A Seemingly Simple Request

The Mrs. and I have a somewhat classical division of responsibilities. I really hadn't expected it to work out that way, as I was raised to be a raging liberal, and thus I thought that the classical division of responsibilities was a construct of the patriarchal society and to be truly enlightened, one had to reject it. This despite the fact that my parents operated fairly successfully with just such a division of responsibility.

So I had with great fanfare attempted to nurture The Mrs. along in all her career aspirations. Yet, fairly early on, way back before she was The Mrs., I got the sense that The Mrs. had a different viewpoint about work from my own. The Mrs. seemed to think that work was something you did for your own personal enjoyment, for your own fulfillment, and that it should be something you enjoy doing.

Huh?

Luckily for her, despite being a raging liberal myself, I still had a traditional man's sense of obligation to career building. So, as I was off studying engineering, she was studying music. When I got a fellowship for grad school, she had me buy her a viola with it. While I continued to study engineering, she decided she hated music and wanted to study geology at the incredibly expensive little university I was at, as geology would be less cut-throat than music. When I graduated and got a job, I paid for her thousands of dollars of geology student loans, and she decided she wanted to be a music teacher. She started up her own business, just started to turn a meaningful profit, and then retired to raise childrens.

During this time, of course, I was going through my own personal transformation. I was starting to wonder if feminism had been feeding me a complete line of BS (answer: yes), and at the same time, Wild Bill Clinton, a man I voted for twice, was going on a crazy rampage to ban private ownership of firearms.

That's right - not once, but twice. Then he came after my guns, and I have never voted for a single Democrat since then.

The irony of that, of course, is that I didn't even own any guns at the time. It was just the principle of it. A "fear the government that fears its own citizens" kind of thing. Man, I could have used a whole bunch of guns in the neighborhood we lived in, too.

At times, I think how cool it would be to still be a mindless little "progressive" Democrat:

Mr. Democrat: "Equal-in-all-respects Partner, the coworkers are doing another '24-hours in Vegas' trip this Friday."

The Mrs. Democrat: "That's wonderful Still-earns-more-for-equal-work Partner. Try not to gamble away all your money, but if you do, make sure you write down which dealer and casino forced you to keep gambling so we can sue them later."

Mr. Democrat: "OK. By the way, Lewinskies still aren't cheating, right?"

The Mrs. Democrat: "That's right, dear. It's now established precedent, and by the principle of stare decisis, we cannot go back on that without upsetting the fabric of our modern, progressive society."

Mr. Democrat: "Heh. I guarantee you I won't blow all my money gambling, then. You can bet on it! Ha! I kill me."

The Mrs. Democrat: "You are certainly very funny. Much funnier than any of the womyns in my womyns studies group, and they're a very funny bunch."

Mr. Democrat: "Yes I am. Well, I'm off to blow a load in Vegas. Uh, a load of money, that is."

The Mrs. Democrat: "Have fun. But stay away from the gun ranges. I won't have you in any gun ranges. You know how I feel about those. They're immoral. If I hear you were shooting any guns in Vegas, I'll divorce you."

There's another pun there about shooting, but it's too obvious for Me, CherkyB to write down, even when I'm pretending to be a Democrat.

Now, where was I. Hmmm. Ah yes.

See, so we kind of slowly morphed into this much more traditional couple where I do things like actually earn a living that can feed not just myself, but also a wife, two childrens, a dog, two rats, 8 fish (which is up 6 from where we were Saturday), and three crickets. Plus, I mow the lawns and fix stuff and buy fancy things for my wife that she wants but doesn't actually need. In return, The Mrs. handles things like raising The Childrens, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and grocery shopping.

Oftentimes, The Mrs. asks me if I need anything from the grocery, as she is going shopping. If I respond in the affirmative, we have exactly the same conversation every single time.

The Mrs.: "Go write it down."

Me, CherkyB: "Where is the list?"

The Mrs.: "There isn't one. Start one."

Me, CherkyB: "If I just write one thing down on a piece of paper, you'll forget about it and start a separate list."

The Mrs.: "No I won't."

(This is a variation of a The Mrs. classic that goes like this: The Mrs.: "Do you want something to drink?" Me, CherkyB: "Sure. I'll have a beer." The Mrs.: "OK, go get it.")

I almost never write it down, though, as I can never find any paper in the kitchen. Every time I put a pad of paper in there, it is gone before the next time I need to start a list. Not used up, mind you. Just gone. Somewhere in the kitchen there is a drawer full of pads of paper, but I'll be damned if I can find it. Even if I do write it down, though, The Mrs. invariably starts a different list and misses my requested item(s).

My current plan is to insist that she write it down. That usually works quite well.

Today, I needed soap and coffee. See, The Mrs. and I cannot agree on soap or coffee. I like my soap to leave me clean and manly-scented, she likes her soap to leave her covered in an oil slick because it claims to be 1/3 moisturizing lotion instead of soap and smelling like flowers.

With coffee, she insists on Starbucks. I insist on just about anything other than Starbucks. I have grown to hate Starbucks home-brew coffee. Not because it's all stylish to hate Starbucks or anything, just because I really can't stand their home-brew beans. They taste like ash to me.

So when I got home from work today, there was a bag of coffee sitting at the top of the stairs to the basement, as I am forced to brew my full-strength non-Starbucks coffee at my bar in a little 4-cup coffeemaker as The Mrs. brews her 12 cups upstairs in the kitchen with 2/3 Starbucks decaf and 1/3 Starbucks regular. Yuck.

Anyways, round about 9:00 I start to head down to the basement to stash the coffee, and I realize this isn't a bag of ground coffee, it's a bag of coffee beans. Back in the old old days, we used to grind our own beans fresh every day, but we haven't since we had childrens because it took too much time and was too messy. I don't even know where the coffee grinder is.

I say to The Mrs., "This is beans. It's not ground." She says, "That's the only fancy coffee they had."

"Where did you go?"

"Safeway."

Safeway? All Safeway had was a bag of coffee beans? Safeway that has at least 16 bulk bean dispensers and a grinder right there was out of all 16 varieties? And, on top of that, the grinder was broken, too?

Now, I was oddly angry. I gave The Mrs. one of those, "Come on. you just didn't feel like looking," things, and then HannahC saw an opportunity to push my buttons.

"Daddy, if you want a particular kind of coffee, you should just go buy it yourself. It's not Mommy's job to buy you coffee."

"Actually, HannahC, it is Mommy's job to buy me coffee. I go to work, she does the groceries. That's her job. It's not her job when she can't find what we need to just spend our money on some junk that we can't use and that we're just going to have to throw out."

And then I went to the store and got myself some coffee. I went to King Stooper, cuz I like them better than Safeway, and the coffee was on sale for $2 off per lbs. I really wanted to go to Safeway, just to prove they had more coffees, but I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

Until now.