No matter how hard I try, there are sometimes occasions when a menstrual wife just has to offer hostility. Take a previous period in our history for instance, which co-incided with a weekend.
I'd made valiant efforts throughout the (satur)day to avoid the conflict which can arise, and we found ourselves in the evening, wondering what to eat.
She remarked that what she really "fancied" was a nice chinese take-away and a bottle of wine.
And I, being the dutiful and loving husband that I am, provided it.
She made her order, which was for a number of things, but which included egg fried rice and smoked chicken at it's core, and a "few chips." Until that point, I hadn't considered having chips, but then I remembered that the local take-away does indeed do a most excellent chip, and having eaten a number of rice and salad based meals that week I thought, fuck it, have some chips, you deserve it, even your skinny within deserves it.
This information was relayed to her, and at that point in the proceedings the understandings were thus:
Chips for her were a side issue.
Chips for me were a main porky part of the meal.
Now, some thirty minutes or so later, the chinese order arrived, and the divvying up of the food began.
She was served first, her rice and chicken that is. Seated at the table, I began to serve my own food.
I opened the delightful brown paper bag containing the chips, and put some on my plate.
She watched me do this and a strange look came over her face. Then she said:
"Oh.. ok, why don't you just take all the chips from the top of the bag?"
"sorry?" I began, not really understanding the complaint but hearing the vehemence in her voice.
"I said why don't you take the chips from the top of the bag and leave me with the horrible ones at the bottom."
I looked in the bag, and I looked at my plate. There didn't appear to be any material differences in chip quality between the two locations.
Ire rising, I replied:
"I'm sorry sweetheart, I haven't yet learnt how to put the chips from the bottom of the bag on the plate first, how stupid of me."
Now of course, I think maybe I should have just cut open the bottom of the bag with a sharp knife, rather like someone gutting a shark to see the contents of the stomach, and then I could have let the allegedly inferior chips just fall on the plate, along with an assortment of number plates or whatever other objects are always found inside sharks.
But at that time I wasn't thinking so clearly. I just felt this sense of despair. She was by now very angry. Offers to "take these chips then", which were at that point untouched, were refused with a fuck off I don't want any chips now.
There are things that seem worth getting worked up about and things that do not. I put it to you, members of the jury, that a husband who hasn't yet learned how to serve the low-lying chips in a bag without first emptying the upper strata of chips is perhaps guilty of something, ignorance, stupidity even, but not anything worth turning into a major fuss.
But a major fuss was had, one which required a 3-hour-long strop. And all because I was selfish.
