MUSINGS

Monday, April 4, 2011

When Beauty Vexes Beast


(A he-man account of spousal familiarity)

I kicked off celibacy only to realize that clearing the clogged shower is a ritual that I shall have to live with for the rest of my life. The shower drain, wordlessly, almost as still as a mouse awaits my ingress after she’s reviled it with her follicular strands of myriad hues. I had known fringes and locks to exist in shades of black or brown and perhaps grey if she were older, but she’s introduced me to colours, the names of which I’ve never learnt at the nursery school - brunette, auburn and burgundy. Whew! There’s a lot to attain as I go on, staggeringly, tediously!

Well, well, just when I plonk myself on the couch and cruise channels on the telly while hungrily previsioning a sizeable meal, she declares with vehemence that she’s in no mood to fix the feed. With not enough options, I take her out to a close-at-hand joint for a decent meal in order to assuage my already rumbling tummy. Half way through the chow down she declares she is stuffed. And I’ve barely eaten! To round off a full course meal, I order a tiramisu pudding, just one, for she is already full. The sight of the arrival warms me generously to offer to her a spoonful to sample. And there she goes, not one, not two, but several spoons until I realize that it is I who has done the sampling. I do solemnly admit that life, for the likes of me, comes in bite sized bits, and we have to contend with that.

We decide to head off on a holiday, and I come back home the evening before with my car all tuned for the week-long run. As I walk into our ‘abode’ I’m awakened to the shocking revelation that my partner has exhausted her brimming wardrobe and awaits a shopping trip to revamp the same, and all this before we pack off on our venture. I suggest with the deepest sigh ever, that a few casuals, in case she disdains the idea of being pictured in the same ones in different snapshots, would rightly do the job. She instinctively refuses. I, who am constantly working on ideas to reach an accord, suggest that we could indulge in a bit of shopping at a newer outlet in the new place. The idea is met with an acceptance and is already being looked forward to with an earnestness you cannot fathom. Boy! How easily I learn that in pursuit of harmony, I shall have to be my salvager.

Yes, destination signed in, I propose to take her to the Mediterranean restaurant which promises an distinctive platter of indulgence. Dolly’s evidently vexed with the excursion that was solely intended to be a joyride for her. All she pronounces is, “Whatever, I’m okay with anything!’’ And now when the ‘shawarma’ comes with a ‘tahini’ that does not befriend her taut palate, pop comes the retort, “You know how SICK I’ve grown of the same old falafel and shawarma, we’d rather gone for Chinese!!” Ugh! When did she tell me that?

And now as I flop myself down on the hotel bed, enormously tired of the day’s expedition, she stands right there in the middle of the room, cross-examining every piece of furniture with a roving eye and finally blurts, “Could we check out the other rooms, as well? This one doesn’t seem to offer such a magnificent view.” God! Why don’t you just hit the sack? You badly need cool off!

Our tastes do never converge on our choice of books. But as I sit down with the fat thriller I have been intending reading for days, she at once grabs it, gormandizes it for a week and once finished she throws it away in a nook only to declare, “What rubbish!”

She’s ALWAYS there offering an assessment on almost anything and everything that meets her eyes and ears. Gosh! Does she ever realize what a slob she appears with her presumptions and unwanted sentiments? And inadvertently if I ever disclose the unfounded, unwarranted, I’m subjected to a judiciary which perhaps surpasses the strictest courts of justice!!

I did have the license to do what I wanted yet I abandoned all that for an association that promised a harmony in its being. And now as I sail through the choppy waters of an alliance that can be felt only upon taking the plunge, I do hope for a small bit of fair weather. Someday I hope to be accepted for not being a mind reader, and I choose not to be spoken in hints but clear words preferably a trite ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Whenever I am glued to my favourite soccer match on television, I would like to be spoken to only during commercial breaks. And, please do not get your antennas up each time my cell phone rings,after all it doesn't always pay to be such a store-house of knowledge. When we have to go out, I should not be subjected to the torture of having to approve of your outfit. You can wear almost anything and everything that pleases you. And if you are a butterball, do accept, my words will not reduce your size. Also, do not gnarl when I look at that hot chick in micro minis. Have eyes, will see! AND most importantly, I should not be expected to reveal any more than what meets the eye!

After all, life is tough, let's keep things simple - you and I.....