Gaslighting

So remember when I forgot to renew Brian’s tags and he got a ticket? Well, when MY registration renewal came in the mail in January, Brian said to me – “Ha! Bet you won’t forget to renew YOUR tags, will you?” Much hilarity ensued as we both fell to floor in fits of laughter remembering how my neglect in paying the bill resulted in much embarrassment for Brian, another bill for me to pay in the form of a ticket, and me getting teased for the next 20 years over my mistake….Oh yeah. It was funny. Funny guy, my husband.

On February 26’th, I remembered that I had, indeed, forgotten to renew my tags which would expire the following day. No matter, I simply went on line, renewed the tags, printed out a temporary registration, taped it to my back window and smugly waited for the stickers to come in the mail. Brian would never know that I had almost forgotten. Ha!

The stickers and registration arrived just a few days later and I put the envelope on the kitchen counter, telling myself that I would put the sticker on in the next day or so - when it wasn’t raining, when it was a little warmer – you know, basically when I wasn’t being a lazy ass who simply didn’t feel like going downstairs, cleaning the license plate and slapping the freaking sticker on the tag.

Yesterday, as Brian and I were cleaning out drawers, filing old bills (well, Brian did that, I just pulled all the crap out for him to go through) I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen the stickers for my tags anywhere…..and that my temporary registration had expired the week before…..and I was driving around on dead tags….crap…..

I frantically looked all through the kitchen and casually asked Brian if he had seen the envelope “No big deal or anything – I just thought, you know, I’d go put the stickers on now - I have plenty of time so really if it’s not here it’s no big deal.” He looked at me and said “Honey, did you lose the stickers?” Of course not! I haughtily replied. They were here somewhere. I’m sure I put them in my car or something. No worries.

I searched again – everywhere upstairs I could possibly think of, with Brian sitting at the kitchen table shaking his head, sighing and saying “I can’t believe you don’t know where they are. You should have put them on the car right away. This is what happens when you leave stuff lying around”. Then he grins at me……he KNOWS how much it pisses me off when he talks to me like I’m a naughty 7 year old who left her bike in the driveway to get run over. So, I “gently” punched him in the arm and went downstairs to search through my car.

Not there. I pulled out everything, looked under the seats, and would have looked under the hood if I thought there was even the remotest chance of my registration stickers being there. Now what? Do they even GIVE you replacement stickers? And what was I going to tell them? “I need a new registration renewal and stickers for my tags because I – a college educated, very practical, reasonably intelligent adult woman – had lost them”? The only thing that would make my humiliation even worse would be if Brian went to the MVA with me and watched this all go down…..

I pondered this as I leaned against the trunk of my car. I was so lost in thought that I didn’t realize until I stared at the back window for several minutes that the Temporary Registration that I had taped to it was no longer there. GREAT! And now I’ve lost that!

And that’s when the light bulb went off.

I leaned over to look at my tags.

And found the missing stickers.

SOMEONE had put those stickers on my license plate. Someone put those stickers on God only knows when without telling me. Someone who had been teasing me for the past hour….while wearing that shit eating grin of his……

I screamed his name from the garage “BRIAN!!!!!!”

I can still hear him laughing at me.