marriage

let me tell you about marriage.

marriage consists of one recurring argument, which consists of dishes. dirty dishes to be exact. it goes something like this...

dinner has been prepared and consumed and all that remains are satisfied stomachs and dirty dishes. wife expects husband to do the dishes since wife made the dinner. husband is willing to do so but is too involved in a television program at the moment to take care of it. dreadfully fearful of "waking up to dirty dishes in the sink", wife resorts to doing them herself, all the while bitching about the fact that she is the one doing them. meanwhile, husband, who's relaxing evening in front of the television is now being disturbed, is equally annoyed that wife is bitching about doing the dishes when he had all the intentions of doing them himself. repeat this scenario about five hundred times and you have a twenty-year marriage. if you're lucky. that's the most important part: you are lucky if this is the revolving argument in the "till death do you part" partnership. that is what i have come to realize. blessed be the couple who argue over the petty, small things (like dishes) because that means that there aren't larger, life-threatening issues to worry about.

and there i am, watching this old record play over and over again because neither will change their ways--my mom will always want the dishes cleaned and put in the dishwasher immediately following a meal and my dad will always prefer to wait a while before doing them by hand (avoiding the dishwasher altogether). in my earlier stages of naiveness i used to think that i could diagnose and fix this problem. "hahahahah" laughed the relationship gods above. i've come to believe that having the same argument again and again can actually be comforting. humans are creatures of habit, and having that one (or ten) fight to fall back on is like the most messed up security blanket in the world.

this is one of the things that boomeranging has taught me. since i am no longer a child (at least by law), my marriage earmuffs have been collecting dust; therefore, i get to witness all the "you're just like your mother/father" comments as i eat my popcorn. live with your parents and you too can earn a front row seat in the r rated film that is your parents relationship. just remember to wash your dishes.