The Potato Ear Caper

OK..OK...some of you have responded to my last post with not-so-nice comments about your spouses. And as I was running with my buddy the other morning, she was surprised to hear that my spouse and I do have spats. She said, "It is so good to hear this. I didn't think John and Melanie had fights." Well, my dear friends, we do, indeed, have arguments...not often...but when we do. That's why I've decided to share about a particular blowout we had during one of the most stressful times in our marriage, the infant stage of our son's life. Neither before or since have our fights been this dramatic, but it sure makes a damn good story.

John DID NOT help me at all during the infant stage of Miller's life. Period. He treated me like a queen and was the best dad otherwise. When I say "help", I mean feeding, changing, preparing bags and bottles, washing clothes, etc. He just never stepped up. I taught school full-time and did everything. Don't get me wrong. He wasn't just sitting around. We owned and operated a successful concrete curbing business that he ran like an ace. His work was never finished. After arriving at home late in the evenings, he usually burned the midnight oil doing payroll, filing taxes, writing estimates and bidding jobs. Our lives were wide open going 100 mph.

Needless to say, there was a mountain of resentment on my end and a mountain of resentment over my resentment on his.

Miller was finally at the "sleeping through most nights" stage and was asleep in his crib. John and I sat down to a late takeout dinner from our local diner. I actually don't remember what we started arguing over...money, sex, family...had to be one of the Big Three.  I do remember it escalated and we were yelling back and forth across the huge bar in our kitchen as we weren't seated at our dining table. He was seated on one side of the bar nearest our living room and I was seated on the other side in the middle of the kitchen. (Stay with me. This is relevant to the story.)

I also need to go back to my childhood before I can go forward with this. My parents had a rocky relationship...horrible, screaming fights that my sister and I grew up listening to. Other than that we had a wonderful childhood, but I made a vow that I would NEVER allow someone to treat me the same way or endure such a crazy, unstable relationship.

Now, back to our story...

I said something to John and whatever it was sent him into orbit. He had his fork in his hand at the time. With his eyes bugged out and the veins in his neck bulging, he yelled something at me and stabbed his fork violently down into the white, styrofoam takeout container. OH NO HE DIDN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had flashbacks from childhood. My adrenaline skyrocketed to 5000. My ears buzzed and I saw stars. I CAME UNGLUED!

Simultaneously I let go a string of cuss words and swears to make any Marine blush while throwing my white, styrofoam takeout container across the bar and at his head! I hit my mark, too. Baked potato, salad and steak pieces went flying. Like a cat ready to pounce, I stretched myself across the bar with my finger shakily pointing and said...DON'T YOU EVER...EVER...DARE TREAT ME LIKE THAT AGAIN! @#%#@#$$^&^%%$#

With eyes wide from shock, John bent down and started cleaning up the mess. I still have this visual of him on his hands and knees scraping up bits of lettuce off the back of our sofa. Not a word was spoken for a few minutes.

Then...DING-DONG...the doorbell. (I am not lying.)

It was a dear family friend and my old Sunday school teacher keeping his appointment with us about a life insurance policy on Miller. What timing! We sat at the same bar where just minutes before all hell had broken loose. Mr. Paul spread out all the necessary paperwork and started explaining the policy we had chosen when I noticed. John was sitting across from me listening intently and asking questions with an ear FULL of baked potato. Whoops! I tried not to bust out laughing! I truly wondered if Mr. Paul saw it. Honestly, there was no way he couldn't have. It was THAT bad.

A half hour later John and I waved our guest goodbye arm-in-arm from our front porch. As we walked through the door of our happy home, I said, "You might want to remove the potato from your ear." He reached up to see if it was true and we both laughed so hard we had tears streaming. Our fight was over.

But, the tine marks from the fork were still in the formica and the memory of flying food kept us mindful! Never again have we treated each other quite that way.

I love that man...even with an earful of baked potato!