Marriage Makes A Person More Creative. Add It To The List.

There are a number of articles championing the benefits of marriage: more financial stability, live longer, satisfied in bed, less-likely to commit violent crimes, tax benefits, and the list goes on.  In my few short years I have observed another benefit seldom cited, if ever: creativity.  More specifically, I have noticed that marriage increases one's creative ability as it pertains to finding topics about which to fight.  Way to go, marriage!  I mean, before this week, it never occurred to me that I could, one day, fight with another human being about cooking spray.  It turns out, however, it's possible!

There I was, in the kitchen attempting to make Thai peanut dipping sauce.  A man, known as my husband,  faced me from about 6 feet away with a furrowed brow and one hand lightly resting on the handle of a very small, open cabinet door.  "Where is my cooking spray I bought and like to use?”  Truth is, I tossed those a few weeks back.  At this point, I felt frantic, tried to play it cool and quickly weighed my options.

Option 1:  Answer honestly, “I threw that junk away because it is full of chemicals I cannot pronounce and god-knows-what-else.  There are plenty of other options for greasing a grill currently residing in that too-small cabinet that drives me crazy and erupts every time I open the door.  And by the way, why do you always come home with some unnecessary, absurd cooking spray can every time you go to the grocery store?  It drives me crazy.”

Option 2:  Play dumb.  Also, lie.  Use sing-song voice and bat eye-lashes.  “What, honey?  I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about?”

Option 3:  Stare silently.  Caught.

                

My recollection of the chosen response is somewhat foggy.  Although, I believe it was an amalgamation of options 1-3, not well thought out, and somewhat aggressive.  Admittedly, I’d been having, pardon my French here, a shit day.  My eyes narrowed, a beat of silence hung heavily in the atmosphere, and I said very plainly to my now-adversary, “It’s gone.”  Errr, eeehh.  “I threw it away.”  Tiny door shuts definitively. Adversary stares me down, turns on heel, marches defiantly out the back door.  Door slams loudly shut upon noteworthy exit.


I’m not proud of the events that ensued.  They involved several caustic exchanges.  I lobbed a few condescending “You’re taking this way too personally” and “Is this really a hill to die on?" grenades his way.   I received a sucker-punch or two of a few founded accusations about my being wildly inconsistent when it comes to all-natural/organic/local culinary stances combined with, say for instance, my more than occasional consumption of gummy peach rings, pizza, and weekly trips to Half-Price FroYo night down the street.  I can’t blame the guy.  The most consistent thing I’ve got going in my life is that I am... “consistently inconsistent.”  Ultimately, I apologized.  But it wasn’t one of those good, responsibility-taking apologies:

“I mean, I am sorry throwing those away made you so upset.  If I had known how you’d react, I would have put them someplace else.  It was not premeditated on my part.”  True!  "I got fed up cramming junk into that dumb, teeny cabinet and was like, 'Oh to H with it!  I’m throwing some of this crap away.'  Your contributions to the cabinet were easy targets.”  [BEAT]  "Can we still eat dinner together?”  And we did.  In silence.  At the kitchen island.  #marriage #hillstodieon

In our defense (no pun intended), we are merely days away from Jon’s seven-month deployment.  (National defense - get it?) Emotions are running high over here.  Little things, big reactions.  Most notably, creativity is heightened!  Perhaps another perk to deployment?!

Really scraping the bottom of the barrel to find perks...