The Boss

I have been married to the Lovely Sharon, for 5 ½ years. She is a quiet lady but over the last 7 years or so she seems to be a more outgoing person. Maybe it’s because I am such a loud mouth that she needs to fight for space in the conversation. Well anyway, even though I am the loudmouth and she is the quiet person of our relatively short marriage, she has emerged as the boss of the house, the boss of me, the boss of the sun and the planets that revolve around the sun. She is kind of like Eisenhower during World War II, the Supreme Allied Commander, or like an Ayatollah not only running the religious aspects of life, but the political, domestic and all other aspects of human existence. Examples:

The Wine Selection Process

Whenever I select a bottle of wine from our wine coolers and racks for consumption at dinner, after she looks at my bottle, she politely suggests that maybe she should select a bottle in place of my selection. I am convinced that if we had 100 identical bottles of wine, each of the same winery, year, variety and label, and I brought a bottle up for dinner, it would be the wrong bottle. Now, I don’t even try to pick a wine, I just have her go to the cooler and get the wine she deems appropriate. This saves me a trip to the basement.

The Parking Space Selection Process

I could drive into a parking lot with 10,000 empty parking spaces and if I would pick a spot to park she would say, “Why did you park here?”

If she is out of town and I am left to my own devices in Utah and decide to go somewhere, such as a book store, I find a parking space and then I call her on her cell phone and ask her “Is this space ok?” Unsurprisingly, sometimes the answer is “No”.

She has the uncanny ability to know that I am in the wrong parking space even if she is 900 miles away and cannot actually see the parking space. It’s amazing.

The Restaurant Selection Process

Finding a restaurant is always fun. I will ask her where she wants to eat. She always responds by saying, “Anywhere, you choose.”

This response does not really suggest that I will select a restaurant and we will go to that restaurant and partake of dinner. What it means is that I should name a laundry list of restaurants, each of which will be rejected in turn and then she will finally say, “What about (INSERT RESTAURANT NAME). “ I then respond “That sounds great” and then we go to that restaurant.

This little warm up procedure for dinner is kind of like batting practice before the game or hitting golf balls on the range before a round of golf. You are not actually going to dinner until this warm up is done.

A New Development

Last evening there was an interesting development. I asked the Lovely Sharon if she wanted wine for dinner. She responded in the affirmative. She said, “Go pick out a bottle.” I, being smart and experienced, responded with “Anything is good for me, why don’t you pick out something you would like.” She said she would get the wine. (See I am getting smarter figuring that I would save myself a useless trip to the basement. ) Without hesitation she said she would do so and accordingly I thought I had outfoxed her tonight.

She then asked me to get a roll of paper towels from the storage room in the basement. Suspiciously, I suggested that maybe she should select the roll of paper towels. She said “For heaven’s sake they are just paper towels, just pick one.”

With that said, I confidently departed for the storage room in search of the paper towels. I panicked a little when I saw there were two unopened 8 packs of white paper towels. I thought “Which one to open?” Then I remembered her words, “For heaven’s sake they are just paper towels, just pick one.”

So with fear subsiding, I opened an 8 pack, fondled several rolls and contemplated each roll until I found the perfect roll of paper towels. It felt good. It was new and bright white and just begging to be freed from its prison of the plastic 8 pack bag. Eager to be allowed to do the job it was born to do.

With more than a little excitement, I bounded up the stairs to present the carefully selected roll to her. I felt as excited as a dog bringing a newspaper to his master. I kind of waited around to be scratched behind my ears for a job well done. I was crestfallen when the Lovely Sharon, after analyzing the roll I had lovingly brought to her, said:

“Why did you bring this roll? I don’t like Bounty paper towels, I like Viva paper towels.”

I responded with “What’s the difference?”

Looking incredulously at me, the Lovely Sharon boldly asserted that the Bounty paper towels felt like paper.

Sparring back, I retorted “Wasn’t that the point in a paper towel? Its paper, it’s even called a ‘paper towel’.”

She then got me with the knock out punch – “The Viva paper towels feel like cloth, take this Bounty roll back and get me a Viva roll.”

Like a bad dog with my tail between my legs, I took the Bounty roll back and brought up a roll of Viva paper towels.

Next time I will be prepared, no more paper towel tricks, I will head straight to Viva towels.