Husbands and losing stuff

Each saturday two of my boys have swimming lessons and my daughter has gymnastics at the same time, so Rob and I usually take turns doing one or the other.

That’s actually a lie, I have never done the swimming shift because Holly’s gymnastics happens to be right next door to a shopping centre that has two of my favourite shops. It means I can drop her at 10am and then go mooching for a couple of hours.

So early in the morning I pack the boys’ swimming bag and I lay out on the sofa everything they need to wear, including their shoes, so that Rob doesn’t get it wrong or forget something (I can sense you nodding in agreement from here).

Then I take him by the hand, walk over to the sofa and point to the clothing and say “These are the boys’ clothes. Put their swimming costumes on under their shorts so when you get to the pool you don’t have to change into them. Their clean undies are in the swimming bag for when they’ve finished their lesson”.

I know that makes me sound like a controlling cow but it needs to be done or he forgets. Plus usually he’s not listening anyway, he just nods and gives me that ‘do you think I’m an idiot’ look.

Now before I go on I need to point out, my husband is a very, very clever man. I have a lot of clever and successful people in my life but none more intelligent than Rob. He really is the smartest person I know.

Except for when it comes to things like successfully taking the boys to a swimming lesson, and other extremely complicated domestic duties.

That saturday afternoon when I got home from gymnastics Rob said to me “Now you are going to get the shits at this but I lost one of the boys swimming costumes and a rash vest and a pair of goggles”.

From memory I responded with lots of words starting with f and asked him how on earth he could get it wrong when I had done it all for him, all he had to do was take their wet swimmers off and put the undies that were in the bag and the clothes they wore to the pool back on. EASY. Or not, apparently.

The very next day I had a trail run on the other side of Sydney to go to so while I was there Rob took the kids to the beach. I didn’t know he was planning to do that otherwise I’d have done the same organising of clothes, sunscreen etc. as I did for before mentioned swimming lessons.

When I got home around lunchtime, Holly said to me “Dad took us to the beach and he lost Charlie’s shoes”. As soon as she said it I could feel the heat in my neck rising and I stomped outside to where he was sitting.

“YOU LOST HIS BLOODY SHOES AGAIN? How do you even manage to do that?”

I say again because a couple of weeks before we left London, Rob took the kids to the park and lost Charlie’s brand new shoes. I was furious because as a highly organised person I do not understand how it’s even possible. Kid takes shoes off, you put them in the bottom of the pram or you hold them. Or you REMEMBER where you placed them on the ground.

This time around Charlie’s shoes were new again, less than three weeks old to be exact. I was absolutely livid and told him he had to go straight to the shoe store and sit in the queue and buy new ones. Which he did and then proceeded to tell me what a rip off they were.

“ONLY A RIP OFF IF YOU HAVE TO BUY THEM TWICE, ROB”.

Anyway, back to the swimwear. On the saturday night we had a 50th party to go to so as Rob’s car was behind mine in the driveway we took his. As soon as I got in the car I said “what is that smell”. Rob peered up to the rear view mirror and saw something in the reflection on the boot shelf.

“Well look at that, there is the missing swimming costume and goggles, I knew I hadn’t lost them”. They’d been baking in the hot sun all day long and his car smelt like an old wet sneaker. Gross.

Seriously.

Anyway sunday night my Mum came over for dinner and because she was with Rob in London when he lost the first pair I told her he’d lost Charlie’s at the beach “What, AGAIN?”.

Rob was trying to defend himself while joking with Mum, before I interrupted and said “and he lost the boys swimming cozzies too”.

Then it occurred to me and I asked Rob “why didn’t you wrap the cozzies up in the towel and put them in the bag I gave you?” and he said “because the boys needed the towels to sit on when they got back in the car”. Me “But why? I gave you clean undies and they just had to put their shorts that they wore there back on.”

“Oh, I didn’t take the shorts. I didn’t think I needed them so they just went to swimming dressed in their swimming costume only and then had no dry clothes to change into so they had to go home just in a towel“.

So I give up. Next week I’m not going to sort the bag at all, what’s the point? Stay tuned for the sequel, there is sure to be one.

Please tell me it’s not just my husband?