Being There. (For the Food If Nothing Else.)
ByHere’s another thing about being married. It takes up a lot of time.
It’s not enough to just be married. You actually have to physically show up. Usually at home. Just sitting there. Being with Husband. The TV is on, his laptop is affixed on his lap, laundry is churning in the dryer. But, you still have to sit there.
Why? The obvious reason is “togetherness.” But, I found another reason. Because otherwise he begins to fend for himself in the kitchen. This is a very bad thing. It throws off the entire food rotation/planning.
Remaining in control of the food was nothing I thought about until I got married.
If you’ve been single as long as I was, you are used to just popping off some very important errands after work. Like sitting on the floor of the chick lit aisle at Barnes and Noble for an hour just because you feel like it, or stopping by the Harris Teeter salad bar for dinner.
But, you have Husband at home who will eat three peaches and a hunk of cheese for dinner if you don’t get home soon. And, you must get there before that idea pops in his head. Because, then you are stuck with two options:
1 – Something else (non-cheesy) for dinner, and you really wanted cheese.
2 - You don’t care about the cheese. But, you are left with the real food. Real food requires cooking, which you didn’t really wanted to do (but, you are now 20 minutes of traffic away from the Harris Teeter salad bar).
So, that’s a very good reason for just being there. There are others, but I have to rush home now. Husband just called and asked what’s for dinner. I distinctly heard rustling and opening drawers. Must jet…
4 Comments
April 1st, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Suzanne, how fun! I have enjoyed reading all of your postings, but as you know, I married early, was a widow and then married a man almost my own age who was single for most of his adult life! As he does not cook at all, so far as I can tell, he was the darling of the many local restaurants and take-out places prior to our marriage. He also had some pretty ladies cooking for him, I am sure. He is very appreciative of my cooking, and he does a fairly good job of cleaning up after I’ve cooked. This is a definite bonus! You are profoundly right about marriage taking up a lot of time! But I think it is worth all of the effort. It is a 100% both ways, no 50/50% if you want it to work. Both have to give it their all!
April 1st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Ditto on the enjoyment & congratulations on your launch, Suzanne…er, Mrs. H. My history is closer to Patricia’s. Husband was also single for decades but that never involved much in the way of domestic talent. For us, “merging” pretty much involved throwing his @#(* out. I do the cooking and he does the cleaning up, which is a bargain as far as I’m concerned. And, yeh, if you start looking at it 50-50, you lose 100% of the match–which is why you got together to begin with. It’s nice to be mature enough to deal with that. Finally!
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:29 am
Thanks, doll. So nice you have “clean-up” help!
March 1st, 2010 at 10:10 am
[...] Of course, there is protecting the food altogether. [...]