The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (17 page)

“Your attic is so cool and refreshing.”

It’s not that I don’t appreciate Perry’s desire to turn our home into a Frigidaire; it’s just that my brain shuts down every time he mentions it.

The conversation came up again the other day, and Perry began with a sincere “So, seriously, I really think this is something we should do, but only if you agree that it’s worth the money.”

And I replied, “Give me your best sales pitch. Tell me why I’d want this instead of a new rug for the living room.” Because I like to pretend to be open minded.

He went into elaborate detail about the process. It will keep our attic temps at a cool ninety degrees even on the hottest summer days. (Which will make it so lovely for the “squirrels” that sometimes invade and snack on my Christmas decorations. I realize they probably aren’t squirrels, but it makes me feel better to think so, which confirms my theory that squirrels are just rats with a better public-relations department.) I halfheartedly mumbled an assent that I was okay with getting a few estimates and going from there.

Then a few days later, a couple of friends of mine came to visit from Nashville. They are both single and own their own homes. We got into a discussion about the terrible flood that hit Nashville a few years earlier, and one friend told us how the electricity went out, causing the sump pump that kept her house from flooding to shut off. The two of them had to drive around town in the midst of this terrible flood in search of a generator at Home Depot. And I am not even kidding when I say I felt like they were the bravest two women I’d ever met.

Because you know what I wouldn’t know how to find in case of a power outage? A generator. You know why? Because Perry would do that for me.

Marriage comes with its share of challenges and priorities that don’t always match up. But it can also come with the security of knowing you have someone who knows how to fix things and take care of all your maintenance needs. Sure, it can drive you crazy when you just want to hang a picture on the wall and he wants to measure it down to the nearest five-eighths of an inch. A number
you don’t even believe to be valid because, seriously, an eighth of something? Who cares?

I tend to take for granted that I don’t have to worry about pesky details like attic insulation or anything involving the heating and cooling of our home. And talking to my Nashville friends made me realize that there are components to home ownership that I don’t think about because Perry is the one at our house who gets bids for a new sprinkler system and fertilizes our grass and figures out where the leak in the bathroom ceiling is coming from. That’s why he cares about foam insulation. He’s in charge of the practical, and I’m in charge of the pretty.

Our system may not work for everyone, but I’m a big fan of our distribution of responsibility. It allows me to focus on my love language, which comes in the form of a Pottery Barn catalog, while Perry walks the aisles at Home Depot and dreams of the day our attic will be sealed up tighter than the space shuttle.

CHAPTER 19

W
AY BACK WHEN
I
WAS IN COLLEGE,
which is, sadly, many years ago now and not just five years ago like I tend to believe in my mind until I see an actual college student and realize
DANG, I don’t look like that, do I?
. . .

(Dear fifteen-year-old self, you should have worn more sunscreen all those years you were a lifeguard. Tan now, pay later.)

(And by pay later, I mean hundreds of dollars in expensive wrinkle creams with retinol.)

(Or just fifteen dollars in wrinkle creams in case Perry is reading this.)

Anyway, back when I was in college, there was a really sweet, nice boy who had a bit of a crush on me. And I wanted to like him. I knew he was the kind of guy I should want to date as opposed to
all those guys I believed I could “fix.” So I gave my very best effort to be interested in him.

And then came the night he decided to surprise me with a trip out to the lake. He’d put together a picnic basket full of food. There were candles and roses. It was like a scene out of a Meg Ryan romantic comedy. (Or maybe Emma Stone, if you’re one of those college students who didn’t grow up on the wonder that is
When Harry Met Sally
.)

Everything was perfectly lovely, and I desperately tried to be in the moment and mentally will myself to fall in love with this incredibly romantic boy sitting next to me. But then he pulled out his guitar.

I felt something inside me start to freeze up. I had the distinct impression that I was about to find myself in a pickle. And before I knew what was happening, he began to serenade me with Keith Whitley’s “Tell Lorrie I Love Her” except he changed the lyrics to “Tell Mel I Love Her.”

