That Time Jill Got Sick

I think you learn a lot about your significant other the first time you get sick. Over the past couple days, I have had a cold, and I have learned that Jack is desperately afraid of getting said cold. In fact, you would think I have Ebola or the monkey pox or something.

Don't get me wrong, he has been fantastic in a lot of ways during this time. When I was home from work, he took time out of his very busy day to bring me lunch, tissues, and orange juice. When I had to leave town earlier this week unexpectedly, he took care of Spot for me, and even did my laundry. I appreciate these things - A LOT. But for me there is nothing that can take the place of actually spending time together.

I should probably blame my mother for this. When I'd get the stomach flu as a little girl, she would stay up all night with me, holding my hair back each and every time I threw up. If I had a fever or a cold, she'd bring me cool washcloths and hold them on my forehead. To this day, if I call her when I'm sick, she asks if I'd like her to make a 7+ hour drive to come take care of me. I'm not kidding.

Then there's Jack. I have met his parents and I can't imagine that they would have locked him in the cellar when he came down with something, letting him come out only when he could prove the illness had passed....and yet, that's basically how Jack has turned out. And I suppose I either have to get used to it or cry until I get my way. I think I'll go with the latter.

Jack's Two Cents: I'd like to comment more about this post, but I'm too nervous to touch Jill's germy keyboard. I don't want to get the bird flu or whatever it is that she has.

Hypothetically Speaking...

I need to tell you all something: Jack has a problem. It's a pretty serious problem and may someday result in a significant brain injury - because it's possible that eventually I'll kick him in the head.

You see, Jack LOVES throwing out impossible, ridiculous, and bizarre hypothetical situations to see what I'll answer. It seems this exercise can be prompted by any number of things, but usually is a result of me saying something absolute like "I will never eat meat ever again".

Enter Jack: "You'll never eat meat EVER again? What if the government imposed a law and you HAD to eat meat, and you could only choose 1 kind of commonly eaten animal to not eat. What would you pick?"

"That would never happen."

"But what if it did?"

"But why would the government make me eat something I don't want to eat? That doesn't even make sense. Why do they care what I eat??"

"Come on! You only get to pick one that you don't have to eat. You'd pick pigs, right?"

"I suppose, but it's never going to happen so I don't have to make a decision, now do I?"

Or sometimes I'll proclaim that I "hate" something - a real no-no in Jack's book - and I am berated with questions about hatred, even if I was just saying it willy-nilly. For example, if I say "I hate Paris Hilton and everything she stands for", Jack will create any number of scenarios in which perhaps I would NOT hate Paris Hilton.

"Would you hate her if the two of you were the only two people left on earth and you HAD to be friends?"

"Who would make us be friends if there's no one else left on earth?"

"Well, I mean if you really got to know her I bet you'd find she's a nice girl. You shouldn't say you hate her."

"But I do, is the thing. And we're not going to be the last two humans on the planet, so I don't have to worry about her changing my mind on that."

"Well, what if Spot were drowning and Paris Hilton risked her life and jumped into the ocean to save him? THEN would you hate her?"

I think it drives him nuts when I won't just answer, but as Kenneth on 30 Rock says: "I don't do hypothetical situations - that's like lying to your brain." Plus, it's kind of fun making him re-define the hypothetical again and again until he gets so frustrated he just stops. It's not a quick process, but eventually he gives up.

Jack's Two Cents: The people who now say "that would never happen" about mandated meat consumption are the same people who once said "that would never happen" when asked a hypothetical question involving a black president. Also, aren't you familiar with the importance of scenario planning, Jill? The first step in scenario planning is often to identify the worst or most unexpected scenario and then figure out how you'd respond in such a situation. When I ask you these hypothetical questions, you see, I'm really just helping prepare you to make the best decision when you actually find yourself stranded on an island with Paris Hilton. You will thank me one day.

Take Two: My Pantry Could Beat Up Your Pantry

Jill's Take

I happen to like the feeling I get when I open my fridge or my pantry and see lots and lots of food in there. I like knowing that if I want to make something tasty for dinner, I probably have the ingredients to do so. Want some black bean tacos? Guess who can make them RIGHT NOW - me! How about some tomato basil pasta? I'll whip that right up, thankyouverymuch. I do spend a lot of money when I hit up the grocery store, and I surely buy more than I need, but I always, always have a well-stocked pantry - and eventually I'll eat all those cans of beans and tomatoes and vegetables and so on, so what's the harm?

Jack, on the other hand, is a firm believer in never having "extra" food in the house. Sometimes I wonder what he would eat if he got snowed in for a week. You know what he'd eat? Some crackers, peanut butter, and 43 different kinds of beverages. I laugh every time I open up his fridge because it's all very neatly organized by beverage type. On the right side we have the juice - grape, orange, etc; on the left is the milk (and soy milk for me!) and some organic healthy soda things. Below that we have bottled water. It's all lined up very nicely and you always know with just one glance what your options are. But they're ALL LIQUID, so if you think you're going to satisfy any kind of hunger at all, think again.

Bottom line: should there be a snow storm or a natural disaster of sorts, everyone who hasn't stocked up on their food (JACK) is going to be awfully hungry. Hydrated, sure, but still hungry. Meanwhile, I'll be smugly lounging in my house, eating something fabulous with not a care in the world.

Jack's Take

I have to admit: I just read Jill's take and it sounded rather rational. But then I remembered that Jill is notorious for leaving out key details.

Details such as...

- Jill often buys items at the grocery store only to return home and find that she already has 13 or 14 of the very item she just purchased. "Oh, I guess I didn't need to buy this can of black beans after all. It turns out I already have enough cans of black beans to open up a legume retail outlet."

