The Spatula War

When we got married, Sawan moved into the condo that I had already been living in for several years.  I owned it, he was renting, and it never occurred to me to sell it and move somewhere new together, and he never suggested it.  So, we kicked out my roommate, I did some purging of my stuff, we painted my pink bedroom, and he moved in.

I think that learning to live together always creates conflict.  At least, I’m pretty sure that this is pretty classic first year of marriage stuff or just moving-in together stuff that people always say is difficult.  I will say that I was glad we waited to live together until we got married, because without the covenant of marriage, I think that there were a few fights that I would have told him to pack his sh#! and get out.  One of them involved a spatula.

We got married July 1, and it was Labor Day weekend.  I always take the 3day weekends off of work, and so I didn’t have to work that Saturday, but Sawan did.  I had plans to meet some girlfriends at the pool in the afternoon, but being an early riser (ish—at least compared to Sawan), I wanted to make him breakfast in bed so that we could spend a little bit of time together before parting ways for the day.  So with him still sleeping, I pad into the kitchen to make scrambled eggs and whatever else I could find.  Well, the kitchen was Sawan’s domain.  There was nearly nothing left of mine.  I had made room for him on the bookshelves, and we had cleared out the guest-room closet to be his, he actually had that whole bedroom, and there was room for fishing stuff in the storage area downstairs and in the front closet (plus whatever shelves and stuff in the bedroom), but he had packed up nearly everything that I owned in the kitchen and we had given it to my sister.  Every dish, every pot and pan, every utensil.  His were better.  He was in culinary school at the time, so he had a million gadgets and we had to make room.  As I got out the stuff that I needed for scrambled eggs, I couldn’t find a decent spatula.  The one he had brought was flimsy and flexible, I’m sure it’s for a specific purpose, but not useful for things like getting cookies off a cookie sheet or making scrambled eggs.  I was furious.  I wasn’t SURE that he had gotten rid of the solid spatula, though, because he never put things back in the same spot, either. He was a stasher.  When he emptied the dishwasher he would just find an empty spot in a cabinet or drawer and stash stuff there, so I could never find anything.   So I spent several minutes slamming drawers looking for the decent spatula, at which point he came in and wanted to know what was going on.  HUGE, daylong fight ensues.  I’m pissed that he got rid of what I wanted, he’s pissed that I haven’t welcomed him into my house.  We eventually worked it out, and he bought me a new, solid spatula, and we kept both, for their separate purposes, and would laugh later about the daylong fight over a SPATULA.

"Mine" that he bought me is on the left.  His flimsy, not good for scrambled eggs one is on the right.

Fast-forward 3 and a half years.  This is why I can’t cook.  I can barely re-heat anything in my kitchen without there being pain.  I’ve started to do a lot of things that I didn’t think I would ever want to do again.  I’ve watched movies where the main characters are widows (I put P.S. I love you on my Netflix queue.  I can’t believe I did that).  I listen to the radio sometimes, because lately it’s been worth negotiating the minefield.  I heard a Sarah McLaughlin song (she was his favorite) in a store the other day, and I found myself singing along and enjoying it, it didn’t even occur to me to run out.  About halfway through I noticed this and was so surprised at myself…I thought “Whoa, that’s movement!”  I’ve gone to nearly every restaurant that I avoided for the first year…I still need to make it back to our favorite date place, Hapa, but that’s it.  So I’ve really made progress.  But when I was re-heating a sandwich in my skillet the other day, and I reached for the spatula, I started to cry.  I guess this just goes to show that you never know what will set you off.  Ugh.