The Pot Pies

Last Wednesday night all the kids were away for overnights, so I took my sick self over to SG’s.  It was late when we were falling asleep, not quite midnight, and he’s been so overworked these past weeks.  He was on his side with his back to me and I couldn’t sleep so I reached over and rubbed his shoulders to see if I could help get some of the knots out.  It was quiet and still and just a little light was coming in from the window above the bed.  It felt so peaceful, just lying there and feeling grateful for the silence (and SG’s extra helping of shoulder muscles, truth be told).  And then the pot pies started in again with the arguing, and I was even more appreciative of SG and the fact that he would never, ever bellow at me to shut up.

The pot pies live in the condo directly upstairs.  They earned their name from SG sometime after their remodel, which involved upstairs pipes leaking through the ceiling, along with them switching from carpet to hardwood flooring, and from regular shoes to what I can only picture is something like this, or maybe this?  But it’s not just the loud, wall-vibrating, wine glass-tinkling walking, or even the practicing karaoke over and over and over again.  It’s the fighting. 

Sweet dear Lord, the fighting. 

Every single day that they are home together they fight.  They fight at 5:00 on a beautiful Saturday morning.  They fight at 3:30 in the morning, sometimes, any day of the week.  They holler above us as we eat dinner together.  They yell minutes after walking back in the door on a Sunday late afternoon after a weekend away.  She’s lazy, apparently, and he’s not treating her in the way that he promised her parents he would when he married her?  Something like that.  So SG named them the pot pies.  You’ve seen The Breakfast Club?  Then you remember, “Shut up, bitch, go fix me turkey pot pie.

SG, he is very, very good with the nicknames.  Me?  I’m demom.  Which is short for Mother of the Demons.  See?

Anyway, we’ve got a whole stable of pot pie jokes; about how they have closets full of both casual and fancy foil to wear, about how they add parsley for accessories.  Because, really, they are so horrible that you have to laugh about it when you aren’t too busy wondering if it’s quiet up there because they’ve killed each other.

There are theories that people and situations come into your life for reasons. Lessons. And, once you’ve learned the lesson, then maybe that situation, or those people, they will change or move to Cleveland or something.  I’m not a believer in this theory, per se, but maybe that is because I’m not organized enough to imagine the awesome power of orchestration that the universe would have to go through to line shit up like that for each and every human.  You know?  But, just in case the pot pies are a lesson for SG (and me, part-time), I’d like to take a moment to formally let the universe know that I am really happy to not be a miserable person who wakes other people up at 3:00 a.m. all the time, and I appreciate more than words are able to express my own very happy relationship.  Also, I’ve seen him walking the chihuahuas that sometimes stay at their condo for the weekend, and I have learned that it is funny to see a big dude in beachwear smoking a Marlboro while walking two chihuahuas dressed up in little pink and yellow sweaters.  It will make me laugh every time.  Any other lessons I need to learn from these people, I am happy to learn during some lovely, quiet, reflective time after they have moved away.  Okay?  Thanks!

4 thoughts on “The Pot Pies

  1. Kellee

    Ugh. Sometimes it takes glimpses into the lives of people like those to really make us appreciative of how lucky we are, how good our relationships really are, how crazy we really aren’t, etc. I hope they get the hell out of there soon!

    Reply
  2. Jen

    Jeez. I think my ex husband and I were the pot pies once upon a time. I think our arguments were even based around about the same premise. Except his not treating me well was actually abuse (as in, beating me black and blue kind of abuse), and my laziness was actually having 2 kids under 2 to take care of and him being unwilling to help out with anything. But it would have sounded the same to an uninvolved spectator. (At least I don’t think we ever had screaming fights at 3a.m.) I probably owe a lot of people an apology.
    Sometimes its good to have reminders of how good you have it. But not good enough to cancel out the general annoyingness of this kind of situation. Please accept my apologies on behalf of all the past, present and future pot pies out there.

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  3. Jenijen

    Hi Jen – You weren’t a pot pie at all and I don’t think you owe anyone any apology, but your former neighbors owe you one for not reaching out to you to see if you needed help.
    I’ve been a pot pie before, definitely. But in my case (like the one I’m overhearing these days) it was all about being self-centered and oblivious and the yelling wasn’t from anything other than immaturity.
    I’m glad to hear that he’s now your ex, and I’m so sorry you were ever with a partner who hurt you.

    Reply
  4. Susan

    I had a similar experience soort of, with a roomate. I was living away from my husband to be while I powered through a 2 year grad school program in a year. I was sort of miserable but the woman I lived with was such downright mess that I felt lucky and smart and like I had it all together! I think she was really depressed because she would come home from woke and sleep dorm 5 pm on and just get up in time to go to work. She slept all day all weekend. I rarely saw her but when did it was all about her lawsuit for an unfair dismissal.
    Anyway even though I was missing my fiancé and was working really hard at school, I was able to see what a gift I had been given, a year to myself really.
    Later I found out that she started threatening a friend and eventually her family had to have her hospitalized. It’s really sad.

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