My wife Barb’s new dreamboat was left under the backdoor awning last Tuesday afternoon. Had I known a mail-order Rubbermaid replacement husband was inside the box, I woulda’ shooed the delivery fella’ off the breezeway with my sand wedge before he could waltz away like he didn’t just deliver my spousal irrelevance. Sorry, I’m normally a laid-back sorta’ fellow insofar as kitchen aides and whatnot, but, if I may be blunt: I HATE THAT SONOFABITCH HOMEWRECKER STEP STOOL!!!
I’ve never picked a fight in my 57 years. But I’ve never been emasculated by a step stool either. I just can’t find it in myself to crumple a poor bastard for carrying marital poison in those smiley-arrow boxes. God will judge him. On the other hand, I’d still be thonly one in the house capable of grabbing the McCormick vanilla extract from the top shelf.
I’m losing the love of my life, my darling poopsy, to a step stool.
I miss the days when I was the only one in the relationship who could reach the Jiffy cornbread mix or aromatic bitters from above the stove. Heck, I only met Barb because I happened to be in the baking goods aisle that day: “Hey, you’re tall. Can you reach that canola oil up there?” Ever since Krogers, I’ve been my wife’s one and only means to the highest cabinets. Besides, reaching the canola oil is a man’s job, right? Where I grew up, the patriarch was always the one to lower the enriched flour from above? Momma would never turn to personal domestic mobility paraphernalia so long as Papa was able-bodied. Papa always preached as gospel that the husband is the begotten reacher of thy baking goods. I think it’s one of those Leviticus things.
Criminy, it’s tough to come to terms with losing your lover to what I’m pretty sure was a Prime Days warehouse deal.
I knew something was fishy when I noticed the faraway dreamy look in Barb’s eyes when she saw her name on that shipping label. Then she covered her mouth and damn-near wept like the box proposed to her. “What the heck is in there?” I thought at the time. “Is the entire clearance section of Bath and Body Works somewhere under all them foam packing peanuts?” As soon as she yanked out the step stool, I knew…I fucking knew.
Sorry about the cussin’. Step stool has me all messed up.
The fellas on my Wednesday night bowling squad have no idea what I’m going through. Their wives don’t own step stools. They joke around like, “Comon’, it’s a stool. There’s gotta’ be some things you can do for your woman that a stool can’t.” Maybe, but the label said it’s a deluxe model so who knows what in the world that dang thing is capable of. They say, “Comon’, show her you’re an ‘alpha male’.” Lordy, I’m a delta male at best, after she ordered a back massager, and one of those grabby-things on a stick you use when a coaster falls behind the credenza. Heck, she’s probably got a ladder on backorder. I guess that would make me a…what’s the Greek letter after delta? Bachelor-silon? Nu-ly divorced? O-mega loser? They say, “Comon’, you gotta’ show her that you ain’t playing second fiddle to a step stool. You’re twice the man that step stool is.” Then I remind them that the thing folds up like a damn charm and slides behind the microwave cart.
But what to do to win back my love, my Barbara, in the face of a brand new step stool? I could secretly crack it with a ball-peen hammer just enough that she comes to realize it ain’t worth the long-term commitment. Then she’ll turn back to the one constant in her life who digs out the Ziploc bag of Christmas cookie cutters waaay in the back once a year without fail. Nah. God forbid the thing gives way. I’d never forgive myself. And she’d just click “buy again” after months of physical therapy. Frankly, she’d deserve to bask in her newest step stool’s convenience and ease-of-use rather than count on a conniving husband to “see if there’s still any empty penne containers up there.”
Maybe it’s best to just accept it. Don’t question the step stool. Though my pride is wounded and my soul is aching, I guess I’ll just have to learn to come to terms with the painful truth that the step stool is just a part of both our lives now. But it ain’t going to be easy overcoming the urge to kick the damned rotten thing out from underneath her, and then catching my dear wife Barbara in my arms. There might be broken glass and pasta sauce all over the place but that’s the price of love. I wonder where she keeps her dirty old mop.
Gunmeddle 