We may have been married for thirty years but it’s always sensible not to take things for granted.
“Placeholder partners” are the Tik Tok subject de jour, and how do you know you aren’t the one being duped? Simon is still the cook, between the two of us, and how lucky am I that preparing food for me is his love language? He also cooks when his buds come over for BOB, or Beers on Bolton, a celebration of male friendship with beers and rugby on Friday evenings when I’m usually working or up at Waikanae. I’d like to say this is very healthy but I don’t want to sound patronising.
Not saying “I told you so” is also a feature I admire. I think I mentioned the enormous cost and hassle replacing the fireplace in our bedroom has been, all due to a noisy chimney which bothered me greatly, even though Simon never noticed it. He’s been very good about it, and even paid the last invoice due to a temporary cash flow issue on my part. In spite of his speaking no words of reproach, I was pleased and relieved when the tail end of the recent cyclone was accompanied by a noticeable lack of sounds issuing from the vicinity of the fireplace.
Similarly, when I was unable to pick up his brand new super duper frying pan that was drying upside down on the gas cook top the other day, and ended up having to jimmy it loose rather forcefully, he didn’t say a word when we both saw the resultant deep gouges on the otherwise pristine inner surface. If he even rolled his eyes I didn’t see it.
Did I mention the various recent newspaper reports worldwide about Tesla owners getting stuck in their cars when they crashed and then getting immolated due to emergency first responders being unable to extricate them from their cars, all because of Elon’s love of smooth lines and disappearing door handles? I got so worked up about it, I ordered a special window hammer online so that I can escape if I need to in the event of a crash (no, it doesn’t help people who are on the outside trying to break in to get me out, but at least it’s a start). When the gadget arrived last week, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. I was expecting something like this:
But ended up with something like this, which looks more like a torch than a hammer:
It’s very nifty I’m sure, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. The instructions were in very broken Temu Chinese and were of no help. The last thing I wanted in an emergency situation was to be trying it out for the first time, so as usual, I turned to Simon for help. I thought it was very brave of him to try it out on his own hand, and really I don’t feel I can be blamed when he then moved onto our exquisite granite bench top. He let out only the faintest of whimpers when he succeeded in puncturing a hole in the latter, which is a testament to his imperturbable nature. I find it traumatising when people lose their temper in stressful situations (somewhat ironic when I have a tendency to do so myself) so I really admire calm and phlegmatic types.
It’s a match made in heaven.