to be loose in the drawer. The next thing I know he'll be buying a sports car and insisting that everyone call him Jazzman.

I pointed out to him that it's easier to pair them up right out of the wash rather than to waste time in the mornings digging for 2 matching socks. Just when I thought I couldn't be anymore shocked he said, "They don't have to be a matching pair, as long as they're the same color."

What? WHAT?!!!? Who IS this stranger?! I absolutely canNOT function with 2 different socks on my feet! Even if I have 12 pairs of identical socks, I match them up according to wear and tear so that they are as identical as possible. I've done this for my family for as long as I can remember because I thought they felt that way too.

This was almost too much to process. But...I'm the woman, I am adaptable. I unfolded all of the socks I had just neatly paired up and I placed them in the drawers where he wanted them.

As I was putting his underwear away Jayson said, "I really prefer for my underwear to be rolled instead of folded because they fit better in the drawer and it's much neater".

It's much neater. I've got no problem with neat and organized but let me show you what this looks like.

The white sock drawer.

The underwear drawer without its dark socks.

It looks sort of Jekyll and Hyde. Or maybe like a serial killer.

Just to make sure I understood I asked, "So you want your underwear neatly rolled and placed in the drawer, then you want your unfolded, unmatched, uncivilized black socks just thrown in on top??"

"Yes, that's what I want."

So that's what I did. Then I backed slowly out of the room and once I reached the hallway I turned and ran back down the stairs where it was safe.

Jayson and Taylor decided to go to the mall Monday morning so I did a little cleaning up around the house while they were gone. There really wasn't much to do anywhere except the bedroom where Jayson spends most of his time when he's home.

While I was making the bed, I saw this in the corner on Jayson's side.

They're hotel key cards, lined up like little soldiers in a corner of the bedroom. I haven't asked him about them because I'm afraid he might have named them and is having conversations with them or something like that. I'm just sure that I don't want to know.

The last time Jayson was in Lafayette I sent my guitar back with him since it had been riding around in my car for a couple of weeks and was just in the way. I was admiring the spot he had chosen to put it: that weird little ledge on the staircase.

I like it there and might let it live there permanently. As I was considering this, I looked along the curved edge of that ledge and saw this.

Jayson has lined up quarters, again like little soldiers.

I tried to tell myself that this is what recovering alcoholics do when they're faced with temporary bachelorhood. He can't make a beer can pyramid so he's lining up loose change and hotel key cards.

I told Taylor that no matter what we have to be moved by the end of this month because Daddy isn't well.