It’s the Little Things

It’s 8:30 Saturday morning and we are busy getting Kimani ready for a swim therapy session that starts at 9:30. Everyone else is up and wanting breakfast. It is a bit chaotic, but I have my nice hot vanilla latte already made and so far we are on time.

My husband puts three dollars on the counter and asks me to stop by Dunkin Donuts to get him a hazelnut coffee, light and sweet.

Just as I am putting Kimani’s shoes on, he suggests that I should stop for his coffee on the way to therapy since things are going to be tight on the way back. Our son Gecko has a soccer game at 10:55 and he is supposed to arrive a half hour before the game for warm up. I propose to him that maybe for today he could make himself a coffee using our Starbucks machine and then pick up the one he really wants after  the soccer game.

He says no and acts annoyed, which pisses me off. In my head I am thinking that he is acting spoiled and unreasonable. Kimani’s therapy is 15 minutes away and with getting her in and out of the car and into the building, it is more like 25 minutes, and it is 9:02 now. I remind him that the coffee will not be hot anymore and that he will need to waste time reheating it when I get back… and he insists, “No, it will stay hot.”

He wants his freaking DD hazelnut coffee, and he wants it in his hands before the soccer game. I rush Kimani and can’t help but tell her that we have to hurry because Daddy is a diva. As I head for the door I ask him if there are any Dunkin Donuts on the way that do not force me to go out of my way, because both the DDs that I know of on the route will not allow a left turn out of the lot, and that is the direction I will need to go in. He mumbles something about those being the only two on the way.

I leave and stuff Kimani in the van. I decide to go directly to the closest DD because when I get out of there I can make a right and loop through the mall, ending up on the highway I need to be on without losing much time. There are six cars ahead of me in the drive-thru. As the minutes tick away, I feel more and more annoyed with him.

Really, what the hell? Why couldn’t he just drink a vanilla latte, which we both know he likes. Or why not just wait a little longer and get his coffee after the game? Why insist on inconveniencing me and making us late?

I speed up the highway, get a good parking spot, and roll Kimani into the pool room at exactly 9:30, which means she will only be minute or two late into the pool once I get her out of her stroller, coat, and clothes. She has a good session and we are back in the van by 10:07.

That Dunkin Donuts hazelnut coffee stares at me all the way home. I have to decide what to do about my feelings. Part of me wants to talk to him and make him think about how ridiculous he was in the hopes that it won’t happen again. Part of me wants to tell him he’s an ass. But most of me just wants to ignore it. The coffee isn’t piping hot anymore, and will surely be lukewarm before it is finished, and that is enough to make him realize that he was being ridiculous, right?

I pull in and before the van is even turned off, my son comes out in his uniform. He excitedly tells me how far he has gotten in Insurgence, the book I downloaded for him yesterday. As he gets in the car, my husband comes out, lifts his coffee from my hands, thanks me, and gets in the car with my son. They are gone before I even get back outside to get Kimani out of her carseat.

He washed the dishes while I was out. How can you stay annoyed with a guy who does dishes while you are out?

Ten years ago, I would have stayed annoyed, and even maybe started a fight over it. It wouldn’t be hard to do. A simple, “How come you always have to…?” That word, always, tucked into any direct statement is enough to get something started. We’d get into it, and there would be so much more than a coffee at stake. Character flaws would be paraded about, and philosophical divisions would be etched deeper. One or both of us might leave the battle thinking that maybe “we weren’t really meant for each other.”

I’m serious. There were times in our marriage when the littlest things would restart the war. Is that crazy? It’s been a long time since we’ve been there, but I never take for granted that we won’t wake up there one day again. And so I drive to Dunkin Donuts even when it doesn’t make sense, and he washes dishes even when he doesn’t feel like it. For us, that adds up to a marriage that lives to see another day.