The Difference

“Honey,” I say to my husband. “If anything ever happened to me, would you change anything around the house?”

“Not gonna answer.”

“No seriously, it’s for my article this week.”

“Wendy this is one of those, I can’t win moments.”

“I promise not to get mad.”

“And I promise that I don’t believe you.”

“Please, pretty please. When you watch golf all day Sunday I won’t complain.”

Sigh, sigh, and sigh. “I guarantee you, this will not end well.”

“Go. What would you change?”

“First, you seem to have a thing for pillows. On the bed, on the couch, in the chairs. I would do away with all the decorative pillows.”

“Good start. Next.”

“Drapes. You have drapes and sheers on all the windows when we already have blinds. They really aren’t necessary are they?”

“Okay,” I’m now a little unsure about this inquiry.

“And your lasagna. I like it with ricotta not cottage.”

“But I only do that if I’m out of ricotta.”

“You asked.”

“Go on.”

“I like my khaki shorts folded along the front seam, not in half.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s okay, not a big deal.”

“Anything else?”

“You do seem to like all those Yankee Candles. Once they burn down I probably wouldn’t replace them. (Like he could live without the hazelnut coffee smell permeating the kitchen.) And the flowered furniture in the sitting room, that would have to go.” (The fact that he called it a sitting room tells me the flowered furniture might stay.)

“Is that it?”

“That’s all I can think of.”

Kirk gets up out of the chair and I remark that I am not finished with the article.

“Do you want to know what I would change?” I ask.

“I don’t care. I’ll be dead.”

And therein lies the difference between men and women.