No Help At All (5)
This weekend, we replaced a couple of aging kitchen counter appliances – our coffee pot (which just quit working) and our toaster oven (which should have quit working). I noticed something very important as we were pulling the new stuff out of their boxes and putting them on the counter.
The toaster oven:
came with this:
And the coffee pot:
came with this:
As with most people in this world, we only use the instruction manual to figure out the buttons when we first plug it in and to get useless “self help” information if for any reason the appliance begins to act differently later in life than it did when it first came out of the box.
In many ways, my wife in her perimenopausal state is the same way. We sort of had a manual that worked perfectly through those first two plus decades of life together.  We have certainly both changed over the years, but overall, I think we both worked as expected.  Then all of the sudden things started working differently and we rushed around looking for that “self help” manual that could give us answers to the changes that were (are) happening! Unfortunately, there’s no manual to be found, and family and friends throw out awesome advice like, “don’t worry, it will be over soon” (did I tell you this lasts 4 YEARS!!!!) and “whatever you do, don’t anger it”.
I desperately need that instruction manual, and I need “self help” options that give me viable alternatives to the normal ones today like “make sure the walls are padded” and “ensure any throwable objects are soft and cushy”.
PS. I must admit, that all my seeking for answers is somewhat tempered when I see Denise like this:
or like this:
I need to cut a deal with the kids and grandkids to keep her distracted a lot more often!