If you can't beat him, join him

Everyone looks forward to the weekend, but I especially love them because other than in bed every night while I'm sleeping, it's the only time that my husband is home for any length of time, so we can actually spend quality time together.

The wrench in that plan is that I almost always work Saturday mornings until noon or later and usually work Sunday mornings until noon or 5 p.m., so that cuts our time together significantly. But we usually make up for it Friday nights, when we watch a movie or play a game together, and Saturday nights, when we either order in food or go out to enjoy the city together.

So I was ecstatic to tell Brent that after I worked a mid-day shift on Friday, I wouldn't have to go back to work until mid-day on Tuesday. That meant we had Friday evening to spend together without my having to worry about getting to bed early and ALL DAY Saturday and Sunday. I was thrilled.

He then took that moment to tell me that he was going to be spending his Saturday afternoon and possibly Sunday afternoon in the office.

HELL. NO.

I told him no. He retorted yes. I told him no again, but he said there was nothing he could do about having to be in the office this weekend.

So I told him I was going with him. Even though it was my day off, I was willing to spend it in a high-rise banking office building surrounded by nothing but empty cubicles and stacks of paper if it meant I could be there with him.

To my surprise, he readily agreed and said there was a project I could help him with. So since we were going to the same office together to do the same job, I thought it would be funny to waer the same outfit. So I let him get dressed first - he chose to wear jeans, a white v-neck T-shirt, and a U of M hat - and put on the exact same outfit. He took one look at me and told me to change. He's so not fun.

So after we got to the office around 11 a.m., with me wearing a jeans, a U of M hat, and a green T-shirt instead of white, I figured he would steer me toward something involving copying, filing, or alphabetizing, but no, he actually GAVE me one of the projects one of his bosses gave him to do. Granted, it was a simple project - converting hundreds of .tif files into .pdf files, then uploading them into certain files on the server - but it irritated me to no end to realize that people dump stupid things like that on him. Things that I could do - or, better yet, a secretary getting PAID TO DO IT could do. Sigh.

So he did other work in an adjoining cubicle while I listened to my ipod or flipped through a magazine while the files were uploading. Even though I was working, it was nice. It reminded me how much I miss working at a desk. And since we were relatively alone, we could talk, and we even enjoyed a lunch break together after we had food delivered to the office.

It sounds totally corny, but even though I wasn't getting paid for the work I was doing, it meant more to me have that time with him, and it felt good knowing that the work I did meant four hours less at the office for him, and four hours with me at home!