I didn’t know I was missing one. I didn’t even know I needed
one. All I know is once I had one I never wanted to be without one.
A wife: (n) a female spouse; and/or Meg Mason.
 |
| one awesome beach house. |
Our Australian friends were in between homes. Like crated calves
with no developed connective tissue, they had outgrown their teeny tiny and needed
a bigger place to unfold their stiff baby cow limbs. They found just the house
but also found that it wouldn’t be ready for weeks right after they rented out
their old itty bitty. They were desperate. We were not but always liked the
idea of living with these people. You have one amazing beach house experience
with the Masons, you need another. This was our another. We pounced on the
opportunity and opened our door, our guest room, our garage, our boys’ room and
one shelf of our refrigerator to them.
Meg opened my windows.
From the moment this family of four stepped in our house, it
was breezy and awesome. Here is my theory why. They weren’t our house guests. The
only expectation anyone in the history of everyone has of house guests is that they have a good time and flush the toilet. My wife and her people came in with a need
for fresh air, a pop-up commune mentality, and, gasp, a meal roster.
Being a wife slash anything has moments of hardness. Being a
wife slash mother is nothing but exhausting. Not because it’s my most favorite
thing in the world to be or he’s so handsome I can hardly look at him or they
are ridiculously and redundantly cute. Being a wife slash mother is exhausting for one reason
only: Dinner.
Just typing dinner makes me hate dinner.
To be clear, I don't hate eating dinner or the beautiful time I get to spend with my family as we consume it. It's all the everything that has to come before those ten delicious minutes. The thinking and planning and buying and prepping and
cooking and flambéing and serving. Every single night. Always and so forth. For as long as
everyone eats. Makes me want to lie down and take a nap.
THAT is not the case when you have a wife with a meal
roster.
When you have a wife with a meal roster, every other night she
does all the thinking and planning and buying and prepping and cooking and flambéing and serving while you don’t do any of those words. She feeds you and your family
while you don’t. Which means, you could actually lie down and take a nap. But, the win-win version of catch-22, you will no longer want a nap because you’re not exhausted from
making dinner every single night and always and so forth. Dinner, even on your every other other night, is just no
longer exhausting even if this paragraph is.
I didn't even mind typing dinner right then.
The point is. I am not telling anyone how to live their life or saying those Sister Wives are doing it right, but, single family dwellers, you need to scoop up another family and live with them because those Sister Wives are soooo doing it right -- except for that one man married to a bunch of ladies 'no thank you' arrangement.
For three and a half perfect weeks, my boys had sisters. My husband had another silver fox to check his phone next to. And I had a wife. Someone who opened the windows and made me dinner and watched my shows and took my kids to and from school and let me eat her licorice and swept
the floor and washed my husband’s morning daily egg pan ONE THOUSAND TIMES (still sorry, Meg) and emptied the dishwasher and bought two avocados every time she went to the store because one was never enough and flushed the toilets and it was awesome.
Backpacks-clipped-together-and-walk-to-school awesome.
 |
| an Australian chain gang. |
And then my wife left me and it was not awesome at all.
The opposite of awesome.
Ugh. Dinner.
And then.
I found out the Byrnes are getting new carpet. They move in on Sunday.
My second wife: (n) another female spouse; and/or Nikki Byrne.
