Comparison Shopping

“How’s the move going?”

A few hours after the movers had hauled our earthly possessions up the stairs to a spacious second floor apartment, The Ex texted. He hates moving almost as much as I do and, undoubtedly, made sure we were settled in before making contact to assure a visit free of lending a hand.

“All moved in! You can come up if you’d like.”

He loves to see the inside of other people’s homes. We spent many Sunday afternoons driving neighborhoods searching for “Open House” signs. There, among the freshly baked cookies and simmering cinnamon sticks on the stove, we could imagine a life that could be ours, if we weren’t but mere renters. Somehow, I would end up being cornered by the eager realtor, left to make up a story about how we were already working with an agent (we weren’t). Even more alluring to The Ex was what the apartment next door might look like. Did they have the same closet space? Linoleum? Ceiling fans? Just to compare.

The Beau was replacing the toilet seat when The Ex stopped by. This simple act of tossing out the place strangers sat naked to install a pristine new throne is one of those rituals anyone who has moved apartment to apartment (and who has a mild germ-phobia) can understand. Just minutes before, I was tempted to ask The Ex to help with this endeavor—bring his ratchet wrench over. But, we found a manual wrench in the tool kit that The Ex guilt-gifted me when we split.

The Beau isn’t so handy. This was apparent the first time we loaded a hand-me-down dryer into the back of my mini-SUV. All the years spent strategizing similar tasks with The Ex gave me an edge while The Beau was stumped by the mechanics of lifting a bulky, but not too heavy, major appliance.

There was something comforting about having a man who could take care of shit. Driving U-hauls. Snaking plugged drains.  Assembling IKEA dressers. That kind of thing. I like to think of myself as a woman who can take care of herself but, after crying through assembling my single girl apartment INGOLF dining chair, I relented and took my girlfriend up on borrowing her husband to assemble the second INGOLF chair, an INGATORP dining table and an EKTORP sofa.

I guess it is inevitable that we compare the new to the old. Apartments. Jobs. Partners. The Beau is not handy. He isn’t as ambitious as The Ex (or me, for that matter.) He doesn’t talk easily with new people the way The Ex and I do (we both work in PR-type careers).

The Beau will, however, find a You-tube video showing him how to cook a steak (that he had prepared for me after a particularly long day). He signed up for a community college program to change careers and joined a professional association. He let me coach him on how to talk to people at networking events.

Most importantly, when I am cranky and start lashing out, he doesn’t react. I don’t know if you know this but there are people out there who just don’t fight.

Welp, I am finishing up my third drink for the evening. I don’t usually get tipsy on a Sunday night but it has been a particularly stressful week and weekend, hence the late post. I won’t go into details. I will tell you that The Beau will be home from work in less than an hour and he has promised some snuggling. Something The Ex won’t be getting tonight.