E is for Enough

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Bill and I are incompatible. The first time I realized it was the morning after the wedding when I got in trouble for squeezing the toothpaste tube from the middle. How was I supposed to know you rolled it up tidily? Right then I decided I was not a roll-up kind of gal. We have used separate toothpaste tubes ever since. We even use different kinds of toothpaste now.

Then there is gasoline. He buys it all because he knows where its cheapest. I ask to buy when the gauge is on E, but he says, oh, you’ve got enough to get you where you’re going and back, and I always do—except there was that one time down in Texas when we were driving a new old car and E meant what it said-empty. I’m grateful we didn’t have to walk as far as we might have had to.

Carrots, now, carrots are something else altogether. In my humble opinion, you can never have too many carrots. I keep canned ones on hand but come on now, they just aren’t the same. “Carrots,” I write on the list. When we go over it he says, “We’ve got enough carrots.” Maybe for you, but not for me.

Time: Bill likes what you call close tolerance. That means you measure something like a door that opens onto the enclosed back porch, then you measure for a fan and put it up and turn it on and when you open the back door and the fan is whirling you can’t see a gap between them. So close tolerance goes for time as well. He doesn’t like to waste it by getting someplace too early, but unfortunately we’ve always been just late enough to embarrass me. Since he’s been retired, however, we’ve been working on it. We calculate what time we have to be there and then count back to when we may need to leave. It works most of the time. If it’s really crucial I don’t answer directly when he says what time do we have to be there. I say we need to leave at 8:30 or whatever I deem respectable. I sometimes say we have to leave at 8:32 and it works. I read about that somewhere. I don’t know why it works. Depending on how desperate I am we can get there just a little bit early. That’s nice for weddings and funerals, so you don’t have to disturb prayers and stuff. But the last funeral we went to was a little disorganized, we got there a good ten minutes early and I was proud. But the funeral didn’t actually start for an hour and a half after we got there. We had some nice quiet chats with some nice people, but there’s no telling how far it set my training program back.

We are compatible in the big things. Our kids tried the old switcheroo a few times: if dad says no, ask Mom, but Mom almost always had dad’s heart on the matter and agreed with him, so they soon gave up on that one. We also agree that lots of small and large things are funny and we laugh together. If we had memorized the Apostle’s Creed we’d be able to say it together with complete commitment. Jesus is Lord.

So although we are incompatible we still are pretty unified. What does that Bible verse say? “Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together…” As you know we aren’t brothers, but still it’s pretty fine to harmonize as husband and wife. Psalm 133:1

By Divoran

Tags: Parenting, Relationships, Religion and Spirituality