Secret Lovechild

Packrat doesn't handle exhaustion well. I'm better at it. I get cranky, I burst into tears, I get angsty, super sensitive, basically PMS like but generally, I can function. I can teach, I can work, I can look after the children, I'd just be emotionally unavailable.

Packrat on the other hand, cannot function. His brain shuts down. He looks like the world just collapsed on him, he'd walk into walls, lose the ability to coordinate and control of what he says. Not in the Tourette's fashion but in a way that shows a stream of consciousness without restraint. Often it just reflects what the swirl which his mind exists in.

Last evening, after a 12 hour day at work, he comes home to the children and while playing with them, is in need of restraining Evan. Instead of calling out Evan, he, for some inexplicable reason calls out the name Megan! "Megan, don't do that" Silence, with the sound of crickets chirping in the background.

Me: Erm, what did you just say?
Packrat (looking down at Evan): I don't know what I just said.
Me: You just called him Megan.
Packrat: I was thinking Evan but I don't know how it came out Megan.
Me: WHO is Megan?
Packrat: I don't know, I swear.
Me: Do you have a love child I don't know anything about? Are you about to pull a Tom (Lynette's husband in Desperate Housewives who discovers he has a daughter from a one night stand) on me?
Packrat: No! I really don't know who Megan is. I'm tired! I don't know what I was thinking.
Me: So that's what you were doing all those times I went away for work.
Packrat: I'm tired!

Chuckle chuckle. This isn't the first time he's mixed names up. Before we got married, he introduced me, in our marriage prep class nothingless, as SHARON which is a couple of vowels different from my real name.

So there.


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