Uniquely Milwaukee, Christmas Edition

Funny story - A few weeks ago I went to Target to pick up some groceries and stopped by their seasonal Christmas display to check out what Target was putting out for holiday décor this year. While I was walking around I saw a bunch of signs posted around the store that said:

Remember, St. Nick is coming tonight!

Target was REALLY busy. A lot busier than I'd seen it before, and initially when I walked in the store I thought that was because the holiday shopping bug had suddenly hit the suburbs of Milwaukee. But when I saw those signs, the thought occurred to me that maybe Target had set-up a picture area for kids to sit with Kris Kringle.

When I was checking out with my groceries, I made a similar comment to the Target checkout girl. "It sure is busier than usual! Everyone must be here because Santa is coming to the store." "WHAT?!" She got all excited, almost jumping up and down, looking toward the front of the store.

I looked too. No Santa chair set up at the front of the store, that I could see.

She turned to the cashier next to her. "Did we get Santa to come to the store tonight?"

"Oh! You mean the signs?" asked the other cashier Target girl. "No, St. Nicholas is coming tonight."

"OH!" Everything suddenly made sense to Target checkout girl. "St. Nicholas is coming tonight," they explained to me.

Uh, yeah... still confused. Repeating the sign wording to me doesn't clarify things.

Until I got home and googled it. Though the tradition has died a bit over the years, apparently there are still remote parts of Europe and of course Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Saint Nicholas (not to be confused with Santa Claus) still visits the homes of good little boys and girls in early December and leaves a treat for them in their shoes.

We must not have been good this year, at least on a saintly level, because St. Nick did not visit our Milwaukee suburb apartment. We'll try harder for next year.

Piles of Laundry

When you get married and move in together, you discover that your spouse has strange habits. That makes it sound like its just the husband. Wives are quirky too. For example, I like the dishwasher loaded a certain way. It makes sense to me, but no one else I know loads it the way I do. If someone puts a dish in on their own and it's "out of place", I'll get my hands dirty to move it where I want. Strange habits.

Dr. Hubby has the habit of leaving his used clothing on the floor when he changes. This is the very reason why whenever we move and set up our new bedroom, his side of the bed is furthest away from the door. If it is impossible to train him from leaving piles of clothes on the floor, at least I can hide them behind the bed.

There are a couple reasons why I don't feel any responsibility to pick up those clothes:

First, while I adore having a clean home, I respect that Scott has his own way of doing things. Most of the time when clothes are left on the floor, its because he's changing out of lounging clothes that haven't been dirtied.  Admittedly, I don't wash my lounging clothes after ever use either... except I fold mine back up and put them in a proper place. If Scott went around moving my lounging clothes like he knew best, I'd be perturbed. So as long as this habit is contained to a hidden corner of the bedroom, and occasionally those clothes are moved to the laundry hamper, I won't complain or touch his pile.

The second reason I do not move all those clothes directly from the floor into the laundry is because I can never tell what needs to be washed. I'm not going to go smelling all of his clothes to figure it out. He can take care of it. He also knows that clothes in the laundry hamper get washed.

Which is why this scene that took place earlier this week was confusing to me.

I woke up and was getting ready for work, when I noticed that there was a pile of scrubs NEXT to the laundry hamper, AWAY from the designated corner.



I texted Scott.

"What does it mean when you put your used scrubs on the floor NEXT to the laundry basket?"

He sends back laughing/crying emojis.

"No, really.  What's the difference between the floor next to the laundry basket and the corner?"

Apparently, we have need of three different laundry baskets in our house. One for dirty clothes. Another for lounging clothes that will be reused. And a final basket for scrubs that are dirty and need to be washed, but if they aren't washed by the next time Dr. Hubby needs to wear scrubs, they will get worn again. (Yikes!)

That night I discovered that the two floors piles were picked up and a load of laundry was done, without me saying another word. We get each other.