Gary does have a few annoying characteristics. When those characteristics begin to grate, I remind myself that what I love is what I hate. So when he’s exceptionally emotional, I remember his emotion is what makes him say “I love you.”
(Pro Tip! This is a neat trick if you want to stay married almost forty years.)
So, his most recent trying characteristic is that he is stubborn. He will not adapt or soften his thinking on some subjects about his health. Usually I tell myself that his stubborn nature is what makes him loyal, but this time the stubborn’s combined with stupid.
It did make me remember that his stubborness — well, his tenacity — is what won my Mom over.
When I was a teenager, if Mom realized the boy I was dating was a keeper, he would need to pass a test. A specific test. The turkey blood test.
We had a small Melmac plate that had been put in the microwave while it still had some turkey gizzard debris on it, and the turkey blood was stuck permanently on the plate. After that, every guy I dated seriously was presented with this plate and asked if they could fix the plate like it was one of the twelve labors of Hercules.
One boy started talking about the chemical properties of blood and suggested Mom try a mild acid, which I thought was a good idea. Another —
(Mom-in-my-head just interrupted me. “Did he bring over a mild acid?” No, Mom, he didn’t. “Not a keeper, then.”)
Another suggested we just get another plate, another just handed the plate back and said, “No.”
(“Tell them what Gary did,” Mom-in-my-head says.)
Gary sat down and picked at the plate with his fingernail for two hours until it was fixed. And this is how I ended up with a husband whose superpower is his stubbornness.
8 responses to “Turkey Test”
… wow. That is… something.
KC – So other people’s Moms don’t put boyfriends through their paces? Huh.
From what I understand, the Mom Boyfriend Testing varies, but a solid part of my wow was that he picked at it with his fingernail instead of using tools that would cause it to go significantly faster, although I *also* get that gradually defeating something like that can be enjoyable kind of like a puzzle…
KC – On our kitchen, not his own, and you didn’t mess with Dad’s tools.
I was thinking tools like Toothpaste and Salt and Baking Soda and Scrubby Kitchen Things and Butter Knives rather than tool-tools, but yes, fair, in a foreign kitchen one does not always like to ask…
KC – I am amazed he could pick it off at all, because evidently the reason you don’t microwave Melmac is because it gets horrifically hot and because it stains. Besides, we’d all tried the scratchy method, we just hadn’t tried it for two hours.
Oh, interesting! Had *any* of it come off for the rest of you, or was it Only For Gary?
KC – Only for the One True Gary.