No Kitchen for Old Men

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I had been somewhat resistant to the idea of taking over my wife’s connubial responsibilities in the kitchen.  And maybe there was a little more to this whole business of meal preparation than I had given my grandmothers, my mother, my first wife and my current wife credit for.  But, dammit, it wasn’t my fault.  These women had always made it look so easy.  And, besides, I could do things with a can of chili and an all-beef sausage that had made many a grown woman cry.  


These thoughts were flooding my mind as my wife and I sat down for what she called a “family conference.”  Strangely, most of our “family conferences” never involved the children.  They frequently were preceded by something I had done ---or had not done—and by lunches involving my wife and some of her like-minded women friends.  I immediately sensed a little tension in the air, but I quite honestly never expected her to immediately toss out the “C” word.  

My aversion to the “C” word started back in the early years of my first marriage.  The first few times I heard it used in reference to me, I found it quite stimulating.  As memory serves, it was my rather attractive professor of child and adolescent psychology who first threw out the idea.  Shortly after that, I heard it again from another professor and a graduate assistant who was on his way to a doctoral fellowship at Washington State University.  “You would make a great Counselor,” they assured me, “and we can see to it that you are offered a full fellowship—with pay.”  


I had always been a patient listener and my advice to others was, without exception, flawless.  Consequently, I found myself in graduate school, surrounded by other people who were preparing to dedicate their lives to the “C” word.  


In all honesty, I didn’t do too well that year.  I aced my courses, managed to also complete a major in sociology, and published my first article in a research journal.  But I didn’t take too well to sitting around in a circle of my peers while we opened ourselves up to group leaders whose primary goal was to make us cry.  I was there to learn how to hone my skills at telling fucked up people how to straighten themselves out.  The only way I made it through practicum was to secretly pull hair out of my nose, which produced the desired effect of causing tears to stream down my cheeks.  


And now, here I was, sitting in a “family discussion” and being told that I needed Counseling.  Before I could get a good grip on a wad of nose hair, my wife announced that we had an appointment to see a therapist the following day at four PM.  “Oh Hell yes,” I said to myself as the tears started rolling down my cheek.  “I can plead my obvious case, get gender role rules put back into place, and pick up dinner on the way home.”  I quickly checked to make certain that I had a goodly supply of nose hair.  All that training in the "C" word was about to pay off.  With interest.