“I hope the Pearly Gates open automatically when you get to Heaven, because if you have to open then, then you’re going to have a bit of a problem,” I declared to Dear Don.

He was helping clean up the kitchen after dinner and as I opened the fridge door to put things away, out tumbled twelve cans of my diet soda. They rolled to twelve different spots on the kitchen floor. I stood aghast and glared at Dear Don.

“You opened my box of drinks didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “ I thought I was helping,” he added sheepishly.

Every package containing anything in our home has been opened incorrectly if Dear Don opened it. Despite complete and easy instructions on each package, he tears and rips and gouges with scissors, knives and or his teeth to get into the packages. I realize that things have become a bit more challenging but is it really that hard to do?

Evidently it is for the Alpha male in our household.  Patience is neither his virtue nor his gift.  The Cornflakes box was so demolished from trying to open it that each evening as he took the box from pantry to kitchen he left a trail of flakes along his path.

At first I wasn’t so sure that the flakes weren’t there on purpose, you know so he could find his way back for more.  But alas the trail comes straight from the hole in the box and all unbeknownst to Dear ‘Ol Don.  When I bring it to his attention he just grinned, said, “I love you” and “Sorry ‘bout that.”  Uh huh, I could see that he is.

Monday was a vacation day for Don and he was helping me fold laundry in our bedroom.  Out of the blue was the following conversation.

“Am I a burden to you?” asked Dear Don.

“Excuse me,” I replied.

“A burden, you mean like a beast of burden?”

“Yeah,” he said. “ Do I require you to do extra work?”

“Well you are a man aren’t you?” I countered. “Where are we going with this conversation?” I wanted to know.

“Well, I just wanted to know how much slack I had,” was his answer.

“How much slack, like how much trouble you can get into before I stop you, slay you, throw you out?”

“Yeah,” he replied. Oh brother, I’m thinking.

I can see clearly now where this is going. I start out of the bedroom with laundry for the guest bath and as I left I said, “You, my dear, are a tremendous burden, STAY OFF THE AMAZON WEB SITE.”

He was on a fishing expedition to see if I was going to balk at an online purchase he was dying to make. It wasn’t the cost I was concerned with either, because he has his own mad money. But he wants to buy a life size statue of Batman for his office. An office that is filled from top to bottom with Super Hero action figures, CDs and DVDs by the thousands, old record albums by the hundreds, a computer, guitar, TV, DVD Recorder, VCR and a sound system. There’s barely room for Don. Besides I just don’t think I can live with another bigger-than-life man in my house, especially one in black tights, a cape and an attitude.

Wonder though if he does laundry?

You get the picture.

(Contact Sherry at <swhcsc@wildblue.net>.)