The Two Seven Dwarfs

The Man called me an
asshole this morning.

Okay, so I kinda deserved
it, but still.

We were sitting at the
table, illuminated by the
glow of laptop, engrossed
in our morning reading of
online news.

He was slurping his coffee and then he grabbed a handful of pistachios
and started cracking them open, then chomping on them.

I said, "Geez! It's like sitting at a table with a bunch of barnyard animals!"

He said, "So what! You eat soup like a gulag prisoner, banging your spoon
in the bowl digging for the last piece of carrot!

I said, "Yeah, well at least I don't gurgle."

Then he called me an asshole and walked out of the room.

That's when I remembered that today I was going to start meditation exercises.
As I told The Man, I'm convinced that he is causing inflammation in my arteries.
And, we all know how bad that is. But, now I couldn't go do my life-saving,
stress-reducing meditation because The Man was in the "other" room, the room
where I planned on sitting quietly and following my breath.

This year marks our thirtieth year of (mostly) wedded bliss. I say "mostly" because
there was that divorce and re-marriage about ten years ago but, other than that, we
have been fairly blissful. We (mostly except for times like this morning) have a lot of
fun together.

I think we're just going through a stage. It's the name calling stage. So far, it's been
workable. He calls me an asshole, I call him a dickhead. There. We're even. Where
you wanna go for lunch? It's over.

I clip his suspenders on in the back for him. He holds my head and tells me to relax
when I think I'm having a brain aneurysm in the middle of the street. We are good
to each other when it matters most.

We could be the poster children for happy, but grumpy couples everywhere.
Make that Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey and Sleepy...definitely Sleepy couples
everywhere.

Heigh Ho!