It was a Friday, and I had managed to fall dreadfully behind on my Shabbat-prep timeline. Challah was in the oven, but I still had to make the rice, cook the vegetables, and prepare all the toppings for our poke bowl Shabbat dinner, for which a few guests were arriving that evening. And I needed to make dessert but of course I didn't have all the ingredients so I had to run to the grocery store but I also still had to clean up and--- "I'll do the grocery shopping, sweetie. I can see you're getting stressed, so I'll take care of that." *Swoon* J really does know me! And not only did he buy the groceries, but while he was there he also picked up the toilet paper and cat litter we needed. Then he spent an hour chopping vegetables with me, arranged them into beautiful platters, and we hosted a spectacular meal with friends, after which he single-handedly cleaned up. My hero! Unfortunately, my bliss was short-lived. A few days later I sat in the bathroom and noticed J had replenished the toilet paper roll with the new package he'd purchased. Imagine my shock and horror when I realized it was... Single. Ply. Now, there are a lot of things I'm not willing to spend money on. Phone chargers that don't break, headphones that last, leggings or yellow peppers that aren't on sale. These are things I just don't value enough to ignore the price tag. But toilet paper is one of the few things for which my standards are extremely high, and not even a dollar store birthday gift would be caught dead wrapped up in this tissue-paper-thin nonsense. I took a breath and steadied myself lest I slide off the commode, because if I did I would undoubtedly tip forward and hit my head on the toilet paper dispenser, where the roll on display would do little to cushion my fall. What would my therapist say? I asked myself. On the one hand, J had been extremely helpful by running an errand that I had planned to do because he anticipated my needs. What's more, he had accomplished multiple tasks on that one trip because he thought about the various other things we needed to restock in our home. He had taken the initiative and followed through, and could I really be upset with him for that? What's more, if I raised any objections, he would be even less inclined to run such errands in the future for fear of getting it wrong. It would simply be disrespectful and self-sabotaging to be so nit-picky when he was only trying to help. On the other hand, the pack he bought was big. and now we were both stuck with this. Ultimately I decided to keep my mouth shut - for the health of our marriage, even if at the expense of my behind. I would just have to deal with it and plan to be more specific about which brand to buy when I made the shopping list next time. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for taking the high road when, after five days of toilet paper purgatory, J said: "Sweetie, I need to apologize." "For what?" I asked, legitimately surprised. "I didn't realize I bought single-ply toilet paper. I f'd up." "OH THANK GOODNESS!" I laughed, flooded with the relief that I hadn't married a barbarian. We then laughed together over our mutual love of Quilted Northern and hatred of whatever had been disgracing our bathroom for nearly a week, and in that moment my love for J was renewed, and the sin of the single ply was forgiven . . . . . . Almost. |
AuthorNashira is a music teacher and proud Small-Town Jew who, after surthriving six years in Brooklyn for her husband's surgical residency, is finally back in Wisconsin where she belongs! At least until the end of the two-year surgical fellowship, that is. It's a wild ride, and she's ready to tell you all about it! Archives
September 2019
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