So I’m married. And being married really makes me wish I’d paid more attention in school.
Like in math with word problems. You remember those, right? If a train is leaving Tulsa at 200 miles per hour heading north and another train is southbound on the same track at 120 miles per hour, how many hours will it take for them to crash in Kansas City?
Marriage has a lot of word problems I try to figure out every day.
Like this one. See if you can figure it out.
If a spouse takes the laundry basket to the laundry room and puts the laundry in the washer. Then the other spouse puts the clothes in the dryer, folds the clothes, and then puts the clothes away, can both claim to have “done laundry?” Is it really the same energy expended?
I solved that problem, and told each family member they were responsible for their own laundry.
Here’s another fascinating puzzle about efficiency. We used to live in a four-level split house with our bedroom on the top level and laundry room two floors down. When my husband started doing his own laundry, rather than bring his clean laundry up to the bedroom to put it away he decided that the laundry room would become his own personal walk-in closet. He just left his stuff on the folding table in the laundry room, and every day he’d get out of the shower, walk down two flights of stairs leaving a trail of water behind him on the carpet to grab clothes. Every. Freakin. Day.
Maybe he was working on a word problem of his own, like how to get 10,000 steps in a day without leaving the house.
Marriage also has helped me in language arts, I think, especially providing a refresher on the three sentence types: declarative, exclamatory and interrogative. You learn a lot about interrogative sentences – or asking questions – in a marriage.
Like when I put something on the counter, and my husband asks, “You’re not going to put that there, are you?”
Well. Clearly I am. I just did.
All joking aside, though, I love my husband. He makes me laugh. That’s important when you are choosing to be with one person the rest of your life. I’ve often likened being with one person to owning your favorite movie on VHS tape.
Your favorite movie will always be your favorite. You know all the dialogue and the choreography. You are keenly aware of the set, costuming and props and how they support – or detract from – the story. You know every scene and what’s coming next. You know the back story of the production. You know all the flaws. Maybe you’ve even come across a blooper montage.
Sometimes you want to sit and enjoy every minute of it. Sometimes you just want to fast forward to the good parts. And sometimes – you just want to rent a new release.
Obviously at my age – slightly north of 50 – you also are aware that the ability to play a VHS is dwindling, and you have to recognize the tape is aging. This is where multimedia education comes in. To still enjoy your favorite movie, you have to evolve and adapt to changing technology.
I love my husband. For the last 20+ years, I’ve appreciated when the kids and our critters have all quieted down for the night. We hop into bed, read, watch TV, talk and then snuggle in for a good night’s rest.
I turn to him and smile, “You’re not going to put that there, are you?”
