Pirates in High Heels!

I have this theory. Somewhere in her family tree, there was this cut-throat pirate; a ruthless, hot-tempered scalawag that enjoyed pillaging & plundering just a little too much. That's why I'm blaming her distemper on genetics, some sort of rogue DNA passed down her family line. Which is why she can't help herself when she suddenly turns into a rapscallion and fires a cannon shot across my bow.

What am I talking about?

It's the weekend. We're driving along and I'm minding my own business. That's when trouble starts. I think I see a pirate ship on the horizon?

She's hungry. Sounds simple enough so far. We just get something to eat and everyone's happy. So I ask the logical next question, "What do you want to eat?"

In my mind, this seems to be a logical question, followed by a brief discussion, and a simple decision. However negotiations quickly go downhill from there. I may as well have set fire to the living room couch!

When I get hungry I get something to eat. This requires as much thought as scratching where it itches, when it itches. It's a reflexive action. Cerebral energy expended... zero! The matter is now resolved and I go on about my business to more pressing matters, matters that actually require ...thought. When she's hungry, it becomes a quest to achieve some mystical state of culinary bliss. She wants that one special morsel that will satisfy some sub-conscious physiological-emotional yearning. She doesn't know what she wants but somehow I'm supposed to?

I saw this as a prelude to a peaceful meal; she's already starting to get irate.

I can tell by her voice we are in treacherous waters. The sea becomes angry. She says, "I don't care. You pick!" The situation is rapidly deteriorating. It must be my eagerness to placate her that infuriates her. I'm trying to run up the white flag before the hostilities get out of hand.

Meanwhile, the fracas is about to begin. Curling up on the floor board in the fetal position fails to alleviate her ire.

Every time we have this discussion, I realize much too late that I am like the piñata at a five year old's birthday party. One suggestion after another is mercilessly shot down with spiraling levels of angst an decibels. After the obligatory cycle of interrogation, torture, 'we' finally decide on what 'she' wants to eat.

We finally agree on where to go. I'm driving so everything I do while I'm behind the wheel only infuriates her. I take the wrong route, turn in the wrong entrance, go the wrong way in the parking lot, park in the wrong place... You get the idea. So I shouldn't be surprised she just ran up the skull & cross bones and started firing broadsides at me, so to speak. It's not her fault. It's just who she is. She's a pirate in a skirt wearing high heels and makeup: she's just doing what pirates do.

This genetic predisposition to the immediate culinary crisis possibly goes both ways. On my side of the family there must have been at least one peace-loving, bumbling half-wit in the lineage. Apparently I got his genetic code along with his ability to botch things up. So I'm thinking perhaps somewhere way back in time, these two progenitors of our current state of matrimonial discord may have somehow clashed. I can imagine her boarding his ship, making all the others walk the plank... and then she asks him. "What do you want to eat?" And he says, "I don't care. What do you want?" That's when she grabs her blunderbuss and chases the poor buffoon around deck while brandishing her cutlass overhead. "You pick," she screams at him!

It's de ja' vu all over again!

And so I think this may explain our relationship. Only now we're married. And she's hungry...and I still have no clue what it is she wants to eat.

And that is why she chased me around the salad bar with a plastic knife today!

Maybe it didn't happen exactly like that... but the truth isn't nearly as entertaining!