(Oh my gosh. I am in a full blush and fighting the fetal position as I sit typing this in Starbucks at the mere memory of how awkward I felt.)

As he sat and sang that song, a million thoughts flashed through my mind. Chief of which was
I want to squash him like a bug
.

I know. I am a terrible person. You probably can’t believe you’re reading a book written by such a heartless, cold monster.

And sure, the argument could be made that it was the right gesture being made by the wrong boy. Maybe that was part of it. But a deeper part of me realized at that moment that I am not really a “my life is a romantic comedy” kind of girl as much as just a “comedy” girl. I don’t do well with overly romantic gestures, mainly because my mind begins to race furiously as I try to figure
out if I’m supposed to cry or smile, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my arms, and suddenly my teeth feel enormous.

I realize this may put me in the minority of women. Maybe most women love nothing more than a sappy romantic gesture involving changing the lyrics to a classic country song, but I am not one of them. I prefer my romance with a dash of practicality. Just a nice “You’re the best wife ever” or “I’ll drive Caroline to soccer practice tonight” works for me.

Hollywood doesn’t really cater to women like me who don’t fit the life-is-a-romantic-fairy-tale mold. But maybe we’d all be better off if we didn’t get so caught up in what movies tell us is real love. In a movie, true love happens in about ten minutes after a montage of a couple throwing leaves at each other and chasing each other around a park while a Harry Connick Jr. song plays in the background, and men regularly say things like, “You complete me” or “My life was a vast wasteland of emptiness until I saw your beautiful smile across the room.”

In romance novels and romantic movies, men always know exactly what to say, and it’s never “I accidentally clogged the toilet again.” They care about their wife’s feelings and brush her hair gently out of her eyes as they listen to her, and they know just when to embrace her in a tender hug. And then we expect our husbands or boyfriends to do that same thing and, God love them, there’s a good chance they grew up with brothers, and the way they learned to say, “I love you” was to let one rip under the covers and then trap their little brother in there. It’s just not always in their emotional makeup to have the right response or say the right thing. How else do you explain all the times a man has said, “Is that what you’re wearing?”

A woman watching this scenario knows he should abort
immediately: MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN! But most men will continue to dig themselves deeper and deeper into the hole as they try to explain what they meant, when all they need to say is, “I just meant that you look so beautiful, it won’t be fair to the other women at the party.”

I guess my point is that I didn’t go into marriage with any overly romantic notions or expectations. I don’t need candlelight dinners or serenades under the moon or roses delivered on a regular basis. Truth be told, I’m more of a Gerbera daisy kind of girl.

But I’m going to bring up something that might change your life forever, even though it’s about to make me feel a little uncomfortable. I think it needs to be addressed because, according to the extensive scientific research I’ve done, it’s an epidemic. Assuming that you believe drinking wine and laughing with your girlfriends counts as extensive scientific research. Maybe if we just get this phenomenon out there, we’ll all feel a little bit better knowing we aren’t alone.

Here’s the thing. Men have an innate ability to create sexual innuendo out of anything. ANYTHING. Like when I reread the above paragraph, all I can hear is Perry’s voice saying, “Oh, yeah. I’ll bring something up,” or “Yep, I’d definitely feel better if I got this phenomenon out there.” It’s like a part of their brains got stuck around the time they were thirteen years old and they’ve never recovered.

The worst part is that I know now when I’ve just said something that’s about to get turned into an invitation to take it to the bedroom or, as Adam and Christina call it on
Parenthood
, “Funky Town.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve innocently asked Perry if he brought any meat home from the ranch and immediately realize I’ve just made a tactical error. And heaven forbid I ask him
if he can get some sausage out of the freezer for me. And you don’t even want to know what he said when I brought two large jugs home to put on our bookshelves.

Just the other night we were watching TV together, and a commercial came on for a product called a pocket hose. Are you kidding me? Is this a real thing? What man is going to be able to resist making a remark about something called a pocket hose that “starts off normal size but grows larger and larger when you turn it on”?

