We all know that one person who treats their life like a Fortune 500 company. They have color-coded calendars, reminders for their reminders, and a to-do list that is longer than a CVS receipt. Usually, this is an admirable trait that keeps the household from descending into chaos. But sometimes, the obsession with “process” overrides basic common sense, and you end up in a situation so absurdly inefficient that you simply have to laugh or you might scream.
One husband on Reddit recently shared a glimpse into his life with his “extremely well-organized” wife, and it is a hilarious case study in bureaucracy gone wrong. His wife is the type who rarely forgets anything because she meticulously documents her entire existence. That is a superpower in most scenarios. But it becomes a weakness when a simple, ten-second task stares her in the face and she chooses to file paperwork about it instead of just doing it.
The scene is set in the living room. The couple is relaxing on the couch when their 12-year-old daughter, Katie, walks in with a mission. She needs a permission slip signed for a school trip. She is prepared. She has the paper in her hand. She has a pen in her hand. She is standing right there. It is the kind of interaction that should take less than a minute. Read, sign, date, done.
But the wife’s brain doesn’t work that way. She pauses the TV, gets up, and walks out of the room. The husband knows exactly where she is going. She is heading to the kitchen to add “Permission slip for Katie” to her master list of tasks. She is literally creating a future chore for herself out of a present moment that requires almost zero effort. It is like scheduling a meeting to discuss scheduling a meeting.
While the wife was off in the kitchen engaging in her administrative theater, the husband did what any rational human being would do. He took the pen from his daughter, signed the form, and handed it back. Katie put it in her backpack and was ready to move on with her life. The problem was solved before the wife had even finished writing the letter “P” on her notepad.
When the wife returned and asked if Katie needed anything else, the comedy reached its peak. The husband casually asked where she went, knowing full well the answer. When she proudly announced she had added the task to her list, he hit her with the reality check: “Well, you can cross it off because I did it while you were gone.”
The daughter started laughing hysterically, and honestly, who can blame her? It is objectively funny. The wife was left standing there, dumbfounded, realizing that her “system” had just been exposed as a massive waste of time. She had turned a 30-second interaction into a multi-step process involving travel time to another room.
The husband tried to explain the logic to her. He pointed out that her method would have involved seeing the task later, yelling for Katie, waiting for Katie to find the form again, and then signing it. It is a cycle of inefficiency. He just cut out the middleman. The wife agreed with his logic because you can’t really argue with facts, but she was furious that he “embarrassed” her in front of their child.
Let’s be real here. He didn’t embarrass her. Her own rigid adherence to a system that doesn’t always work is what embarrassed her. She felt silly because she did something silly. The husband wasn’t trying to be mean; he was just being practical. If you walk past a piece of trash on the floor to go write “pick up trash” on a list, you can’t get mad when someone else just picks it up.
So is he the ahole? Absolutely not. N-T-A. He saved everyone time and taught his daughter a valuable lesson about efficiency. Sometimes you need a list, and sometimes you just need to sign the paper that is literally in front of your face. Hopefully, the wife can laugh about this once she crosses “be mad at husband” off her to-do list.