Happy Wife, Happy Life



Back in the day, when I had little kids and a dog at home, the kitchen was like a magnet for everyone in my house to stand, sit or lay down in my way. I like to think that I was just so popular in my family that no one could stand to be away from me for more than five minutes. But the truth was, they were all just hungry and thought that maybe if they hovered around me in the kitchen, or directly in front of me, it would make me cook dinner faster. Of course, the exact opposite was true since every drawer, cabinet and cooktop would be body-blocked by some member of the family who I would have to jump over, spin around or hurl out of my way to get the job done.

Not that I’ve ever hurled anyone. On purpose, I mean.

Now that the kids had moved out and the dog was gone, the hover torch seemed to have been passed to my husband who, somehow, took up more space in the kitchen than all the rest of the family members combined. It was like some kind of universal law of expansion: 1x husband = 10x gets in my way.

“Do you need something?” I asked my husband; I was trying to make dinner and he was standing directly in front of the drawer with the pots and pans.

“No,” he said. 

“Well, then, could you move because I need to get a pan out of that drawer?” I replied.

“Oh, sure,” he said, scooting across the kitchen so that he was standing in front of the drawer with the cooking utensils. I sighed.

“Honey, I need to get a whisk out of that drawer.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said, moving to his left so he now stood directly in front of the stove top where I had just put the pan and where I needed to stand to start cooking. I shook my head. It was like a game of Whack-A-Mole.

“No problem,” he said and shifted to his right.

I rolled my eyes.

“Can I ask you a favor?” I finally said.

“Sure!”

“CAN YOU GET THE HECK OUT OF THE KITCHEN?”

He looked at me morosely.

“But I’m hungry.”

I thought for a moment. This was not something they had covered in Marriage 101. How could I get dinner cooked and get my husband out of the way at the same time?

And then I had an epiphany. There was, in fact, a simple solution to this problem. 

“You know what?” I said excitedly. “I have a great idea. I was going to roast this chicken. But why don’t you cook it on the grill instead? It’s all prepped and ready to go!”

I saw my husband transform instantly from He-Who-Gets-In-My-Way to He-Who-Rules-The-Grill-Universe. He grabbed his titanium grill tool case and then whisked the chicken from my arms and in the flash of an eye, he disappeared from my kitchen.

Proudly I leaned against the fridge and surveyed my empty kitchen, But I had barely enjoyed a moment of silence when my husband returned.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I need some more barbecue sauce.” he said.

“Okay,” I nodded. He stared at me.

“What?” I wondered.

He pointed to the fridge.

“You’re in my way.”

Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble,” available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com. .

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