A Difference in Style

"I am going to divorce you!"

I wasn't quite sure that I had heard my wife correctly.

"What did you just say, Mary Beth?"

"I said that I am going to divorce you."

"Can I ask why?"

I was fairly certain that she didn't have a boyfriend (or girlfriend, for that matter) on the side, and she knew that I was happy to travel to exotic destinations of her choice with her. What more could she want?

She had a disgusted look in her eyes as she replied.

"You know why."

I thought.

"Did I leave the toilet seat up?"

She had trained me early in our marriage to put the seat down so that when she went in the middle of the night she wouldn't sit directly on the cold porcelain ring. I even wiped the toilet after peeing with toilet paper so the inaccurately aimed drops weren't left to dry and gross her out.

"No, you didn't leave the toilet seat up."

Shoot, this was getting difficult.

"I haven't done a load of laundry for ages, so I can't have put any of your cold water clothes in the hot water wash."

That mistake, early in our marriage, when I thought I was being a really good husband turned out to be a big mistake. The entire load turned pink. How would I have ever known? I did after that.

"No, that isn't what you did either."

"Well what have I done that you could possibly want to divorce me for?"

"Follow me," she ordered, as she walked in the direction of the kitchen.

Did I forget to take the trash out from under the kitchen sink?

No, it wasn't that I had forgotten to empty the trash either. I had, indeed been known to do that. At my age I claim it is the result of CRS syndrome -- 'can't remember shit.'

Mary Beth walked up to the dishwasher, lowered the door, and looked at me.

I smiled broadly!

"Doesn't that make you happy? I know how much you HATE having dirty dishes left on the sink, so I put them all into the dishwasher. What a good man you have. Pretty soon I'll be making the beds in the morning!"

She rolled her eyes at that.

"You do and I'll just have to tear them apart and redo them."

"Okay, so then what's your beef? You should be swooning and offering me your body."

"Can't you see?" she exclaimed, pointing to the lower rack that she had pulled out.

"It looks fine to me," I sincerely replied.

"You put the large plates on the wrong side, and you screwed up the bowls on the other side.

"Plus, you didn't rinse things before you put them into the dishwasher."

She began taking the dishes out and piling them on the counter so she could put them back in 'her way.'

"I rinse any dishes that need to be cleaned before I put them in. If there is cheese or eggs stuck to the plates, I clean it off so that it won't get baked on. But, for goodness sake, were talking about butter, maple syrup, and catsup, things that will come off easily. Bread crumbs. Anyway, newer dishwashers tell you it isn't necessary to clean the plates before you put them in. Check out what it says in the manual."

Citing the users manuals as a reason for doing thing my way doesn't really fly with Mary Beth.

Having repacked the lower rack, she pulled out the top rack.

"And look at THIS! There is no organization at all," she said as the glasses, cups and plastic containers that had held leftovers where withdrawn and put on the countertop.

"No organization? I move things around however I need to, to fit the most dishes that I can put into the space. I find that very organized."

"Well I don't!" as if that settled the argument.

I stood there, looking at my sweet wife, my Mary Beth, in horror as I finally realized the truth about our situation.

"You! You are a Swiss Architect!" I cried out.

"What? I'm not Swiss; you know that. I'm English/Irish and Scots, with just a little French and German thrown in."

"No, you don't get it.

"Just the other day I was reading about how there are two kinds of people, when it comes to loading their dishwashers. And you are what they call a 'Swiss Architect.'

"You have to have everything in a particular order, symmetrical, in neat rows, lined up like little soldiers in the racks. Other people just throw the dishes in any which way, and they were called 'racoons on crack.'

"But I'm not that bad. I think of myself as having a French engineer style."

"A French engineer? What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?"

"Remember how between my sophomore and junior year at school, I spent the summer in France studying French?"

"So?"

"Well, I drove a lot of Peugeots and Renault cars over there. They were always comfortable, well designed, and very practical. Très économique et pratique, as my instructors would say.

"But they were 'quirky.' It seemed as if the French engineers were always making sure that the systems in the cars, the electrical, the fuel injection, even the controls on the seats, were completely different from U.S. or German made cars. Not 'wrong', just quirky.

"So, I put the dishes in the dishwasher in my own quirky way. Not a 'wrong' way, just different than the way you do."

Mary Beth thought about it for a second, then she smiled.

"Okay, no divorce. But at least put the large dishes on the other side of the bottom rack!"

"Okay, so you forgive me?"

"Yes."

I hugged her for a moment, and then delivered my own coup-de-grace.

"Since you raised the subject of things I do that irritate YOU...

"I've been meaning to talk to you about setting the air conditioning down to 72 degrees all the time."

"Why? Is there some reason I can't set it to my comfort zone?"

There was a challenge in the tone of her voice.

"You set it so low," I said as I slipped my one hand down the back of the sweats she was wearing and the other up under the long-sleeved sweatshirt she had on, finding one of her boobs with the one hand, and sliding a finger down her ass crack with the other, "and then you are dressed in clothes to keep you warm! Heck, half the time, you sit there reading on the couch with a fleece over your legs, too!"

Mary Beth was wiggling around trying to get away from my grip.

"Stop that! Your hands are cold!"

"And you are," as I pinched her butt gently, "going commando! You shameless hussy. Your butt is toasty to the touch. I like that."

A squeeze of her braless titty followed rapidly.

I was laughing as I stripped her clothes off, leaving her naked in the 72-degree house, with all of the ceiling fans on distributing the air conditioned chill evenly through the house.

"Brian! I'm cold now. Let me put my clothes back on!"

"NO. But if you were to run up to the bedroom and crawl under the covers, I could come up and warm you up."

"Brian! You are a cad and a bounder."

She began to run away and up the stairs.

She looked back over her shoulder at me, a big grin on her face.

"You know where you can find me!"

"I'm right behind you!"

And that was how we agreed to disagree about how to load the dishwasher. We had different styles. But on some things, we could agree!