"You used to be nicer before we were married," my wife's been known to tell me.
"That's because I used to get lucky more often back then," I've been known to tell her back.
Anyway...
My wife and I were at Costco earlier today. My Dad, for once, wasn't with us. He decided to stay home and turn on all the lights. Myself, I like to wander through the DVDs and CDs and books. I don't necessarily buy anything, but I like to see what's new.
We go up and down the aisles. I'm not particularly interested. My wife is going blah, blah, blah and I'm going yeah?, yeah? yeah? She could have been telling me she was going to ride me like a Harley right there in the frozen foods department, and I would have missed my opportunity, because my mind was somewhere else.
Where was it? It was on an expensive dark chocolate drink I had seen. I like chocolate, but it's usually a milk chocolate I drink. Dark chocolate, however, sounded pretty good. The older I've gotten, the more my taste has matured. Instead of drinking coffee with creamer, now I drink it black. Instead of eating milk chocolate candy bars, I eat the dark chocolate, mainly because it's healthier for you. When I die, I want to die healthy.
The only problem was, did I mention that the dark chocolate drink was expensive? Yeah, it was. You're reading this from a guy who likes to think twice before paying an extra ten cents for a slice of cheese on my hamburger. I'm not cheap, I tell my wife, I'm frugal.
What the heck? You only live once. I could have a heart attack on the walk back to our car, and I'd die without the satisfaction of knowing that I treated myself to one last extravagance. So I walk back to where I saw the dark chocolate drink, and I pick it up and bring it back to the cart. My wife looks at it as I place it with the other items. Then she looks at me.
"Are you really going to buy the chocolate?" she asks me. "It's pretty expensive."
I look in the cart. There's a new, upgraded dog mattress for my Dad's little dog. There's some diapers she's buying for our daughter's new baby. There's bottled water that's a thousand times more expensive than the filtered water we get at home through our refrigerator. There's snacks for my Dad to eat while he's watching baseball on our TV, that he'll end up not liking, forcing me to eat them. I could go on, but I don't want to sound like I'm complaining.
"Dad's dog gets a new mattress," I complain, with an edge to my voice, "and I can't buy myself a chocolate drink?"
She probably doesn't see my point, but she stays quiet. I could pout and put the chocolate drink back, but the only loser in that scenario would be me, so I leave the chocolate drink in the cart. We only make small conversation after that.
We go up to the cashier and unload our items. I stand to the side while everything's rung up. The cashier tells us the total. I stay where I am.
"Aren't you going to pay?" my wife asks me, sweetly. All's forgiven.
"Of course, sweetie," I tell her, just as sweetly, and I do.
I wasn't being a jerk, I just wanted to subtly make my point that it's my retirement that pays for everything, and I think I'm entitled to indulge myself every once in a while. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. I don't gamble or cheat with other women. I think I deserve to buy an expensive dark chocolate drink on occasion.
Don't get me wrong, while I do understand that we have a 50/50 partnership, it's my 50% that pays for everything. If that makes me sound like a macho pig, then so be it. And thanks for calling me macho.
Our drive home was back to normal. She talked, and I listened. She just has more to say than I do, I guess. In that way, we make a good couple. She likes to talk, and I like to listen.
We get home, and she carries off a few items into the house, I grab the heavy case of water and head to the kitchen. As I lumber in, the water is obstructing my field of vision, and I ask her in my naturally loud voice, "Where do you want me to put the water?"
We've only been shopping together for a thousand years, and she always seems to want me to put the water down in a different place every time.
Instead of telling me where she wants me to set the heavy thing down, she shushes me.
"Don't talk so loud," she tells me. "Your Dad's asleep."
And, sure enough, there was my Dad with ALL the lights on and a baseball game on the TV blasting away. He wasn't watching the game. Why wasn't he watching the game? Because he was sound asleep. He's got a perfectly good bed in his little father-in-law house in the front of our property, but he chooses to sleep in his (my) favorite chair in the great room. When he wakes up, he likes to complain how uncomfortable the chair is to sleep on.
"Is this my house, or his?" I ask her, on that teeter-totter edge between anger and even more anger.
She could see I wasn't happy, and decides to use the same strategy she used at Costco. She answers me by not answering me. You know that ONE thing I told you I don't get to do as often as I would like?
I don't think I'll be doing it again tonight.
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
jimduchene.blogspot.com Fifty Shades of Funny
@JimDuchene
@JimDuchene
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