And the thing that kills me is that even though the majority of my girlfriends all agree these conversations happen in our homes, not one of us has ever reported that we’ve felt a sudden urge to strip off all our clothes and head to the bedroom after our husbands tell us, “I’ve got some meat for you right here.” I mean, is there one man in the history of the world this strategy has ever worked for?

The whole thing certainly hasn’t been helped by Michael Scott from
The Office
introducing “That’s what she said” into pop culture. For the love of all things, do not remark while attempting to get something to work, “I’m having a hard time trying to turn this on.” You’ll regret it. That’s a promise.

But every now and then I’ll meet a guy who appears to be the sort of husband who might read poetry to his wife under the stars, and I think,
I bet he never cracks a joke when the pocket hose commercial comes on.
And she’d probably cry if he did. Because they are clearly a sensitive-type couple, which . . . good for them. The world needs people like that. Perry and I just don’t happen to be among them, and ultimately, that’s why we’re a good match. Because when he says stuff like that, I laugh. Or roll my eyes, depending on my mood.

I think sometimes we can get caught up in believing that other
women are experiencing more romance than we are, and perhaps that’s right. But there are also a lot of women out there who know their husbands are feeling amorous because they whisper, “I haven’t put my retainer in yet tonight” or “I just brushed my teeth” or “Did you notice I got my burger without onions?” And that’s okay. That’s real life.

Which is why it’s all right for us to sometimes reply, “Okay, but I’m going to leave my socks on because it’s cold.”

Granted, you never hear Meg Ryan or Emma Stone say that in the movies, but you also never see anyone with hair that looks as good as theirs either.

CHAPTER 20

R
EMEMBER WHEN THERE
was all that brouhaha (most underused word ever) about Chick-fil-A? And all of a sudden delicious chicken got thrown into the political spotlight? And chickens everywhere were all like “What happened? We’re just chickens.”

Then the Chick-fil-A cows painted a new sign that said, “Get off our backs.” Or maybe not. I can’t remember for sure, but that would have been awesome. Truett Cathy should have called me. Because we talk on a regular basis.

Anyway, it was during this time that people decided they needed a day to show our support for Chick-fil-A, because if Chick-fil-A goes away, then there really won’t be a reason to continue living.

Something you should know about my mother-in-law is that she loves to send all her kids e-mails about any type of political
movement and/or petition we need to sign. So she sent us all a message that read:

As you know, Chick-fil-A has recently been under fire for their beliefs. On August 1 there will be a day we can show our support of the Cathy family by eating at their restaurant. I have never eaten at a Chick-fil-A, but I will definitely give it a try on August 1. I hope you will do the same.

Love,

Mother/Sallie

Please go back and reread the part about how she’d never eaten at a Chick-fil-A prior to August 1, 2012. I don’t even understand.

But that pretty much sums up my mother-in-law. She is not one to think that
fast
and
food
belong anywhere in the same sentence, whereas I grew up in a family that didn’t think dinner had been served until we’d made our way through a drive-through lane. Perry’s mom would make June Cleaver feel like a failure. Honestly, one time when Perry and I brought over fast food, she put it on her fine china and set full places in the formal dining room. She may have even lit candles. And I guarantee she had a seasonally appropriate centerpiece, because she is not a savage.

The first Thanksgiving Perry and I were dating, his mother invited me to join them for Thanksgiving lunch, and I happily accepted. Then I called her a few days later to ask if she would like me to bring anything to contribute to the meal, and she requested that I make the homemade cranberry sauce. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as homemade cranberry sauce.
I just thought cranberries grew in a can with Ocean Spray printed on the front. Honestly, it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving to me until I hear the
thwack
of cranberries hitting the plate as they come out of the can. I guarantee the Pilgrims felt the same way, even though it was probably a nightmare to get those cans open using only an arrowhead they’d borrowed from the Indians.

