Marriage

Love Can Be Crumby

My wife can be a wise guy

When we moved to a Senior Retirement Community fifteen years ago, one of the many things we had to do was get rid of years of accumulated stuff. Some of that was simple. It’s either trash, yard sale, give to someone, or keep. We barely needed to think about most of it.

There were some things that were harder. For those, we had to make a decision: was it Useful, Decorative or of Sentimental Value? We’d argue it out, pitching our reasons why something deserved one or the other.

At one point I was frustrated by something I wanted to keep but she did not. Exasperated, I muttered something like “Next thing, you won’t want to take me!”

She stopped in mid sentence and looked at me for four or five seconds. Finally she spoke.

“Sentimental value.”

OK, wise guy. So I joked back.

“You want me. I’m tall, handsome, and incredibly intelligent.”

She was very quick: “I’ll give you ONE of those!”

I laughed and asked “Which one?”

She wouldn’t tell me and never has.

Why?

One day our younger daughter was visiting and was helping organize our pantry. I could hear them talking in the kitchen. My daughter exclaimed “Mom! Why do you have so many cans of this soup?”