We all have household chores we enjoy doing.
We also have tasks we get stuck with because we perform them better than our spouses.
But then there are those tasks we hate and aren’t good at—yet we do them anyway.
This is what defines love.
Real love has nothing to do with flowers, gifts, compliments, or a kiss on the cheek. True love comes with a fair share of muttering and the occasional snarl.
Like yesterday, when my wife announced, “There’s a dead frog in our driveway.”
“In other words,” I surmised, “you ran over a frog.”
“I did, and it’s gross,” she said.
“And cleaning up a gross thing falls to me because I’m a man?”
“No,” she said as sweetly as she could, “it falls to you because you love me.”
It’s an argument I cannot win.
Much of our life is like this. I haul out the trash, clean the gutters, scoop the litter box, and dispose of dead mice. All these things I do because they are gross and unpleasant—and therefore demonstrate true love.
But then there are tasks that aren’t gross but are equally unpleasant, which I get tasked with simply because she doesn’t want to do them.
Like preparing meals.
Cooking is something that usually falls to women because society has deemed them better at it than men. I don’t think this is true. Instead, I believe that, like many things, people get better at what they do most often.
Except for me. I will always be a terrible cook.
My wife is much better at it than I am—but she hates to cook, so she decided I’m better at it than she is. Thus, she has been trying to get me to cook for years.
When we were first married, she bought me a cookbook.
“Here,” she said, opening the book to a delicious recipe for an egg-spinach bake, “all you have to do is follow the instructions.”
This was early in our relationship, before she discovered that it’s utterly impossible for me to follow instructions. I am simply too creative.
Why must an egg bake contain eggs? I asked myself. There was the name, of course—but why be bound by that?
So I substituted bacon.
And for spinach, since I hate the stuff, I opted for bell peppers—then, feeling guilty about the eggs, I added them back in.
It was delicious—or so I thought. But that’s when I discovered my new bride did not care for peppers.
“Peppers are gross!” she informed me.
So I reluctantly agreed—no more peppers.
The next day, she selected another egg-bake recipe.
Again, I substituted bacon for eggs, but given that she didn’t like peppers, I added hash browns before caving in and blending in the eggs.
This she did not like at all.
“Why can’t you follow the recipe?” she asked. “It’s so simple—just do what the instructions say.”
I shrugged.
“If you loved me, you would,” she said.
It’s a statement that has reverberated over the years, and to prove my love, I do many things. I mop up cat barf, unplug toilets, and take on all the nasty, menial household tasks because of my affection for her.
In short, I will do anything for love—but I won’t cook quiche.
Almost Iowa 