But she gave me her recipe for fresh cranberry relish, and admittedly, it was significantly more delicious than the canned variety. That was also the Thanksgiving I discovered that not everyone believes in pumpkin pie for dessert. Perry’s family’s tradition was something called chocolate icebox pudding. I believe it was sometime after my first bite of pudding that I decided we should spend the rest of our lives together.

However, things aren’t always that magical. Several years into our marriage, I missed the way my family always had a smorgasbord (second-most underused word ever) of all types of side dishes. I longed for more of an assortment than just turkey, dressing, fresh cranberries, and green beans. And not green beans in a casserole, but fresh and steamed. To which I ask, what’s the point of eating a green bean if it’s not covered in cream of mushroom soup and french-fried onions?

My mom’s side of the family always had fruit salad tossed with whipped cream, broccoli-rice casserole, the aforementioned green bean casserole, and sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows, among other things. And when we had Thanksgiving with my dad’s Italian side of the family, there was always spaghetti and meatballs as an alternative to turkey. I come from a people who enjoy a little variety in their culinary experience.

So I decided one year that I would create my own variety. I made a broccoli-rice casserole, complete with the ever-elegant
Cheez Whiz, to take to my mother-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving lunch. And I promise, the reaction was the same as if I’d plopped a dead, cooked rat in the center of the dining room table.

“What is THAT?” my brother-in-law asked with a scowl.

“It’s broccoli-rice casserole. I brought the food of my people, just like the Indians did on that first Thanksgiving,” I replied as I put a serving spoon in my beloved casserole with a flourish.

“It smells weird,” he said.

“Yes, that’s the Cheez Whiz. It’s an acquired taste.”

All I know is if that’s the way the Pilgrims treated the Indians at their Thanksgiving feast, it’s no wonder that whole situation went so awry and eventually ended up with scalpings and such.

Then there was the Thanksgiving just three months after we got married when I brought Perry to my grandparents’ lake house. The seven-hour trip included moments to treasure, such as when Perry bought an Elvis clock complete with swiveling hips at the local gas station, where the cashier remarked, “Honey, if I had a dime for every piece of Elvis memorabilia at my house, I’d be a rich, rich woman” (wouldn’t we all!), and my grandfather, Big Bob, getting so upset that someone had put out his burning pile of leaves that he proceeded to walk into the kitchen, pull a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, and drain it. Big Bob didn’t drink EVER, with the exception of the occasional can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, so you can imagine the effect the vodka had on him. He spent most of the day passed out in his recliner. My grandmother, Nanny, was outraged, but the picture of the family all gathered around Big Bob as he sat slumped over at the head of the table is priceless. It’s like we were living in a Robert Earl Keen song.

The lesson we all learned was don’t mess with a man’s burning leaf pile. And maybe wait until you’ve been married a little
longer to bring your husband home to spend Thanksgiving with the whole family.

One of my most painful experiences as an in-law was the Easter Caroline and I went to Perry’s aunt’s house for an Easter egg hunt. Perry didn’t go with us because he had to work, so we picked up Perry’s mom and headed to the festivities. I believe there is no greater act of marital love or martyrdom than attending an event involving your spouse’s family without your spouse in attendance. Not to mention that we only see this aunt and her family once a year for the annual Easter egg hunt. Which may explain why earlier that day, during brunch at Perry’s mom’s house, when we told the kids we were going to hunt eggs at Aunt Edna’s house, they all looked at us and said, “Who’s that?”

Exactly.

Anyway, Aunt Edna has two daughters who are older than us, and one of them coordinates the Easter egg hunt every year. It always involves elaborate instructions that make my head hurt, and that year was the pinnacle of egg hunting gone bad. Whatever happened to just hiding some eggs in the grass? Why do I have to work to find clues instead of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Why am I involved in anything that involves throwing a raw egg back and forth across the driveway until the inevitable happens? What has happened to my life? I feel with all certainty this isn’t how Jesus intended for us to celebrate that he is risen. The disciples never had to throw one raw egg that I recall.

