So I Married a Cave Troll

Sometimes I think my husband must have cave-troll blood in him.

When we first looked at our home I was so happy that almost all of the rooms got a good amount of sunlight during the day. The house is situated on a corner, and there are no houses across the street along the side of the house. Just a wooded slope. (The wooded slope also caused much excitement since we live on the edge of a city where one is not accustomed to seeing wooded areas or slopes of any kind). Leafy trees don’t block light like a solid structure; the light filters through them in a serene and foresty-like way.

The very first thing I do in the morning is twist the stick on the blinds so that they open and let the hazy morning sunlight filter into our living spaces. It elicits such a cozy feeling to see the soft light illuminate the furniture and reflect off of the wall hangings.

My husband, being of a suspicious nature, always fears for our privacy. Although he likes the light he would almost prefer that the blinds stay closed for the duration of the day because, well, someone across the street, or a person walking down the sidewalk, or a wackaloon who lives in Ohio, may have their binoculars out and be watching us eat our breakfast.

You may think I’m joking or exaggerating. I assure you, I am not. (Okay, maybe just a teensy weensy bit). I can understand his desire for privacy, and I share it to a healthy extent. But if I wanted to live without sunshine I would have made our home in a cave; it might be a little dank and dusty, but it would be mortgage free.

So there I am in the morning, walking from window to window pulling back the curtains and opening and adjusting the blinds to an appropriate angle depending on the disposition of the sun that particular morning. Sean waits what he believes to be a suitable length of time, and then he flits from casement to casement closing the blinds in my wake. It is my belief that he presumes I won’t notice. But I do notice; and I have to open them all over again.

I have tried to forbid him from touching the blinds unless it is the dead of night and pitch black outside; so far that hasn’t squelched his compulsion. Many a time I have encouraged him to jog outside to stand on the sidewalk and peer through the window to see if he can tell how many fingers I am holding up. For whatever reason he hasn’t been interested in trying that either. I think it would be a healthy experiment at any rate- just in case a marauding villainous type spied us eating Christmas cookies and decided he was hungry too.