Mr. K was the bomb when I met him. I remember watching his fingers fly on the ten key. He was amazing, with his charts, graphs, and measurements. As a young twenty-two year old, he had charts for everything. He loved his calculator and clipboard. He tracked his gas mileage. He tracked his money. He tracked everything he consumed. When we married, he brought his “tracking skills” to the table. Literally, every evening, he’d pull out his clip board, and invariable be measuring something or other. I distinctly remember him measuring the shadow of the plant, in direct correlation with the rays of the sun to tell me how tall our giant house plant was.
If you talk to anyone in our family or longtime friends, they might even mention he tracked the toilet paper usage. (I am sure that’s just an old rumor.) It was in this setting he taught me about spread sheets. He was proficient with "Lotus." It was the mid 1980s and computers were not yet the tools of business they are now, but as the part time book keeper, he used spread sheets, and that was so cool.
Enrolled in college at the time, there were no required computer classes, however, the only tool we needed for our homework was a typewriter. So when it came to business tools, Mr. K was the expert and I was the novice.
One year’s Christmas events has become a bit family folklore. A few weeks before Christmas, he told everyone, including me about the present he purchased for me. I could not for the life of me figure out what it was. He’s a great secret keeper, and this was out of character to even mention he’d bought me a gift. I hoped it was a piano. He kept saying, “You’re going to love it.” He didn’t tell anyone, what it was, he just told them how excited I was going to be with this wonderful gift.
Christmas Day came, and there was no piano in the front room, but there was a nicely wrapped gift under the tree. Imagine my excitement when I opened and found a clipboard. Mr. K was so excited. His voice, filled with enthusiasm. “It even has a heavy duty spring.”
I was not very gracious. At first, I thought it was joke, which only frustrated him. My lack of enthusiasm hurt his feelings, because he sincerely thought, I’d be excited about having my own clipboard. Who wouldn’t be excited? My birthday is not too far after Christmas, and his family, in the spirit of the “clipboard” showered me with office supplies consisting of legal paper, pens, rulers and a bag to carry them in.
We’ve now been married for twenty something years. I buy him clipboards, and he buys me jewelry. My how things have changed. For some reason, he does not have the time or energy to track everything we consume, and yet he mentions from time to time how nice it was to have time to track our life. Though he was “the expert” of the computer world when we were first married, it’s not exactly that way anymore. He works in logistics, and boy can he get cross when inventory is not perfect! He does not care for email, nor does he care for the internet. If he ever has to use them, he complains and balks until I come in and advise him. I on the other hand, love the internet. I use it constantly. It was the internet that gave me an avenue of usefulness when I became too ill to do much of anything else.
I spend much of my time using computers. While I am not a computer expert, I do know my way around a computer enough to fix a few things. I use Macs for my daily work, and Mr. K, needed to use my Mac yesterday. Which leads me to the Satellite rearrangement:
Mr. K has always been hyper-vigilant about the teens using my computer. I have two office computers, and we have the family computer for the kids in another room. If the kids were ever using my computer, even with my permission, it made him nuts. Last night, he wanted some information off the internet, and my computer was on. I use Macintosh. He’s not familiar with it, so as I’m in the other room helping my daughter with sewing project, he calls out, “How do you get on the internet from here without messing up anything you’ve got going?” I answer back, “Look up in the corner for Safari, and click on file, and choose new window.”
I heard some mumbling in the background. Then some more mumbling. Then the mumbling grew into very loud grumbling. As quickly as I could, I finished helping my daughter, as I walk into my office, I can see Mr. K. has changed all my settings “What did you do?”
Mr. K full of humility, “ I’m not sure, but I think I just accidently rearranged the satellites in the atmosphere.”
Apparently so. I look at my desk top, it does not look the same at all.
Frustrated, he asks, “ I just need some information, how do you find this information? He was now in I tunes. Not sure how he did that.
I ask him, “Did you use Google to search?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing, I just need some information.”
“What are you trying to find?”
“ Income ratio for ....”
He lost me at income ratio, but I said, “Trade me places.” As I sat down at the computer, I had to reset my Safari settings, and replace the icon’s he lost.
In about twelve-seconds, I found what he wanted, and printed it off, with a not so loving “Is this what you wanted?”
We have some boundaries in our marriage.
I don’t track detailed information and I don’t mess with his clipboards, and if he messes with my computer, you can better bet, he just rearranged all the satellites in the universe.
