"Icy" what you did there: Losing my cool and having a melt down just trying to walk to my truck

 It was a disastrous blend of chilling winds, frozen temperatures, sleet and snow that transformed my lawn into a lake of sheer ice. Brad had left for work, pausing to start my truck for me while I reveled in my last fifteen minutes sitting, stove-side, sipping coffee and rolling reels. I was startled when I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, my husband, driving the truck around to the front of the house. My heart melted at his thoughtfulness.

I peered out the window at him as he made his way carefully from the truck for the perilous journey back to his van. He paused to make loving gestures to me...two-fingers-to-eyes then pointing to the ground. The Brad Mosiman equivalent of blowing kisses. 

I sighed. He can be so-oo dramatic.

I returned to my beverage and brainless browsing.

Too soon, it was time to go.

I stepped out my front door, surprised to find another vehicle parked on the road.

Brad Mosiman.

Lovingly, he rolled down the window to yell at me to put on my mittens. His version of a Shakespearean soliloquy. 

I rolled my eyes at him, stepped down onto the slightly-sloped sidewalk and shrieked as I slid, out-of-control, arms flailing, back contorting, all the way to the truck. Actually...all the way INTO the truck. I slammed right into the side of my warming vehicle and hugged it like a lifeboat as I fought the frozen current beneath my feet. I felt like a cartoon character. I risked a glance at Brad who sat, stone-faced and impatient, as I inched my way around Titan to get to the driver's side door. To his credit...were I he...I would have been video-taping this ridiculous episode and laughing hysterically.

Once he saw me safely behind the wheel, my husband tossed me a wave and drove away.

I thought about Brad Mosiman's love languages as I made my own way, carefully, to work. Care-taking. Acts of service. Worry. The unravel-ler of knots. Cleaner-upper of messes. The anticipator of all the trouble of which I am going to find myself. 

EXAMPLE:  I had declared that we would go grocery shopping after work on Thursday. I came home and made the mistake of sitting down. An hour later, Brad brought me a piece of take-out lemon meringue pie that he'd picked up earlier that day. I looked at him with surprise. He shrugged. "I knew you wouldn't feel like shopping but also knew that you would want a snack."

Brad and I left, after school. to go visit my mom. Arriving back, after dark, the icy ground waited for me...a mirrored menace...shining beneath the moon...a rippling rib-cracker. Brad's voice guided me in the darkness as I shivered with cold and fear. He was wrestling shopping bags while I fought gravity and inertia.I shuffle-stepped over to "help" Brad who was simply setting bags on the ground and letting the ice do the transporting for him. I was, of course, just getting in the way of progress. Brad attempted to guide my route which I promptly ignored and screamingly went my own idiotic way.  Somehow (Later referred to as "The Miracle on Ice"), Brad managed to get both the groceries AND his wife into the house (all while balancing a bag of wood pellets on his shoulder).

So Brad Mosiman's love languages might not necessarily be comprised of endearments and sappy compliments (I REALLY do like those, though)...instead, he valiantly tries to take care of a stubborn woman who insists she can do things her own way...it's a slippery slope. But I'll take the occasional cold shoulder or icy glare over a broken hip any day.