Sometimes I’d Like the Cream

I’ve been paying more attention lately to my female co-workers, friends and families and the way they talk and deal with the men in their lives and it is completely fascinating to me how men are still being revered and pacified (I use this word intentionally) so automatically and unconsciously. It’s been absorbed into our psyche and our culture to keep them on the content side of things.

(Or maybe it’s just anything for a quiet life since so many men are renowned for their tiny sense of tolerance and their quickness to unnecessary anger.)
Which has obviously worked for them during their tiny childhoods.

Before I even start, let me say that I myself am the original Pleaser especially with my own boys and yes, all of what I’m about to  relate is my own fault.

Definitely, I could be more assertive and have screaming altercations around the clock (and possibly a stroke) but I have opted for peace at a much smaller price to myself.

That said, I knew I had reached an all time low when I found myself crouching over a heating vent one day eating a toasted, peanut-buttered heel end of the bread (no one eats THAT – they only put it in there to support the other slices!) and a coffee made with vanilla soy because there was only enough cream left for Niles aka Son #2.

None of this was even martyr-ish – I literally never even thought about it because I didn’t really care and knew they would REALLY care and be quite vociferous about it and then go on and on and on and like many women, well, I like to save my outbursts for bigger and more important things.

You know, like a nuclear holocaust.

But as we go along life’s way, these things tend to add up.

Already Working-Outside-The -Home, I also did all of the laundry, cleaning, cooking, yard work and spa requirements for three hairy, big footed dogs; baskets of clean clothes (sorted in front of the television as a treat to myself) were left in the doorways of everyone’s respective rooms. Then one day my (ex) husband was looking in a puzzled way at a pair of his clean socks. “Okay wow,” he grinned, shaking his head in disbelief as he unfolded and corrected one of the pairs. “Guess someone needs to take a texture test!”

This is actually a much better example of what I like to save my rage for.

(And, for the edification of any well-meaning male readers, this is the kind of comment which is not forgotten by picking up dinner on the way home for The Little Woman or unloading the dishwasher – ONCE. Just saying …)

A good friend (only in her thirties by the way) recently revealed that she loved the white breast meat of the turkey but rarely ate it.

I asked why and she laughed and said “Well I thought all families were the same? The men get the white meat, right, it’s what they prefer.”

What the WHAT?

Another friend recalled a story of her aunt who was so busy serving people at a family get-together she was later spotted drinking tea – out of a small, empty yogurt container – as she stood in the kitchen, still working.

People were appalled, offering to make her up a plate but she refused, saying she was fine, it didn’t matter. She didn’t even think she was worth a CUP to put the tea in – let’s learn from this poor misguided soul …

I am willing and ready to do my part.

From now on if we’re short on cream, it will just have to be Baileys’.