The Invisible Woman

I'm old enough to remember when the 70's sit-com, "Soap," was in it's original run. One of the characters, Burt, has a mild psychotic breakdown and believes he can make himself invisible.

I believe I can do the same. Problem is, I have no control over when this happens.

For example, last night The Husband fell asleep on the couch fairly early in the evening. I took this opportunity to go upstairs to hang some prints I received as a Christmas gift in our tiny bathroom. Not more than five minutes after I went upstairs, he came up and asked what I was doing. Not only did I go into detail about what I was about to do, I had the prints laid out on the bed in formation and was holding a hammer. He then proceeded into the tiny bathroom and spent the next 20 minutes cleaning his teeth. I stood in the bedroom with my mouth open and hammer in hand for the same 20 minutes.

This bathroom is really tiny. It's not even a full bath, and is considered, what I believe, a bath-and-three-quarters. One could pretty much sit on the toilet and wash one's hands in the sink or stand at the sink brushing one's teeth, and lean over and shave one's legs in the shower. I've pretty much done both of these activities. So hanging the prints while he was in the bathroom was pretty much out of the questions.

When he finally came out, I went in and started hammering nails. He poked his head in: "What are you doing?"

Seriously?!

I said, "Hanging up these prints LIKE I TOLD YOU TWENTY MINUTES AGO I WAS GOING TO DO."

I can come up with no other explanation for this, other than the fact I was indeed invisible when he first came upstairs, and therefore, he could neither see nor hear my detailed explanation.

This happens to me all the time. Especially with my kids.

I can give them extremely detailed instructions on upcoming events, or tasks I ask them to do, sometimes even written and with illustrations, and after I've completely gone Joan Crawford-Mommie Dearest on them, will look at me as though it were the first time they were receiving any kind of instructions.

I've also been left behind many times in my life, because people just forgot I was there. Most memorably, I was locked in at the bookstore where I worked, after closing, even though it was REQUIRED that all employees sign out at the end of the day.

The manager just forgot about me, and apparently my name on the roster was also invisible.

Now if I could only harness this super-power at will I could probably rule the world.