Daddy Cooks: The Beginning

  A few years ago, I retired from a major university to become more involved in the world around me.  Our nation was at war with terrorism; homeless people roamed the streets of our major cities; school children were dropping through the cracks of our educational systems; our economy was in the toilet.  To top it all off, my wife had thrown me out of the “big bed” complaining of my snoring, but I knew that in fact she was fed up with working long hours trying to maintain her own business, managing our family finances, overseeing the raising of our teenage children, and being responsible for planning and preparing every meal that our family of four sucked down in-between basketball games, boyfriend crises and a whole shit-load of stuff that happened at home while I was out hunting and gathering on my fishing boat on the Pacific Ocean.  Although I was morally committed to using my time in retirement to help address the formidable problems that surrounded our nation, our community and our family, the only one that I really gave a good shit about was getting back into the big bed.  


Over the course of our wonderful marriage, my wife and I have issued one another very few of what we call “ultimatums.”   Her first to me was that she wanted children of our own.  I had two remarkable children from a previous marriage and felt that I should not spread my “parenting hormones” too thinly, thus depriving my kids of a devoted absentee father.   She stated calmly that she was going to have our children, with or without me.  The next thing I knew, I was clipping the umbilical cord of our newborn son, and three years later, I was looking at the smile on the face (it was NOT gas) of our newborn daughter.  Rest assured, I was wrong.  I had more than enough parenting hormones to go around.  MY FOUR CHILDREN are the core of one of the most amazing multi-generational family groups that I could imagine.  


To this day, I am uncertain where it came from---but I am 94 percent confident that it was something that came out of a Meryl Streep movie.  Guys have known for a long time that when balance and harmony in their marriages are disrupted, it most probably came from a Meryl Streep movie.  Or Dr. Phil.  Or Judge Judy.  There I was, exhausted and dehydrated from a strenuous morning at sea, and irrespective of the fact that it was technically my turn to issue an ultimatum, my wife hit me with another one of her own.  Simply stated, and expletives excluded, (some of which rhymed with ‘cough’), she declared, “You are responsible for meals Mondays through Thursdays.  I will be responsible Fridays through Sundays.”  I waited for the “or else.”  I figured, I can handle almost any “or else.”  While I waited, she simply walked off.  Clearly, grilling my catch after a laborious day at sea with the boys, while oiling my sunburned face and quenching my thirst with a victory-ale, was not enough.  Although it wasn’t quite the same as being welcomed back into the big bed, I was indeed thoroughly screwed.  


I think it was her using the word “responsible” and “meals” in the same sentence that really poached my eggs.  Years of balanced and harmonious married life were being flushed like bilge water.  A can of chili con carne dumped over a wiener on a bun might be okay when I had to cook for myself, but it was not going to provide a long-term solution to being held responsible for weekday meals for a family of four.  The same could be said for grilling burgers, tossing a heated jar of spaghetti sauce over a bowl of pasta, and grabbing the kids to give “Mom a treat” by bringing back a Mexican pizza from Taco Bell.  I was too old to consider re-marrying, too experienced to believe that I could out-wait her, and too young to just sit down and wait for a peaceful death.