Couplehood by Paul Reiser Read Free Book Online

you’ve got a new sweater. They got brochures as youngsters that explained this.
    Men did not get this pamphlet. Men will stare at the rip for half an hour and whine. “Oh, look at that! Do you believe that? Brand-new sweater, too! Now I gotta throw it out. There’s no way this can be saved.”
    On the other hand, women rarely get involved with connecting stereos, which is the one thing most men
can
do. Me, anyway.
    And it works out well. I’ll be putting up a set of speakers, and suddenly go, “Oh no—look what I just did to this sweater—caught it on the speaker!”
    And instantly, we
both
have something to do.

Chicken
or
Fish
    I can’t believe how much of our life is spent planning food.
    “What do you feel like eating?”
    “I’m not really hungry.”
    “You gonna want to eat later?”
    “Probably.”
    “So we should get something
now.
”
    “Nah, we’ll get it later.”
    “
Later
everything’ll be closed. Let’s get something now.”
    “Alright, like what?”
    “That’s what I’m asking
you.
”
    And it never ends.
    Since we got married, I don’t think a day has passed that at least one conversation with my wife hasn’t ended with the words “Um, I don’t know … I guess … chicken.”
    Not one day. Do you understand this? Not one. The word “Chicken,” preceded by some unenthusiastic whine of indifference and frequently followed by an even less enthusiastic “Or maybe
fish
, I-don’t-care-it’s-up-to-you,” is by far the most commonly heard expression in our home. Perhaps second only to “
You
get it.”
    Chicken or fish. That’s basically what it comes down to.
    I wish we could just get pills to take the place of meals. Little full-balanced meals in pill form. Then you wouldn’t have to decide, you wouldn’t have to talk about it—huge chunks of your life would be freed up.
    Though I’m sure in no time I’d be on the phone going, “What do you feel like tonight—Chicken Pill or Fish Pill?”
    H ere’s the thing with decisions. I can
make
them. I just don’t feel sure about them afterward.
    A friend of mine said, “Always go with your gut.”
    Then another friend said to me, “You know what? You should listen to your heart.”
    So now I have one
more
choice to make: Do I go with my heart or my gut? I can’t decide. I gotta do an entire autopsy. My heart says
yes
, my gut says
no
, my colon is iffy—I just don’t know who to listen to.
    Say we’re in a coffee shop, I’m ordering breakfast, and the waitress says, “With those eggs, you want pancakes or waffles?”
    Pancakes. Very easy. Firm, clear-cut decision.
    She walks away, and immediately I realize I should have had the waffles.… Yup, waffles was the way to go. Look at that guy over there,
he
got the waffles,
he
looks very happy.
    “Excuse me, sir, how’re you enjoying those waffles? Pretty good, huh?”
    Great.
He
got the waffles. He’ll have a better breakfast, he’ll have a better day, a better life. He’ll go on to make a contribution to society, people will remember this guy for years.…
    Me?
I got the friggin’ pancakes.
    A lot of times, you’re home and you’re too hungry to even talk about food. So you stand over the sink and start eating whatever you have—celery and some assorted nuts from a gift basket you got three years ago. By the time you figure out what you’re going to eat, you’re bloated, queasy, and no longer interested in food.
    Then there are things you don’t even
realize
you ate. You’re on the run all day, you grab what you can, and at the end of the day you realize—you’re a goat. You’ve eaten whatever you saw, whenever you saw it. And somewhere in your belly lie pathetically odd combinations of foods:
    “A quarter pound of hummus and some Cracker Jacks.”
    “Fifteen pieces of bread and a sour ball.”
    Foods that have no business being together.
    “Chicken salad, blueberries, and a Mounds Bar.”
    And couples like to
report
what they had. They need to share.