Wednesday, February 22, 2006

what the ....?

Yesterday evening my husband calls me on the phone and asks, “What’s for dinner?”  

“I don’t know.”  “There’s only chicken legs.”  I replied.  

“Why don’t you fry them?”  To which I respond, “Oh, I don’t know.”  “I’m not sure if I know how to make fried chicken.”   “Make that with mashed potatoes and corn.”  He suggests.  “Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”  I said without enthusiasm.  “Do we need anything from the store?”  He asks.  “Yes.” I say, “We need milk.”

I’ve never been a good cook.  And for some reason, I could never really cook chicken.  But I had no other choice.  I went to the kitchen and lucky for me I had a can of seasoned breadcrumbs.  Good!  That’s what I’ll use for the chicken.  So I cleaned out the chicken legs, dunk them in the egg batter and rolled them in the breadcrumbs.  Easy!  Now the hard part is frying them.  How can I do that without burning the chicken and myself?  Or what’s worse, how can I fry the chicken without leaving it raw inside?  

I was trying my best to make fried chicken.  I burned one, the other was undercooked and the rest were beginning to look like real fried chicken.  Mmmm.  Looking good!  While the chicken was frying, I proceeded to make mashed potatoes.  By that time my husband came home, I had almost everything ready.  “Is dinner ready?”  He asks.  “No, but just about!”

I soon served him a plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn.  “Where’s my tortillas?”  He asks.  “Tortillas?”  “Don’t you want bread with butter instead?”  I responded.  “Are you going to toasted it?”  He asks.   “Yes.”  I said.  I took two slices of bread and put them in the toaster.  In the meantime, I began to wash a bowl in the sink.  I don’t know what was going through my husband’s mind but I could tell he was a little agitated.  He suddenly raised his voice at me and says, “Why are you doing that?”  “How am I supposed to eat this?”   He then picks up his plate, puts his face on the plate and begins to eat his food…like an animal.  

I was about to tell him that his bread was in the toaster and then realized what he was doing.  OH, NO HE DIDN’T!  

He was in fighting mood.  So it was either:

  1. Go along with his mood and get myself agitated and start a fight;

  2. Get upset and begin to cry; or

  3. Just plain ignore him!  

WTF!  So of course, I chose option 3.

He also began to complain because I did not give him a salad with his dinner.  How can I not make salads and blah, blah, blah…

I continued washing dishes and completely ignored him.  Within a few seconds, the toast popped out of the toaster, I picked them out and set them on a plate and placed it next to him.  I don’t know what his problem was, but I wasn’t about to allow him to get to me.  Nope!  If he wants to act like a jerk, then that’s his problem.  

When I finished with the dishes, I turned around and saw that he had stopped eating.  He really didn’t eat at all.  He had placed his dish aside and was holding his head.  I could tell he was pretty upset.  

I kept thinking to myself, stay calm…just stay calm.   I didn’t allow myself to get angry.  It’s just not worth it!

I went downstairs, finished folding my laundry went upstairs and went to bed.  

Today, it was as if nothing had happened.  What was that all about?  I still don’t know.  Hmmm, I’m sure I will save this little episode for discussion at some point in time…in the near future!

1 comment:

Kristal said...

I hate that whole 'pretend like nothing happened' thing. Mike is the master of that trick.