Something Nice

My father and I like to enjoy the foods we like slowly, savoring them until they are gone. He keeps ice cream in the freezer for months, having a small bowl of it whenever he feels like it, and I am the same way.


Unfortunately, our spouses like to enjoy treats like these rather... faster. My husband will polish off a half gallon of ice cream in three or four days, eating one rather large bowl every night until it’s gone. It’s not like my mother devours the ice cream or anything, but when my father struts into the kitchen three weeks after the last time he had some and asks if there’s any in the house, my mother usually says no. “Didn’t we have some?” he inquires, to which she excalims, “I ate it!”


The solutions we have put in place to remedy this are: my mother buys ice cream that my father likes but that she’s not very fond of, and I hide things that I’m not planning on sharing.


This does not work so well with things that are in plain sight. I hide my treasured breakfast cereals in the cupboard with the other breakfast cereals. This is not an ideal hiding place, because my husband, who does not normally eat breakfast during the week, waltzes in on the weekends and eats my cereal.


He must think that I’m joking when I cry out: “Get off!” and “Don’t eat that, it’s mine!” because he eats it anyway. One reason he disregards my squawking may be because although the cereal is in short supply (I can only buy it in Nebraska or order it off the internet), we are moving to Nebraska, so soon I can get it whenever I want. Another reason may be that it’s not like we’re roommates: “Dude, don’t eat my cereal,” we are husband and wife, and cereal is one of the many things in life that we share. Or it may simply be that it’s just cereal, so who cares?


But the best way to ensure that my father and I don’t have to share is to employ my mother’s system.  I make a big batch of chocolate cookies with Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips, and my husband will have one or two, but usually leaves the rest alone, letting me eat them as quickly or savor them as slowly as I want to. When my father asks for “something nice,” my mother hands him the off brand sandwich cookies he likes but she loathes.


My parents have been married for a quarter of a century longer than my husband and I have. Maybe it just takes time to learn what your spouse likes, what you enjoy together, and what you love but they won’t touch with a ten foot pole. Marriage is all about compromise. Even when it comes to Something Nice.