I love my husband. Very much. But we are very different people. He grew up on a farm in central Kansas; I grew up in a suburb of Kansas City. His high school graduating class had 17 students; mine had 402. He spent his summers helping his best friend's parents with harvest--including driving a combine; I spent my summers working at the bank where my father worked, and when I met him, I couldn't even IDENTIFY a combine.
And then there is the matter of food: His family had "meat and potatoes" meals every night. When eating at an Italian restaurant, he would almost always order lasagne. We had Chinese takeout every Thursday night and avocados on every salad my mom ever made. I love Indian food. I think you have only ordered properly in an Italian restaurant if you need the waiter to pronounce the dish for you and it contains copious amounts of garlic and portabello mushrooms. These are minor issues, though. All except one.
I feel like before my husband (then, boyfriend) proposed, we had covered the important things:
We wanted kids--2, to be specific...we have four, but that is a subject for another blog; we wanted our kids to be raised in a household of faith; neither one of us has a "1950's" complex; we agreed to switch off holidays between families of origin--good intentions, but family dynamics sometimes make that difficult; etc, etc. We didn't cover food. Specifically Chinese food.
I love Chinese food. Good Chinese food. Bad Chinese food can be horrid. I realize this. My husband DESPISES Chinese food. When we try to decide on places to eat, his famous line is "Anything but Chinese." This means that for the past 13 years, my Chinese food opportunities has been severely limited. Basically when I am in Kansas City with my sister and mom, when I am with my friends, Melissa, or Julie, or my daughters. See, he has also poisoned our boys into thinking that they don't like it, so I can't get it when he goes out of town. I spent a portion of our married life in such "Chinese food withdrawal," that I was seriously considering calling every pre-marriage counselor I know and telling them that this absolutely had to be a topic that they covered. I felt that if I had known this about my husband, well, my answer to that BIG QUESTION might have been different.
Well, a few weeks ago, everything changed. I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow, I convinced him to get takeout with me. I put myself on the line and PROMISED him he would like chicken fried rice. And he actually did. I didn't figure it was a love-affair, though. I was hopeful that it would enable me to get takeout at least a couple of times a year. You can imagine my surprise and delight--you may have heard my screams of jubilation--when HE suggested Chinese takeout for dinner, last night! He made the boys eat it, too!
After 13 years, all is right in my world!
2 comments:
Does that mean we are next on the Chinese list? :)
I know how you feel. Randy doesn't like it either and my other Chinese food lover moved all the way to Chicago.
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