why, i oughta....

(insert Yosimite Sam mumbo-jumbo in here)

MEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate spoiled-by-their-mothers-so-they-can't-function-within-their-own-home assholes of men!!!

DH & I have been having this argument for as long as I have been making the food in our family. Yeah. That long. He just doesn't get it. How friggin hard is it to take the leftovers to work?!?!? That's why I spent a fortune in tupperware. I didn't buy it so it could sit in the fridge and grow funny fuzzy, odd-smelling life forms for the science fair. I didn't buy it because I was hormonal. I didn't buy it to make color-coordinated stacks in the cupboard. It has a function. It's called carrying your MF lunch!!

Now, let me be very clear. Many years ago, at the first sign of trouble, I asked for his input.

HE: I don't know what to take. There's so many choices and I'm tired and in a hurry when I'm packing my lunch. Aside from opening every container and looking inside, I don't know what is in there to eat.

ME: Darling, what could I do to make your poor, dark, lonely mornings of packing a difficult meal into a small, square bag easier? How can I help you without actually leaving my nice, warm dreamland at 5am each day?

HE: I don't know. Maybe make me a list of what's in there so I know what to chose from. Or tell me the night before where my lunch is for the next day. Nothing shrot of a neon sign really catches my attention before work.

Right. And we all trust him in a moving vehicle at speeds that exceed 65 mph before work.

So we have the designated "leftover shelf" in the fridge. Nothing is stacked on that shelf except food for him to take to work. I bought a small dry erase board and put it on the freezer door (at eye-level) and wrote what meals are left over in the fridge. I put the oldest items on top, and the freshly-left on the bottom. I bought colored markers so that he knows that manicotti = orange dish, chili = green soup mug, dinner rolls = clear plastic bag (written in black) and salmon = purple freezer container in the freezer. I group stuff together, like a baked potato in foil, with a small container of sour cream and a zipper bag of bacon and cheese atop the container with green beans and a bbq chicken breast. I write all those things together on the menu on one square - as one meal. I even check at lunch time to see what he's taken and erase it for him off of the dry-erase board because even that is too much for him to handle. I can't do anything more except drag my ass outta bed and pack the f*(&^er for him every day. I refuse to do that, b/c he'll get used to it and expect it.

With all that I do for him, why, why WHY then did he take sloppy joes today (enough for all three of my kids to have leftover sloppies at school, which they LOVE) when there was a full container of spaghetti, a complete salmon meal, and clam chowder to choose from? HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE SLOPPY JOES!!!! I said, while putting away the joes the other night, "Yay, theres' enough leftovers for all three of the kids. They'll like that." I didn't write it on his special menu. Yet, the boys were in tears when they found out Daddy ate their favorite lunch. Again. This isn't the first time he's taken their joes.

I know there's nothing else I can do at this point, but I just feel better screaming in colors! He obviously doesn't hear what I say. It makes me mad enough to set his hair on fire sometimes. Do ya think he'd notice that?