By MIA FREEDMAN
My husband and I are arguing about bread. Specifically, about how bread from the bakery goes stale faster if you leave it in the paper bag rather than transferring it into a plastic one. This is because when it’s in paper, all the moisture gets sucked out. Apparently.
[Are you still reading? Because I am so bored I have almost stopped typing.]
We are having this scintillating discussion in the car while driving our daughter to her soccer game on a Sunday morning and it quickly segues into a spirited debate about whether we should continue with keep the bread in the cupboard above the toaster (his preference) as opposed to it’s usual spot on the counter NEXT to the toaster.
And all of a sudden I stopped making whatever fascinating point I was in the middle of and said, “This is what marriage is. Conversations like this.”
Sexy, stimulating conversations about bread storage.
They don’t mention that in the brochure. When you’re picking out rings and table settings and drinking cocktails on your hen’s night, nobody mentions that soon you’ll be talking to your life partner about whether you should get the 18 roll pack of toilet paper because it’s on special or whether you just don’t have enough room to store all the extra and perhaps it’s just not worth saving 84c this time. Or is it?
That’s when I thought about a comment I read on a blog last week where a married woman said this:
I can think of nothing more boring than talking about car maintenance. I don’t understand what any of the little symbols on my dashboard mean. But assuming you’re lucky enough to have a car, it has to be maintained and that usually requires a little communication within a household, does it not?
Marriage, is about other things too, of course. Not just car maintenance. There are many conversations you have about money and sex and garbage bags and car rego and have-you-seen-my-umbrella and missing car keys and stop-texting-I’m-trying-to-talk-to-you and should we have another baby and hurry up we’re late and I need to have first shower and can you please pick up that milk I like. No, the other one. With the purple writing.