One Union, Two Minds

It only took a week.

When man lives alone, or within the company of other men, harmony can be expected. For man and his manly roommates share the same inherent thought process when it comes to decision making, event planning, and why it is possible to grill outside during a rain storm with no power or gas (assuming you can forage for dry sticks in the woods.) The logic is uniform, and the disagreements are few.

However, when man lives with woman, it’s a whole new ballgame. Said ballgame does not imply tension, but it does make light of the fact that the two are operating with different trains of thought. The key for successful co-habitation is to make sure that both trains are going to the same station. Man makes efforts to understand where woman is coming from, and woman makes efforts to do the same. If they’re lucky, they won’t end up in their respective corners, alone (in this case, Best Buy and Starbucks, respectively.)

In this educational exercise, Chris “Clever is my middle name, unless you count Patrick, then it really is not” Condon will be playing the role of Man. Katie “I can’t keep my new last name straight, identity crisis candidate” Condon will be starring as Woman. The setting – Saturday morning at the new apartment, in the midst of the initial set-up and cleaning of said location. The problem at hand – removing all the boxes from wonderful wedding gifts from the premises.

Woman: “Honey, can you start taking the boxes down to the dumpster? I want to vacuum over where they are all sitting.”

Man: “Not a problem.” (Man walks over to the stack of trash and analyzes its composition. 12 sealed empty appliance / moving / PotteryBarn containers. He takes a glimpse out the sliding glass door to the balcony, trying to mentally measure how the sun’s rays are today. He doesn’t want to do all four flights of stairs several times in this heat. If only there was another way…wait. Got one.)

Man: “Actually, I have an idea about the boxes. Let me know what you think.”

(Woman, knowing that Man is a creative mind is either expecting a joke or a stalling technique. She’s looked out the window at the sun, too.)

Man: “What if I ran down to the first floor and stood down below while you dropped the boxes one-by-one to me four stories down?” (Man awaits her acknowledgement of the plan like a child on Christmas. After all, he’s stacked the proposal in her favor – not only does the trash leave the apartment (which she wants), she gets the fun part! (throwing stuff OFF A BALCONY!)

Woman: (after watching Man’s lit-up facial expression) “Oh my God. (pause) You’re completely serious.”

Man: (knowing that his ubercool idea has not been shot down (yet), continues with logic) “Look, there’s no one down there – and the boxes are empty, so I can catch them. Plus it will save trips up and down, and finally, I love you. (Insert winning smile)”

(Woman, now well aware that this is not a joke nor a stall, evaluates the plan. Trash leaves, Man is eager to do job, now that freefalling projectiles are involved, and she is secretly excited to throw boxes off a balcony. Though Woman will never admit it. Oh, and that extra love sentiment was a clever touch.)

Woman: “Ok, put the boxes on the balcony.”

Moments later, Man stood four long stories below the balcony catching one-by-one boxes ranging from that which can hold only a cheese plate up to a full toaster oven. The results were resoundingly good.

Woman: “It was efficient, organized, and effective. I liked it.”
Man: “It was freakin’ awesome! Let’s throw more stuff off! Wa-Hoo!”