Six more Sue quirks.

Mindy will tell you all the stuff you already know about her. But here are six more out of the many quirks she has. Straight from the husband:

1. Food. First, she hates trying new food. She has her staples and sticks to them most of the time. But whenever she gets brave, or we have to eat somewhere new, I have to order something safe because inevitably, she'll take a bite of hers and not like it. So then I have to trade. So if I want to eat my own food, I have to order something I know she doesn't like. And if we have our own cereal, sandwich, or dinner, she'll always eye mine and want to trade because she doesn't like hers.
2. The opposite. I don't know why she asks for my opinion on things like what to buy or what to do. Without fail, she will do the exact opposite of everything I say. Maybe that's all girls. But I got her good at Disneyland. She was trying to decide between a lion or an alligator that folds up into a pillow. I knew she wanted the lion. So when she asked me for my opinion, I said to get the lion. You could see the torn look on her face. "Should I get the lion and do what he suggests? Or should I get the alligator, even though I don't like it as much, because that would be the opposite?" Well, you know what she chose.
3. Seat Belts. We've been married for nearly ten years and have been going out for about a year longer than that. I have had to fight with her every day we get in the car to put on her seat belt. She makes a big fuss and I have to forcefully reach across her and put it on with her pouting the whole time. Ten years! But, whenever she drive to work by herself or elsewhere, she puts on her seat belt first thing (well, right after she hooks up her iPod). I've taught Kade to ask her though now, "Mom, where's your seat belt?"
4. Electronics. She won't admit it, but she loves electronics as much as I do. She can't live without them. But of course when I first get them, she pretends like they're just a waste of money. Case in point - About 3 years ago I bought a DVR (electronic VCR). It cost a bit of money at the time and she let me know about it. Well, it only took a couple of days before she took it over. It lets you record about 80 hours worth of TV. She has it micromanaged down to the minute. I'm not allowed to have anything on there. If I have a show I've recorded, she bugs me each day to watch it or threatens to delete it. We recently got another DVR (you know, so I could record some things). And when she found out that it could record two things at once, it was an early Christmas. So now she can be recording up to three things at one time while watching her other recorded shows. She's in heaven. But of course, I have no room on either one now. She also didn't like that I bought her a video Ipod. But of course now she can't live without it.
5. Sue Math. There's lots of examples of Sue math. But mainly it's how she does math that best suits her needs at the time. Here are just two examples. When she's trying to convince me to buy something that's expensive, she rounds down, a lot. If something's $199, she'll say, "Look, it's only one hundred dollars."
   
   The other is a bit more complicated. She'd be a good accountant for Enron or some other big company that cooks the books. She can spend money that doesn't exist and make it sound like you're saving money. For example, Gymboree ( a kid's clothing store) has an evil promotion called GymBucks. For every $50 you spend (and it doesn't take much in this store), they give you a voucher for $25 off your next $50 purchase. So essentially, it's just a 25% off sale but they've got you to buy $100 worth of stuff instead of just $50 ($50+$50-$25). Somehow, this is a good thing. The good thing would be not to go to the store in the first place. You could also not spend $50. You could also not go back and buy stuff later with their $25 off scam. But apparently, if you don't spend more money, it's a crime.
   
   The other part of Sue Math is spending money that was returned. For example, if we bought something for the house for $50, but she ended up not liking it, we'd take it back and get our money back. But, according to Sue math, instead of saving that money, we go back out and spend it on something else because, according to her, it's like we didn't have that money anyway, because it was spent on something earlier. So now we've spent $50 on something else because it was already gone at one point.
6. Sue. I have lots more, but before this sounds like a gripe session, I thought I'd give you a few good quirks about Mindy. She always has to have the house clean and that's never a bad thing. Plus she does most of it. Our house it always filled with seasonal cute things. Everyone always compliments her on it. And our boys are smart and sweet because she works so hard and spends so much time teaching them. And I'm lucky to have her and her quirks.