The theme of the egg hunt was “pirate’s treasure,” and we were divided into teams of kids and adults. As my brother-in-law, Jeff, read the instructions, I listened intently, in between watching Caroline grind confetti into Aunt Edna’s expensive antique oriental rugs. I heard Jeff read, “Each team will need to answer the
pirate geography question found inside the egg to proceed to the next egg.” And I knew with all certainty, like the kind of certainty with which you know your own name, that I would never have a better opportunity to prove my complete ignorance in front of my in-laws.

A key element to this whole story is that the cousin who designs these hunts is a genius. And I don’t mean a genius in the same way Perry tells me, “You’re a GENIUS!” when I forget to buy milk despite it being written in capital letters at the top of my grocery list. I mean she’s a real genius. She knows a lot of stuff about math and science and computers, otherwise known as the axis of evil. I’m pretty sure she’s a Mensa member. However, I wouldn’t know this, because I only see her once a year. At the egg hunt, not at Mensa meetings. (Just wanted to clarify.)

So the egg hunt began at a huge
X
to mark the spot to emphasize the pirate theme. Perry’s cousin opened the first egg and began to read the question. About three words in, I heard the word
archipelago
and realized, without a doubt, that I was out of my league. Like the kind of out of my league I was in back in eighth grade, when every other girl in school actually needed a bra and the only curves I ever saw belonged to my Barbie doll. The only reason I even know the word
archipelago
is because Father Time used it on
Rudolph’s Shiny New Year
when Baby New Year was lost and Rudolph had to search for him in the Archipelago of Times Past or something like that. However, to my credit and great relief, I did know that
Galápagos Islands
was the answer to one of the questions because I had just seen it on an episode of
Go, Diego! Go!

(Who says kids can’t learn anything from watching television?)

The remainder of the hunt passed with locations like the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, the Ural River, and Cape Horn being
thrown about. Oh, and something about a city in China that had me prepared to yell out, “TOKYO!” as my answer, and I’ll be forever grateful that, for once, my brain worked faster than my mouth.

Unless they had asked what country is shaped like a boot (ITALY!) or which country borders Texas (MEXICO!) or which country used to be part of the Communist Bloc (I KNOW IT ENDS WITH “STAN”!), there was no way I was going to be of any use in this game. Back in sixth grade, when I was coloring in all those world maps with map colors, I had no idea that twenty-six years later I would be called on to remember that information. And let’s be honest, the only thing I really learned back then is that it looked good to color the United States red, because it really set off the blue color of whatever that ocean is called on the east coast of the United States.

Oh, I kid. I totally know it’s the Indian Ocean.

And maybe I didn’t pay attention to all that geography back then because I intuitively knew that there would one day be a thing called Google Maps. Who’s the genius now?

Finally the geographical agony was over, and I was rewarded with what appeared to be a terra-cotta pot full of dirt, although I was promised there was a plant in there that would eventually grow. They probably figured I was too dense to know the difference.

Next up, it was the kids’ turn to play the pirate geography egg hunt of torture, and sadly I didn’t necessarily know the answers to any of their questions either, except for one. “What city do you live in?”

SAN ANTONIO!

I think it’s obvious that it’s just a matter of time before I run into Perry’s cousin at a Mensa meeting.

An older friend of mine once shared that the Christmas after she married into her husband’s large family, she arrived at lunch and discovered that her mother-in-law had set one table for the immediate family and a separate table that she referred to as “the outlaws’ table” for all the spouses. That’s hard core.

But it’s easy to feel a little bit like an outlaw when you suddenly become part of a new family
 
—and not just because there are times you might want to carry a gun. It’s like you journey into a new, strange land just because it’s the land of the person you love. Kind of like how I adore Mexican food but wouldn’t necessarily want to move to Mexico. I don’t know the language and the customs. I just happen to love the enchiladas.

It takes a lot of God’s grace to adjust and adapt and remember that just because they don’t do things the way you were raised, they’re not necessarily wrong. (Except for the way they taught your husband to hang the paper towel roll, because that’s clearly backward.)