Wednesday, August 18, 2010

My life as Goldilocks

In this installment of As Scrollwork's World Turns, I bring you a snapshot of the ol' hubby.

Steve is just getting so forgetful. I awoke the other morning to his mystified observation, "Someone's been using my toothpaste." He had found it next to my toothbrush cup rather than at his own sink. So I roused myself enough to remind him that when mine had run out, I had asked him to get a brand that we both would like — no cinnamon-flavored toothpaste this time, please. He'd presented me with a tooth-whitening, breath-freshening purchase, and I'd given it my Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

But we are so used to having separate toothpaste tubes, separate milk cartons (I drink soy, not cow's), and separate paychecks that this whole conjugal property concept has thrown him.

Someone's been eating my porridge. My life as Goldilocks, if she'd married one of the three bears.

Another morning he asked me where the umbrellas were, so rather than explain how to find one, I got up and hung one from the front doorknob while he got ready. After much hugging goodbye, he left...the umbrella. He called me at noon and I fussed. "You'll catch your death of cold," I said. Nothing like granny-generation isms to bridge the age gap between us. To humor me, he said, "Yes, I might die."

The good thing is, he hasn't given up on supposedly learning Mandarin from a set of CDs borrowed from the library. He listens during his commute, then comes home muttering monosyllabic, guttural sounds, assigning meaning to each: "meme means daughter, wa means I..." I suggested he email my Mom in Mandarin and his eyes widened. "Will I have to use Chinese characters?" he said.

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