- Jill has absolutely positively no idea what items are in the back of her refrigerator. For fun, I put a dog toy and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure in the way back of her fridge a few months ago. Of course she never noticed.

- Jill and I recently got blood work done and the stats don't lie: my cholesterol, sodium, etc. were lower. Now whenever Jill makes fun of my empty pantry or fridge, I point out the fact that most foods that can be stored for a long period of time have preservatives and/or additives. My pantry and fridge may look a little lonely from time-to-time, but that's just because I prefer to eat the fresh stuff. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

To Kill a Mocking Word

I was at a party last month where I was approached by a married female coworker who had clearly been over-served (i.e., she was bombed). After noticing me in my tailored D&G suit, she came up to me and said the following: “I’ve seen you a few times around the office and you’re always dressed so great. Sometimes I wish my husband was gay. Or are you just a metrosexual?”

According to the Bible Wikipedia, a metrosexual is “a heterosexual man with a strong concern for his appearance, one whose lifestyle displays attributes stereotypically attributed to gay men.”

As a heterosexual man, this definition infuriates me beyond words. But I’ll try nonetheless.

What does my sexual preference have to do with my concern for my appearance? Nothing, I hope. I like to dress nicely. I’m comfortable wearing pastels. I have a 100+ pairs of shoes. And yet I love me some ladies.

Many of my straight friends often accuse me of being metrosexual. They say things like, “Nice lavender pocket square, dude. Did you borrow it from Clay Aiken?” These are my straight friends who wear pleated khakis, golf polos with the top button buttoned, and Oakley blades circa 1987. And these are the same straight friends who haven’t had a girlfriend since their sophomore year of college. So criticism from them doesn’t really bother me, since I know their (lack of) concern for their appearance just makes me look better to the other straight females out there.

Criticism from Jill, however, drives me insane.

I showed up at her house a few weeks ago wearing an uber-cool bright purple v-neck sweater and some matching purple high-top sneakers. I was ready for the runway. And yet I think the first comment out of her mouth was: “Wow, aren’t we looking very metrosexual today?” She also drops the m-word anytime I do any of the following things:

- Try on anything that's “slim fit”
- Get a facial or manicure*
- Comment that I like another guy’s outfit

To teach Jill a lesson, I’m tempted to show up at our next date wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts and a XXL Minnesota Vikings shirt. Or maybe I’ll just stop washing my face and clipping my fingernails. Perhaps then I’ll look more “manly.”

And while I’m on this rant, let me just state one more fact for the record: not all gay men are good dressers. Some gay men dress just bad as my aforementioned straight friends. And yet the stereotype persists. Which brings me back to the woman at the party who asked me if I was gay or simply metrosexual.

If I wasn’t such a gentleman, I would have slapped Ms. McDrunkyDrunk upside the head. (But of course I would have done so in such a way to ensure that I didn’t break one of my manicured* nails.)

* For the record, no, I don't get manicures. But I'm adamently opposed to the idea that someone who does get manicures is in any way, shape, or form less "manly."

So I'm Dating a Memory Murderer

Jill and I were cruising around in my ‘64 Chevy Impala ’06 Nissan Altima, listening to some smooth R&B, when Jazmine Sullivan’s new song "Bust Your Windows" came on. For those of you unfamiliar with said song, here’s a sampling of Ms. Sullivan’s lyrics:

I bust the windows out your car
You know I did it ‘cause I left my mark
Wrote my initials with the crowbar
And then I drove off into the dark

What happened next is what we in the business call a “red flag.” Jill started singing along with A LOT of passion in her voice. (Jill normally just hums along to the tune – typically because she doesn’t remember any of the words – so it seemed extremely alarming when she started channeling her inner-Jennifer Hudson to this particular song.)

The whole song is about the joys of damaging an ex’s property. And since Jill ended up singing the last two choruses at the top of her lungs (“I BUST THE WINDOWS OUT YOUR CAR”), I naturally had to ask her if she’d ever damaged an ex’s property.

I was thinking she might say something like “I stole his favorite CD” or “I rubbed his toothbrush in my armpit.” Clearly I underestimated her. What Jill admitted to doing can only be described by two words: pure evil. Here’s what she told me:

“I had an ex-boyfriend who went on a vacation with his new girlfriend. When he got back into town, we got together and he wanted to show me some of his photos. While I was acting like I was scanning through his pictures, I was actually deleting all of his photos from the memory card! He got pretty upset, but I just acted like it was an accident. And I have to admit I felt pretty good afterwards!”

Excuse me? Who does that? Someone who’s evil, that’s who.

What if he had a once-in-a-lifetime image stored on that memory card? What if it was a picture of him and his dying grandma? What is Jill going to do to me if we ever decide to go our separate ways? Wait a second…maybe her telling me this story is just her way of using a fear tactic to lock me down? Hmm…

Jill's Two Cents:

What Jack isn't mentioning is that this "new girlfriend" was procured prior to breaking up with the old girlfriend (i.e., ME). So, let's check the score:

This guy broke my heart into a million little pieces by cheating on me, then took pictures of them together and waved it in my face.
VERSUS
I deleted a few pictures of his [wildly unattractive] new girlfriend from his camera.

I'd say that made us STILL NOT EVEN CLOSE TO EVEN. But now I guess I probably shouldn't tell Jack all the follow up things I did to even the score. Sheesh! Ya tell a guy you destroyed a few memories and he gets all paranoid!

Also, I've decided not to leave my toothbrush unattended anymore. Are you pit-swabbing it?!?!?