There is a standard for “rolling your eyes.” A person should never roll their eyes in front of the person they are mocking. It must always be done behind their back, as not to hurt their feelings. 

Terry & I are ridiculously spoiled! He spoils me and from time to time I attempt to spoil him.  We most always compromise, and then I get my way. One might say, and rightly so, that we are a peculiar couple, however that does not warrant people rolling their eyes at us in front of us. It should always be done behind our back.

I put my trash in plastic bags and securely seal them before I temporarily place them in our kitchen can. My children think this is overkill and that I’m wacky.  I believe they roll their eyes behind my back which is the polite way of handling it. 

Terry and I  plan our holidays and vacations a year in advance, my sister-in-law is  spontaneous. Our method of planning makes her think we’re absurd. She rolls her eyes in front of me even though she knows I can see her. I think she needs a lesson on the proper protocol of eye rolling.  

Terry has a keen sense of smell and a sensitivity to certain types of sounds. He’s practically deaf in one ear, yet miraculously the sound of car traffic or footsteps from a hotel room above us is deafening to him. The distinctive pitch of a baby crying or a dog barking brings him to his knees. I don’t share this particular disorder with him however I do get the benefit of watching his face contort when these occasions arise. Once in a while I roll my eyes at him too, but he never sees me because I wait for him to leave the room. I think he senses the rolling but knows I am being courteous. 

On a recent trip to Maui which was planned months in advance with weeks of research, phone calls and calculations, Terry scored us two first class tickets using points, cash, sweat and tears. We got up at 2:30 in the morning, drove to LAX for an 8:45 flight where we were greeted with not one but two disgruntled infants in first class that clearly didn’t know they were going to magical island of Maui. Need I say more?

Terry made it through this six hour sensory dilemma with ear plugs, ear muffs, a hoodie, eye mask and blanket over his head for most of the trip. He did a lot of eye rolling which he must have learned from his sister because the babies parents and I saw him do it. 

Upon arrival in Maui we stopped at Avis where Terry has been a premiere member for over twenty-five years. They never recognize this in any way, shape or form. We discovered our request for a Mustang, convertible had been ignored, even though we reserved and paid for it a year in advance. We drove away with a battleship size Chrysler 300, 4 door hardtop that barely fit in most parking spaces. It chimed a ding-ding each time the car started, backed up or we closed the doors, not to mention the appropriate ding-ding when we were about to crash into something or get near anything within four feet. 

On the way to our condo we purchased our standard groceries of limes, Bacardi regular rum, Malibu coconut rum and Gosling black rum. We enjoyed our aloha banter with the condo registration staff and laughed about our calling several times to check up on our request for the top floor due to Terry waking up if a pin dropped. They were so attentive congratulating us on our upcoming Anniversary and gave us lei’s to put around each others neck.  

After receiving our gate codes, pool code, gym code and room code we were in our condo that we would call living aloha for the next ten days. We were startled to find that we were on the ground floor, which meant we couldn’t leave the door open all night. This happens to be one of our greatest joys for us in Hawaii since at home we sleep with a heating blanket most of the year.

The view of the golf course and distant ocean made up for it… for a minute. Then we heard what we thought was clogging in the room above us. We went to dinner and hoped the Irish river-dance family would be sleeping when we got home…they were not. What we  did have was a dozen or so neighbors having a private evening gathering along side our patio area. 

We woke to a red-eyed Terry, exhausted from lack of sleep. I didn’t have the heart to roll my eyes. We shook off the disappointments and went to the quiet pool to relax. Upon arrival we discovered the plethora of  signage making multiple references that under no circumstances can we play Marco Polo. The adamant prohibition against a famous world explorer seemed a bit quizzical and excessive to us. Until that moment we had never had such a tremendous urge to play Marco Polo. We refrained since we were not in the mood to have anyone eye-roll us.

While eating breakfast on our patio or what we like to refer to as the neighborhood party area, the gardeners showed up with their gas powered weed eaters in hand and began pacing off the greens that abut our patio. With a friendly Aloha they began to attack the hillside plants to make ready for the replanting project, which in Hawaiian time could take months. By the time we were done eating we were covered in debris. We called the offsite condo reservations desk and asked to be moved.

After a few tense phone calls we were moved to a “quieter” condo complex a couple of miles away. We packed up and schlepped our luggage and limes to the new location. It had a king size bed and was closer to the ocean, which was great, it was  a little more upscale which was a plus. The bonus was that we were on the 2nd floor with no one above us. Hallelujah! It had one less bathroom which was a bummer, but not the biggest bummer. Our condo was right over a busy highway and quiet was not a word one would use when describing it. We once again called the condo reservation desk to advise them of the noise level, this time getting a brand new person, David. 

After Terry informed him of the details of our moving history due to the noise level and the new condo not being quieter, albeit a different type of noise, David responded. “We are done with you Mr. Hunt”.

On the subsequent conversations with David, he was much, much more patient and attempted to be helpful even though we got the same outcome, which was staying in the busy thoroughfare condo. 

Evidently David got into trouble for talking crap to the paying guests. While he acted more patient and sincere, we were sure his eyes were popping out of his head, which is much worse than rolling. 

David was in total violation.