Awkwardness

You know you have reached a certain level of trust in your marriage when your wife tells you that she found a woman's undergarment in the house that doesn't belong to her and she's not the least bit upset.

So, yes, the other day Naomi is cleaning the guest bedroom in anticipation of our next visitor and discovers a woman's undergarment under the bed. It dawned on me immediately how uncomfortable this discovery could be if indeed I had anything to hide, which made me feel very happy that I don't (I am neither a cheater nor a cross-dresser).

The next thought was, "whose is it?" We mentally went down the list of recent guests and concluded without too much trouble that it must belong to the last visitors we had a few weeks back. This led to a second awkward moment as these last visitors (a couple) are people we had not met prior to their showing up on our doorstep. Not only that, but we didn't even have contact information for them. The woman whose personal item is in question here is the sister of a friend and former co-worker. We did manage to get her email address from our friend, but a week later we still haven't emailed her.

Why? Well how exactly do you write that email? Neither of us knows her really, but Naomi doesn't really even know her brother that well. I know him well, but I'm not sure I'm the one to be emailing her about this. It's tempting to create a new email account (discreet@hotmail.com or unmentionables@yahoo.com perhaps) just to give her the news anonymously, but that wouldn't really work either since it's our stinkin' house that is the scene of the crime.

I think, in the end, we're just going to have to tag-team it: I write the email using all the diplomacy and formal language I can muster and send it to Naomi to send from her email account.

This is what marriage is all about. No, not discovering undergarments from strange women in one's house, but sharing the burden of the unpleasant necessities of life. And all the better when you can do so with a good attitude and a chuckle or two.