I Don't Care

I love my husband dearly.  We agree about many, many things.  But...

My husband despises it when I use the phrase "I don't care." 

I despise that he despises it so much.

I feel the need to break this down a bit.  There are many, many different ways to use the phrase, "I don't care."

There is the teenager version, which loosely translated, means I don't give a rat's a$$ about anything or anyone besides myself and you should really just get away from me because you just don't understand anything.

This is not my version.

There is the "I'm trying to be polite" version, which means I could have an opinion on this issue but it's more important to me to let you pick and just be polite because it doesn't matter that much to me either way.

This is not my version either.

There is the rushed parent/teacher version, which might just be my least favorite of the versions.  This happens when a child is, for lack of a better term, nagging, because they want something and they haven't liked the first twelve answers you have given.  Said child knows you are very busy with something else and really do not have time to have a full blown discussion about your answer and if they continue to nag at you about the issue, eventually you will get so fed up with the situation you will just say, "I don't care, go ahead."  As I said, least favorite version.  It's not pretty.

This is not my version (most of the time, at least).

There is the crazy grandma version, which is probably the most humorous of them all.  This is the situation where well-meaning grandma just bought you and your sister new shirts.  A new, Hawaiian print shirt with hideously large flowers in two different but equally pukey colors and she asks you and your sister which shirt you'd each like to have.  Um, I don't care?  This may be the nicest way to reply because you couldn't care less which one she hands you.  You only care about getting it into the nearest trash receptacle before your middle school friends see you holding it.

This is not my version either, though I may have some past experience in that area.

Finally, although I'm sure there are actually more versions, maybe even countless more versions, there is the I'm so tired of making decisions today that I just don't care about this one.  Please decide for me this time so I don't have to think or decide again.

This is my version.

Let me explain further.

I am a kindergarten teacher.  I am the mother of four children ages 3-12 (in 16 days!).  I wake up with children, I spend all day with children, I transport children to and from everywhere, I come home to children.  By the time I get home from school, I have made roughly 9843 decisions throughout the day.  I just don't have the energy left inside me to make another decision that truly doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of my day.

Case in point, the dinner table.  Our kitchen is small.  The space for our dining table is so small that we have the oval table pushed up against the wall on one long side (to be able to walk through the room which is the only path from the kitchen to the rest of the house).  This means that the 6 of us sit around the remaining three sides of the table.  It's close fitting but works.  We don't have a head of the table.  We don't have seats for parents and seats for kids.  We just sit wherever we feel like sitting that day.  Typically, the kids are settled at the table before my husband and I are which means there are two open seats as we approach the table.  This also means that I am either going to sit between child A and B or B and C or C and D or sometimes between a child and my husband.  Is there a bad choice in this situation?  No!  No matter where I sit, there is going to be one of my favorite little people on one side of me and either my husband or another favorite little person on the other side of me.  In this situation, I truly do not care where I sit.  I'm happy to sit in any open chair.  Please just let me sit down!  So, when I say, in this situation, "I don't care," I am not trying to be difficult.

I do give a rat's a$$.  I am not trying to be polite.  I am not rushed.  I am not trying to humor you until I can get out of the situation.  I'm just tired and like all my options so I can't lose.  Just pick a chair and don't ask me my opinion.  I'm good.

Where do you stand on this all-important "I don't care" issue?