Marriage is all about communication, and for me living alongside my wife is like doing a 24-hour-a-day word problem in a foreign language that can only be solved with algebra. As we converse, I'm constantly trying to decode the messages coming to me and searching for the right answer, but unfortunately, like a lot of algebra there are letters where there should be numbers and, full disclosure, I've always sort of sucked at math. This means I get the wrong answer quite a bit. So, living as my wife's husband, I'm essentially wrong every single day.
This lifestyle of being wrong a lot can eventually wear a guy down. I'm to the point now where I'm afraid to offer an opinion about anything since I know there is an 80 percent chance that my opinion will be the absolute wrong one.
If my wife and I are going to go out for a social event, she will ask me if I like what she is wearing. She will come out of the closet wearing something really nice and flattering. Then she will ask me, "What do you think? Should I wear this tonight?"
I always answer with, "Beautiful, you look great. Now let's roll."
She will look at me, then look in the mirror, she will pause for a second and then say, "No, I'm going to change. You don't want to see me in this skirt."
I don't? I didn't realize that I didn't want to see her in that skirt. It's a good thing my wife is around to keep me from making huge mistakes, like enjoying an evening next to her while she wears a skirt. That evening could have been an absolute total disaster.
When I step foot in her kitchen, my propensity for being wrong about things goes up from 80 percent of the time to 99 percent of the time. Yesterday I was trying to make some hard boiled eggs. Yes, very complicated: water, eggs, heat. Somehow I was wrong seven times in that process.
I wasn't 10 seconds into the process and I started hearing, "Don't use that pot, I only use that pot for pasta. Don't just put cold water in the pot, use hot water from the faucet so it heats faster. No, use the burner on the stove on the left, not the right burner. Don't let the water boil over. Take the pot off the burner now. No, don't use that hot pad, that's only for when we have guests over. Don't refrigerate the eggs until they have cooled more, you don't want to heat up the stuff in the refrigerator."
Frustrated that I can't even boil eggs without being wrong, for a moment I thought about just ending it all. "Goodbye cruel world!" But I knew that going into the garage to hang myself would just result in more instances of me being wrong.
"Don't use that rope. Use a square knot. And don't make a mess!"
Realizing I needed a break from being wrong one evening, I decided to go for a walk around the block. As I was heading out the door I heard my wife say, "It's cold outside, you should wear a jacket."
Just to spite her I went outside without a jacket. I didn't need her telling me I was wrong anymore. I'd show her. I was exactly three houses away when I realized that I was feeling a bit chilly. Actually, I was freezing.
"Dammit! I'm doing it wrong again!"
Next time Rob has a hankering for an egg, he's making a run to McDonald's, because the customer is always right there. You can read more from Rob Krider or contact him at robkrider.com.
