In Defense of the Nag

So many wives are portrayed as naggy, bossy women. Have you ever noticed that? I have. And for a long time, I counted myself as the diamond in the rough. The "cool girl" (what up, Gone Girl fans!!) who didn't nag; who gave my husband the benefit of the doubt; who didn't worry about telling Geo what to do because he clearly has made it this far without me.

But it's October. And this is still a thing:

That, my friends, is our Christmas tree from LAST YEAR. And that is our garage. THIS MORNING.

I asked Geo once in January to get rid of the tree because he is a very strong man and has a very nice SUV with a back end that is the same size as a Christmas tree. He carried it as far as the garage before saying "I'll bring it to the disposal place after work." Maybe it's my fault for not asking him WHICH work day he was planning on doing that.

I then reminded him in March that the place stops accepting trees in April, so it'd probably be a good idea to get that tree outta here. I maybe should have told him April of THIS YEAR. Because yes, it's still a thing sitting in our garage.

To be fair, I truly don't care about it. It's not in my way, and despite probably being a fire hazard, it simply doesn't concern me. That's just the way I am, though. If I really cared about getting something done, I'd just do it myself probably. I'm quite self-sufficient and would rather do things my way, anyway. But times are a'changin'. Now I have someone to split duties with, and I need to take better advantage of that.

Maybe the problem is that I only ask Geo to do really annoying jobs that I don't want to do. But then again, sometimes I'll say something like "Hey, you're going to get water? Can you get my bread carrot sticks too?" and he'll come back with water and one empty hand.

Now, it is very important to note here that I don't take this as a slight. I don't think he's just ignoring me or being insensitive. I think there are certain things men -- sorry, men but I can guarantee this is universally true for every single man on the planet -- HEAR, but don't actually PROCESS. Probably the result of spending so much time listening to people like me complain about an upsetting experience with the salesperson at DSW.

But, Geo says he wants me to remind him to do stuff. He'll say, "Pharon, I'm more than happy to pick up these three things at Target later, but just remind me!" and I'll say "No! Can't you just remember?" He doesn't know that "reminding" him is the same, to me at least, as nagging. So I keep not saying anything and he keeps forgetting. And yes, the other night he came home with nothing but frozen pizza, ice cream and the list of things I needed from Target, but none of the items ON the list.

I can't MAKE someone remember things. I can't FORCE people to stop in the middle of a thing they are doing and think "Wait, did Pharon need something?" even though I, a woman, am completely capable of doing this.

So, basically, I'm trying to convince myself  that I, Pharon Square -- a staunch anti-nagger and person with nothing but 100% confidence in my husband -- will have to start nagging. Except, I'm not going to call it nagging, since Geo doesn't call it nagging, either. I don't like it, but all I need to do is walk out to our garage and see what happens when I don't na-- I mean, REMIND someone to do something.