B Dearest

I am happily married.

I can say that I fully expect to stay in my marriage for the long haul. Rest of our lives, the whole shebang.

I don't want to say that I hope I end up like my Aunt Eli, who is 83. She is widowed, still drives and works once in awhile. She travels and does things like spends Christmas up in Vermont with friends at quaint bed and breakfast joints.

She also goes back to Germany once in awhile.

She buried her husband and now does whatever she wants. She is an amazing cook. I make her German macaroni salad and pork chops for damn near every holiday besides Thanksgiving.

She doesn't cook for her family on holidays anymore. She basically told them all to screw, because she was going to Vermont.

I love her.

 I love B, so I would never wish for his untimely demise. I only wish that his demise is timed so that I can have a few years of leisure and fun before I have to go too.

Is that bad?

He is going to be a hell of an old man. I told him this the other day.

I was doing the dishes. I could feel his eyes burning into my back, because as always, I was doing it wrong.

I told him that I could see it now. He was going to be this doddering old man, bent and shuffling, with a wooden cane.

I would be a plump, grey old lady in a house dress and slippers, at the sink.

He would come in and lightning quick, with a speed that didn't match up to his years, strike me across the back with his cane and scream in an old man's voice,

"You're doing it wrong!"

Of course in my imagination, he gets dementia before I do.

And then of course, because he's crazy and abusive, it's off to the nursing home. Barry, the surly CNA with chapped hands, will change his diaper. Not his loving wife.

I tell B often that he better watch his step. He has the choice now. Me or Barry. What's it going to be?

The other day, B was putting his laundry away. He stopped me from whatever it was I was doing to give me a short tutorial on the proper way to tri-fold boxer shorts.

My response, after a long moment in befuddled silence.

 "I married Joan Crawford."

"Are you going to ask me to switch from wire hangers next?"

"Are you going to hit me with wire hangers when I don't fold your panties correctly?"

He sneered at me and then said that it would just be a waste of time for me to fold the underpants, only to have to re-fold them.

Solution-I place them on his dresser for him to fold.

Yesterday,  I forgot to take out the recycling during the day, it was all rinsed and neatly lined up by the sink ready to go out.

 I just forgot.  I always forget to take out the recycling.

B pointed out that he enables me by always taking the recyclables out right away, so I never remember to do it.

My response was to put my arm up to shield my face and yell

"DON'T HIT ME WITH THE CANE, CRAWFORD!"

**Of course I have to add that if you call my husband Crawford or make remarks to him about his tri-folded underwear, you will know pain..Thanks!**

I find it quite humorous when I  think of how much I actually enable him on any given day, while he has to point out the most minor infraction on my part as gross negligence of my wifely duties.

But it's not like anyone's keeping score or anything.