Your Advice, Please?

As I’ve said many times here on FB, Carla and I have been married almost 40 years and I still love and lust for her as much as when we were young. That’s partially due to the fact that we are polar opposites. I’m a planner and obnoxiously anal about many things. I want everything in the house, and my life, to be just so. She lives a stream of consciousness lifestyle, blowing unpredictably with any wind that catches her fancy. My own rigidity can be irritating, while Carla’s unreliability can be frustrating as well. Somehow in the bigger picture all of that works for us. 

Take this morning for example. Food planning, preparation and presentation are important to me. Carla thinks I’m crazy to devote so much time and effort. She happened to be home from her night job this morning and had an hour or so before she had to head out to her day job. (I know that sounds nuts, but it’s her call. She is a worker and likes money. The day job is to provide in-home elder care to a lady in her mid-nineties who sleeps most of the time so Carla can too.) Anyway, I started to make a breakfast I had planned a day in advance, as I often do with meals. This morning it was fresh Flounder dusted with corn meal and Old Bay, two organic eggs, scrambled with baby leaf spinach and a three-cheese Mexican blend, a toasted English muffin, home ground organic coffee, and a Virgin Bloody Mary. Carla declined it all and ate a piece of cold boiled corn she found still floating in the pan of water that I had cooked it in last night. She gnawed on that, standing up over the sink, as I carefully folded my napkin into a triangle and placed it under my fork, to the right my plate, where it is supposed to go. My Pandora was playing and with the table set for one, I sat down, taking a bite of muffin, while Carla grabbed up all of her Publix bags. She often carries three or four bags of extra stuff…condiments, napkins, plastic ware, clothes and God knows what else. One of the few times I did look inside a bag that tore open, I found metal solder, some party balloons, a stale croissant wrapped in a napkin, and a partially used lipstick tube (She doesn’t use lipstick). Don’t ask me to explain.  Then, with a rush to my side and a quick smack on the cheek, she left for her day job. 

Seven minutes later she called me. I knew it was something, I was guessing that it was gas. “I’m out of gas at the intersection of US1 and 206. I asked some lady to push me but she said that she didn’t know how.” I told her that I would grab my gas can and be there in about eight minutes. I was. I gassed her up and listened to make sure that her sixteen-year-old civic junker would start up again, and with a deep throated cough due to a large hole in the muffler, it did. She was off again, kicking up dust from the swale.

So here’s the advice part. Carla’s gas gage works just fine. Somehow she thinks that she is saving money by stretching out the miles between fill-ups, or only buying a few gallons at a time. I’ve explained to her that if she drives the same number of miles, she uses the same amount of gas regardless of how frequently or infrequently she buys it. But logic doesn’t work and I get the “out of gas” call about three times a year. Am I an enabler? If I refused to rescue her and she had to wait for AAA or walk to a gas station and hope to borrow a gas can, would it stick? If she didn’t have old reliable (me) just a phone call away, would she make sure that she never ran out again?

OK, tell me what to do. Continue to rescue her or put my foot down?

I already know the answer though. It’s not an issue of logic. Certainly I will continue to rescue her because she is the way she is and so am I. I have the gas can filled up and ready to go, sitting in its spot on a shelf in the shed. I’m organized and ready. Carla will grab her Publix bags and go, wherever and whenever she pleases, without a care in the world.

I love that.

hmh