stupid girl.

You probably don't know this about Sarah, but she's got quite a temper. She suffered from road rage in Florida on a regular basis. Now, I know what you're thinking. "He's doing a post about his wife called stupid girl? He shouldn't call her that." Some of you sprinkled some expletives and other descriptive words in that thought, that's probably the core of your thoughts. Don't worry, though, I'm not calling her stupid girl. We'll get there. We're talking about her temper. It's really odd, because she's normally so quiet, and unless you've seen it, you would never see it coming. If you take her temper and add it to her germ freakiness, you end up with a really scared girl in a laundry room expecting to catch a beating from a little Korean girl.

Our first home was a little studio apartment in Wyoming, MI. We lived downstairs, right across from the laundry room. Sarah would commonly put laundry in, and then come back to our apartment to do dinner. There's no reason to hang out in there when you live right across the hall. Of course, we didn't know laundry room etiquette, which says that if someone is waiting for that washing machine, and you don't take your laundry within thirty seconds of cycle completion, they are within their rights to put your clean laundry on top of the dirty public washing machines. Enter Stupid Girl. Sarah would still refer to this girl as this if she was reminded of her today, and after reading my blog, she will be.

Sarah went across the hall to switch over our laundry within two minutes of it being done, and there was all of our clean laundry on top of the machines. I was in the apartment, and I knew within seconds that something had gone wrong across the hall. I quickly came over, and my seething wife was lacing into the offender that had touched her clean laundry with her dirty hands and put it on the dirty washing machines, and it wasn't your normal neighborly banter. I had to coax her across the hall, promising that I would take care of it. The girl was so scared that she offered $2.50 to let us wash both loads again, and I told Sarah I would take it. I went back across the hall, and the girl is shaking scared. I'm pretty sure she thought Sarah was going to jump her, and I can't say with all certainty that she wouldn't have. I apologized and explained to her why she shouldn't have moved our laundry and how sensitive my wife was about germs, and that the machines weren't remotely clean on the outside. I thought we had settled things well. Everyone was calm...in that room.

I went back to our apartment, and Sarah was pacing the small kitchen. She was not feeling any better. I was pretty sure we agreed, though, that it was over. I thought it was safe to leave her unattended, so I used the restroom. I heard the door open and shut while I was in there, and then I heard my quiet wife being not quiet at all again. I walked back across the hall to a similar scene: rabid Sarah? Check. Shaking girl? Check. Our laundry still sitting on dirty machines? Check. A new variable was added: tears. Stupid Girl was crying almost as violently as Sarah was talking. I had to get my wife out of there again, apologize again, and this time I had to stand awkwardly in the door while the girl settled down. I wouldn't normally comfort a crying woman that wasn't my wife, but since my wife made her cry, I felt obligated. It was tremendously not awesome.

This was a long time ago. Sarah would never do that again. She has her own washer and dryer, so I can say that with all certainty. Plus, we're much older and a little mellower. But this will always be one of my favorite Sarah stories. Basically, here are my favorite stories about her: one, she married me; two, Stupid Girl; three, everything else.