Chicken Thigh/Cod Combo, Coming Right Up!

The heat makes it hard for me eat, let alone cook.

All I want is a salad in an air-conditioned restaurant. Maybe just the air-conditioned restaurant. I’ll think about the salad.

I don’t want to cook, I whined the other day. Instead of making a plan not to cook dinner, I pulled out some frozen chicken thighs from last year, and a package of frozen cod fillets and left them in the sink to defrost.

My wife Jeanine walked in and saw it and said, I don’t want to eat.

I got mad. Never said a word but in my head goes the long rant, Why do I always have to cook, why don’t you ever cook, why don’t you say let’s go out to eat, why is it my responsibility to make sure there is food in the house, why can’t you grocery shop once in a while- it got longer, and longer, all in my head.

Why didn’t I simply say, I want to go out to dinner or you can cook.

Because I thought the chicken thigh/cod fillet combo would be a clear enough sign. It wasn’t. My wife is brilliant, she can master technology and concepts of engineering I cannot even begin to wrap my small brain around. But she cannot take a hint.

Which brings me to the ever-present struggle of asking for what you want, clearly, without any whining. Set out every expectation, step by step or you can forget about it ever being met.

I’m not sure I can do it.

I’m not a whiny person by nature – stop rolling your eyes, Walter- rather a more curt and cut to the chase kinda gal.

Which gets me in plenty of trouble, too.

I always told the kids, when they were toddlers, to use their very best asking voice. Even now, at times, they soften up their little eyes, look up hopefully and say, Please? Pretty Please?

I don’t think that’s going to work on the wife. It rarely works on me and the kids are very cute.

I know it’s not always about the best asking voice, although yelling with my hands on my hips is probably never going to get me what I want – at least not from her. The kids seem to understand it is NOW time to pick up their shoes/bags/socks from the floor.

But with the wife? Ah… I want her to read my mind. I want her to know me so well, she will always do the right thing, and the thing I need, without me having to ask.

I want telepathy.

I know a lot of people who wish their spouse- male or female- would just “get it.”

Do I really have to tell him over and over, after 20 years, I would like him to pick up his socks? When I put them on his pillow, did he not get the message?

Doesn’t she know by now that when I sigh like THAT I am in desperate need of a hug? Do I have to ask?

It’s little things - because little things become big things (see Huffington Post “The Clutter of Married Life”)- that get to you, over and over.

I once read an article in the New York times – “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage” By Amy Sutherland, published: June 25, 2006- about exotic animal training being useful on your spouse. I tried it but I’m not good at ignoring bad behavior. I end up getting frustrated and throwing out a whole pile of her stuff.

Which is my bad behavior my wife is suppose to ignore but never does.

It’s hot again tonight.

Maybe if I try my very best asking voice… I’ll get my air-conditioned restaurant.

Otherwise, everyone’s getting the cod/thigh combo.

Which means tomorrow, I need to think about what being passive aggressive gets me.