Walking side-by-side in marriage.

I had a customer in yesterday who really got under my skin.  He came in, I happily told him to let us know if he needs help with anything.  Truly.  That's what we're there for and we are happy to help.

He comes to me.  He starts talking.  It's a bit incoherent.

He speaks of a girl who asked him to marry her.  Of course he had to say yes.

He's married.

He's not married.

How could he marry?

He talks on about artists and art.  I engage in the conversation.  He talks about my boss.  I discuss certain aspects of the work.

He speaks of attending college.  I say something in regard to that and he tells me that he's illiterate.

:tip of the head with the attending college comment:

He continues to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  I can't fully understand him, but I give a bit of a grunt and nod from time to time.  (I can understand the idea he speaks of, but not details.)

Toni comes up.  She had been setting a jewelry case in the back.  He turns.  I kick her in the shin so she knows not to leave.  (I apologized later in case I bruised her.)  He rambles some more, then goes to look around next door.  Later, she told me that she had been keeping an eye on the situation and came to be with me on purpose.

I called next door just to have him followed a bit.  I didn't think he would steal anything, but I had no idea what he would do or what customer or coworker he would corner.  Matt was sent to hang with him.  He later told me, "I didn't know what you had against 'Duck Dynasty' until he opened his mouth.  Then I knew."

About 10 minutes later, the guy comes back through.  He talks of marriage.  He talks of marriage "Being a man and a woman, whites with whites, blacks with blacks and Muslims with Muslims."  :chewing on the inside of my cheek:

"Well, I think it's most important that people marry whoever makes them happy."

His response?  "I think that obedience is most important.  Obedience is more important that happiness, don't you think?"

I may have closed my eyes.

I may have taken a deep breath.

I picked up the phone and called a male coworker over.  He was over faster than I ever thought he could move.

He left almost immediately after Dan arrived.

Here's the thing, I don't pull that trigger all that often.  I'm not the girl to always have a man come to our rescue.  He seemed a little unhinged and I just didn't know which way things would go with him.

What do I think of obedience?  Well, it's great when you are a kid or an animal.  My thoughts and how we are structured in our marriage is that we're equal in this marriage.  My friend will say that she and her husband walk side-by-side.  She said that she doesn't walk behind, but doesn't walk in front, either.  M and I are that way.  There are times one takes the lead a bit more than the other, but we both take care of each other.

Happiness IS most important to both of us.

M's specification before marriage is that we had to enjoy our jobs.  If we didn't enjoy them, we had to move on.  Neither one of us have changed jobs that often in our 18+ years of marriage.  M moved from one permanent park position to another because of continual displeasure with his job.  I moved from the wedding boutique partially out of complete unhappiness and partly because I was trying to find a job art related.

We have a small house that we can manage because that brings happiness to us.  We love our neighborhood.  We love our little plot of earth.

We have basic vehicles that we take care of and own until they die because that brings happiness to us.  Shopping for cars stresses us out.

Neither one of us makes demands of the other.  Instead, we work together-- as a team.  There is no submissive wife.  (He knew that long before marriage.)  There is no submissive husband.  (I wouldn't want that.)  We are helpful mates to each other and I would want nothing more.
 

The Finicky World of Vinyl

We didn't want to pull that trigger.  We tried not to.  We knew that 1.  It was an expensive hobby.  and 2.  We didn't have a turntable.

Bring Christmas and my husband gifts me a turntable.  Turns out that I had put some vinyl on my list, but with the intention of collection only.  He thinks that it is insane to just own vinyl and knows that I'm not a collector.  I'm a user of things.  I hate having a ton of stuff just sitting around and, well, doing nothing.

Fast forward to now.  This was our first official Record Store Day where we owned a turntable that we could use to spin some delightful wax.  RSD was Saturday and though both of us knew about it, M worked and we were helping him with his Earth Day Fishing Derby.

I got a bit of an itch that night though.

"You know, I didn't realize that Slayer put out a 7"."

"I knew."

"Do you want us to see if we can find it?  I have one I'm looking for and we can stop tomorrow before soccer."

A little arm twisting :sarcasm: and we landed at our record store the next day.  Of course, they had what I was looking for plus a 2011 RSD PJ release.  No Slayer for M.  Bummer.

I went home and did, despite other people's choosing, spun my Citizen Dick (one side, of course) and The Frogs version of Rearviewmirror.

M did find his Slayer 45.  He texted me.  It was "cracking and popping" on the one side all over the place.  I did listen to it later.  It has some pretty intense surface noise, but it kind of is what it is.  The pull was limited to 5000 copies worldwide and though contacting the distributor/manufacturer, it seems as if there isn't a really great resolution.  He's received vinyl from this particular outfit before.  It had chunks out of the edges and a big scratch across "his favorite song."

He bought me the Jeff Ament vinyl and it's warped.  The needle rides along like it is on a roller coaster track.  It plays fine.

Surprisingly, my friend purchased a limited edition release that he waited months for.  It arrived and it had two huge skid marks.  They didn't play on his turntable.  They were replaced and since he had the extra, he asked if I would like them.  I said sure and you know what?  They play just fine without skips on my turntable.

We don't just drop the vinyl from the package and onto the turntable.  Nosiree!  There is cleaning to be done.  Then you have to flip the adjustments to make sure that you're running for a 45 and not a 33.

Now, M wants a needle cleaner.

We bought a record cleaner.  Works like a charm.

Here's the thing.  Neither one of us remember doing any of this stuff when we were kids.  We just slapped the filthy vinyl on the turntable, dropped the needle and listened to it.  There could be hunks of peanut butter stuck to it.  It could be skipping all over the place.  We also reached down WITH OUR HANDS and removed the fuzz from the needle.  You mustn't do that now.  YOU'LL RUIN THE NEEDLE!

Has vinyl equipment gotten more finicky over the years, or have we?