Surprises

Today has been a day of surprises, and I don't like surprises. Of course it usually could be okay if they are good surprises, I can get over it quickly (my wife might not think so.) Today things didn't go as planned. One thing about aspies is that we like things to go as we saw them in our head, or at least I do. Today, as I am about getting ready to go home, my wife tells me that our basement flooded. I get an image of water flooding up through the drain, and having to do some major repairs. That wasn't the problem though. My brother had stayed at our house a few months back, and left most of his stuff here. We weren't using that extra room, and he doesn't have anywhere to put it right now. He had left a small fridge behind, that had been basically cleaned out, but when my wife moved the fridge, some kind of liquid came spilling out the bottom and soaked the carpet in that spare bedroom.

My wife had grown quite tired of all of the stuff in the basement, and it seems this is the last straw, so she loads everything up in the van, and throws the fridge out on the lawn. I get home at about 6:30, and I am given the ultimatum to get rid of the stuff in the van, or it is going to the dump in the morning. I was shocked. I thought I was helping my brother by just holding his stuff in a room that we didn't even use. My carpet was soaked and mildewing.

My mother had indicated that she could take this stuff off of my hands, so I called her up, and find that she is having a shower for my sister's brother-in-law's finance, which won't be over until 9pm. Ok, well, I have an Elder's quorum meeting that will last until 9pm, so I'll deal with this all later.

When I come home a little after nine, I call my mother up again, and try to explain what has happened, and she tells me I am going to have to help her find a place to store this stuff, because she isn't ready for it. I had thought she had plenty of space.

Well, that is about enough for me, so I start yelling and flailing around about the position that I'm in now, that I have to take this stuff to my parents house with no notice, and why didn't my wife call me sooner to tell me about the catastrophe. She tells me the phone was dead, and that I should have taken that stuff out months ago. I can never win an argument with my wife.

She actually handled it all pretty well. I remember when we were first married, and if I got excited at all, she started crying because she thought I was yelling at her. I tried to calm down a bit, give her a hug and tried to put a positive spin on it in my head, but she kept saying defensive things until I left to go visit my parents, which I of course have to respond to.

My family was pleasant, and I did have one good surprise, there were brownies. My mom and sisters were all there, and they helped unload the van, which generally helped improve my mood about things. Along with the brownies and cookies.

When I get home, I find that also during the day my wife has taken out the garbage and mowed the lawn for me, which are also surprises that I find hard to accept. But I am trying to figure out how to deal with things a bit better, and realize that my discomfort is all in my head. I thank my wonderful wife for trying to take care of things around the house, and she seems to handle things all pretty well with my aspergers, now that she knows about it.