She Said, She Said

From Reader's Digest

• My husband, Ed, once called me the cheapest person in the world. I believe this was around the time he discovered that every night I remove my eyeliner with the end of a Q-tip and then set it aside to use the other end the following night.



• We recently painted our den and I had tried to argue for a single coat. Why spend an extra two days painting when you could just put a lower wattage bulb in the overhead light?



• Ed decreed we were to buy only free-range organic chickens. Ed would put them in the shopping cart. I'd look at the price and take them out. "Are we eating them, or putting them through college?"

• My waist, I realized one day in a dressing room, has completely disappeared beneath my rib cage, which now rests directly on my hips. I'm exhibiting continental drift in reverse.



• God help me, I've entered the Age of Skirted Swimwear. This is the age right after Accessorizing with Reading Glasses and a few years before Can't Name Anyone on the Radio.



• My eye bags, I noticed the other day while shopping with my friend, had ceased to be an anatomical feature and were approaching the status of an actual piece of luggage.

• There is a special form of hearing loss that afflicts couples. I have come to believe that in Ed's case this is limited to the specific tonal register of my voice. His brain has learned, over time, that this particular vocal range is best ignored because there is a high likelihood it will be a) saying something mind-numbingly dull or b) accusing him of not listening.



• Ed is the most levelheaded person I know. You could take one of the carpenter's levels from Aisle 5 and place it on his head and the little bubble will always be right there in the middle.



• Home-repair projects around our house generally fall into one of two categories: "I'll get to that this weekend" and "I'll get to that this summer." Followed by an eventual shift to a third category: "I'll get the Yellow Pages."



• "You're wearing that?" Ed will ask.
  "What?" I'll say to him. This is a stalling tactic, allowing me time to pull together a defense of denim as appropriate dinner-party attire. I don't know what happened -- I used to derive great joy from dressing up.
  I consider accessorizing my outfit, but this is a skill that eludes me. I tie neck wear the way Brownies do -- or Pony Express riders. The last time I wore a scarf, Ed put his hands in the air. "Don't shoot," he said.

• I gave my old tax forms to a friend's fourth-grader to line the bottom of her hamster cage. If you see a rodent with my name on its cheeks, let me know.



• My father was English, so gardening, I've long assumed, is in my blood, along with gin and fryer grease and a fondness for long, tedious war movies.



• A family is a collection of people who share the same genes but can't agree on a place to pull over for lunch.



• The French kiss each other twice, perhaps because no one else will.