Mindreading and Microwaving
Tue., November 1, 02:22 PM
You may have heard me say, mindreading costs extra. Husband is quick to answer that he’s not paying. Nevertheless, since he usually won’t mention what may be troubling him, I really have no choice. I work around him.
Whenever Husband seems to be avoiding me, my first thought is that he doesn’t feel well. Consider August, 2004, when he just about stopped breathing because he didn’t want to listen to me “hassling him.” So I watch him more closely. He’s sleeping all day, gets up around seven and takes his “morning pills” – maybe goes back to bed – and gets up after I’m gone for the night. He doesn’t seem to be eating what I leave in the refrigerator for him. He will, however, mention what he needs. “You gotta get bologna. How come you didn’t get more peanut butter crackers?” Understand, if he has just one slice of bologna left, he will hoard it until I buy more, even if it turns green.
Well, with the weather cooling off, I bought him a bottle of milk last week. It’s getting to be oatmeal weather, not to mention that a cup of coffee might be preferable to a glass of root beer. (He drank up five of the little bottles of orange juice, thinking that we were out of root beer. I had some, but he didn’t know that because he’s not talking to me…) It’s getting time to hassle him, whether he likes it or not.
On Sunday I woke him about noon, since Son-in-Law had brought me a diner omelet, and I told Husband I was sharing it with him. I also made him some coffee. “Is the milk still good?” he wanted to know. Don’t ask me; to me, all milk smells bad. But it was a good opening for “why didn’t you use it when I bought it for you?” “Well, I can’t make oatmeal till you buy a new microwave.”
For pete’s sake! The microwave is schvach, but it’s not dead. U.D. and I have been compensating without much difficulty. I can make him oatmeal, but he has to ask while I’m awake. Last night I made it for him, and it was fine. (So he says – to me it stinks.) Will I make it every night? Sure I will – but not at midnight.
It’s hard to believe how things have changed. About twenty-five years ago, so avant-garde were we, we bought our first microwave. One did not go to the nearest discount store at that time; for a microwave oven one went to a furniture/appliance store. I requested permission to sit down and read the instruction manuals before I made my final choice. It was very large; you could put in a rack and cook on two levels. It was a major purchase. It cost us about $600.
That oven, well-used as it was, lasted more than ten years, but it finally bit the dust. Once again we went to a large appliance store. The oven we bought was almost as capacious as the first one, but technology had advanced and prices had gone down. This one cost about $300.
Of course, we can no longer operate a household without a microwave, and I have been looking at them for a while, knowing that our current one is weakening. Both Sam’s Club and Costco carry them, and I just want to compare before I buy another. For about $120 I could get one combined with a convection oven, but I don’t need anything that fancy. Just a small countertop thing will be fine - $60-75. I saw one for less than $35, but I’m not getting that one; it’s good enough for a college dorm room but not a home kitchen. I went to Sam’s last week to start more precise comparisons as to volume and power levels. I figured I would go to Costco the next day.
I came out of Sam’s to find my tire very soft, and that one has gone soft before. So I really needed Costco (where I buy tires, among other things), but I couldn’t drive that far without some “first aid.” U.D. took my car for a day and, among other things, got air in all the tires.
I shopped Costco while the tire department got to my car. (Yeah, I bought a pair of new ones.) I got plenty of other things, but not the microwave. They had a good one, but I think I prefer the one at Sam’s. I shall try to get Son-in-Law to shop with me next weekend; he gets to shop the warehouse and I get someone to lift and carry.
By the way, I still don’t know whether Husband is sick. This mindreading gets harder all the time.
