bedtime

I read something once that I've been thinking of recently. It's one of those things, that before you're married you go, "Whatever. When I find my perfect mate, we'll be different." When you get married, but before kids, you think, "Well, that's well and good for them, but my lovely husband and I will never be like that. That will never happen to US." And then, somewhere down the line, probably around the time you realize you've been married almost nine years, and that you've lasted longer in this thing called marriage than you've lasted at anything else in your life, that you take another look at the situation and go, "Wow. That is SO us!"
So here's my little story, paraphrased of course, that I read somewhere a LONG time ago:

Man and Wife are watching tv one night. It gets to be about 10.30, and the news is wrapping up.
Wife looks at husband and says, "Honey, I'm going to bed now."
Man grunts something at her and keeps watch on the weather report.
Wife gets up, goes to the office to shut down the computer. While she's there, she checks her email just one last time before shutting down the computer.
Wife then goes into the laundry room to move just one more load of laundry from the washer to the dryer and from the dryer to a laundry basket, loading one more load into the washer, because while she's there, she might as well.
Wife then moves to the hallway, where she picks up the kids' backpacks, hangs them on their respective hooks. She remembers that daughter needs a note because she has a dentist appt the next day. She writes a note and puts it into the proper backpack. Making sure all coats and hats are where they need to be for the morning, Wife moves on to the kitchen. She decides that it won't take much more effor to unload and reload the dishwasher quickly, so she does.
She then makes sure the kids' lunches are packed and in the fridge for the next day. She then checks to make sure Man's lunch is ready to be packed too. She notices his briefcase by the kitchen door, where it has made half of it's trip to the front door. So she picks up the briefcase and takes it to the front door on her way up the stairs. After checking to make sure the door locks are set, Wife goes upstairs, checking on each child sleeping peacefully before she goes to brush her own teeth and take care of her nightly skin washing rituals. As she leaves the bathroom, she checks to make sure each child's clothes are folded and waiting for them to put on in the morning, next to their doorways. She moves into the bedroom, picking up a stray dirty sock here, putting a child's book on the hallway bookshelf there.
Half an hour after telling Man she would be going to bed, she makes her way to bed, and just as she's crawling into her bed, mentally checking off the items on her to-do list, Man stretches lazily in his recliner downstairs, looks around and announces to only the dog in his bed, "I think I'll go to bed now." And he gets up from his recliner and does just that.