Now that is a strange thing to say, but it is true in my case. Not that she causes it, far from it, but that like high blood pressure, she is a silent but deadly killer, when she makes remarks about me or my habits!
It seems she always has plans before hand, while I fly by the seat of my pants. I fear that if I had plans before hand, my life would be even more boring than it is already. But with boredom comes: Orderliness and control, systematic days that do not unravel and a sense that you are not nuts at the end of the day.
TLW (The Little Woman) always has an answer or a solution, depending on the circumstances while I like to free-lance and go with the punches. I was watching something on TV one night that described how to be a comedian without jokes, how you need to think on the spot and be spontaneous. You take a word and react to it, with whatever comes out of your mouth. I thought that this best described me!
Let me give you two examples of TLW and her thinking.
Once, many years ago I was watching TV and she was in the kitchen making Sunday dinner. There was a show on the TV before a football game and the host posed a question. The question was; “What would you do if someone came to the door and said: ‘Hi, I’m your husband’s child.’ What would you do?”
I put down the potato chip bag and yelled out: “Toots? What would you do if someone came to the door and said: ‘Hi, I’m your husband’s child.’ What would you do?”
TLW comes into the living room and says: “I would excuse myself for a moment, return to the front door and tell the person: ‘I’m sorry, your father is dead!’”
Then there was the recent event at the airport check-in where I got disheveled and disoriented by the crazy scanner system and found TLW patiently waiting for me to get through. She had passed through and then announced how she always wears tie-less shoes for easy convenience.
It seems for the last forty something years she has been like this, always with a solution and an answer. The answers and solutions usually come from quiet observations, while she watches me fall, trip and get on the wrong bus so to speak. She will laugh to herself until she feels she better say something before she hurts herself from laughing, or I hurt myself from trying.
For forty years I have come home every night and will continue to do so. Why, because if I don’t I will get lost, and there will be no one to explain why I’m lost. I make sure to remember her birthday, our anniversary and to get her a Christmas gift with meaning, I fuss over Valentines day, and Mother’s day, and most importantly, it is my way of re-stating that I love her. If I don’t do these things, she will change the lock on the door and I will probably file a missing persons form, when all I should do is knock on the door.
I’m not a high-maintenance person or husband, I just go day to day happy to be there, and she is not a high-maintenance wife, she is very patient for the most part, and together we get along just fine. My problem is if it doesn’t interest me, I don’t care about it, while TLW will store something away about it. If I try to remember something, like an actor, I’ll say: “his name starts with K” when in fact it starts with an M. For me this is a personal triumph, since it isn’t too far down the alphabet from K to M!
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