Marriage

The Morning Scrimmage: Why Every Marriage Needs a “Billeted” Punching Bag

My wife and I have been married for nearly 35 years, and I’ve learned one absolute truth: Marriage isn’t just about love; it’s about managing the “chirps.”

I am a natural-born chirper. If I have a witty observation or a mild grievance, it bounces around my skull like a puck rattling around a dryer drum until it finds an exit. My wife, however, is a “slow-thaw” morning person. She is not a fan of dialogue—and certainly not banter—until she’s well into her second cup of coffee.

For the sake of our domestic harmony, I have to get those chirps out of my system without bumping into her morning rhythm. Fortunately, we have “The Boys.”

The Peanut Butter Defense

Currently, our kitchen is populated by billeted hockey players. They are the perfect targets. They provide the friction I need to reach my “optimum flow” without waking the dragon — my wife, who is lovely precisely because she hasn’t spoken yet.

Take, for instance, the “Bagel Bandit.” This kid has a specific talent for “nutty perfection.” He’ll smear peanut butter on a bagel and then, as a final flourish, leave a thick glob on the knife before dropping it in the sink. Within minutes, that peanut butter undergoes a chemical bonding process that makes it “dishwasher-proof.”

On a morning when my wife is still on her first cup, I’ll drop a line on the Bandit:

  • “The dishwasher is a machine, son, not a miracle worker. Clean the blade.”
  • “If you lick that knife clean, the dishwasher will thank you for your service.”

The “Agile” boys—the ones with a high hockey IQ—will fire back. The “Slow-Mo” rookies just nod and say, “Okay, next time,” while they internally calculate how many minutes until practice.

The Buffer Zone

There is a method to my madness. My wife knows I like to banter, and as long as I don’t go too hard on the kids, she lets me run my plays. In fact, she’s grateful. By the time she’s ready for conversation, I’ve already burned off my sass on a 19-year-old defenseman.

The boys are the grease that keeps the marriage rolling through the years. When my wife is an “obstacle” to my flow—meaning she just wants to eat her toast in peace—the hockey boys step in to cover the difference.

The Sentiment in the Sarcasm

I’ll admit, the sentimental side of this gets hidden under the layers of trash talk. But it’s there. My wife gets the lion’s share of my heart, and whatever is left over goes to these boys who have become part of our daily chaos.

We had a visitor the other day who mentioned he does the dishes for his billet mom because she’s been ill. I looked at my most “agile” resident and asked if he’d ever consider such a noble act.

He didn’t miss a beat: “Well, if you were gravely ill, I might consider it. But since you’re healthy, I guess I’ll just keep letting you sharpen your wit on my dish-loading skills.”

After he made his comment, we exchanged a glance. We both knew the chirping wasn’t entirely one-sided.

The Long Game

How long will we keep these “billeted victims (their term, not mine)”  around? Only until the grandchildren are old enough to hold their own in a verbal sparring match. I need a house full of relatives with finely honed wits to keep me humble.

Until then, I’ll keep chirping at the boys. It keeps my mind sharp, the sink (mostly) clear, and my 35-year marriage exactly where it needs to be: in a state of graceful, quiet, peanut-butter-free peace.

The Price of a Name (and a Perk)

I proposed to her on my birthday thirty-five years ago. It was the best gift I ever got, but it also kicked off a season of high-stakes negotiations. Back then—before kids, mortgages, minivans, and the general sense that I should stretch before standing up—we hit the big question: What are we calling ourselves once we’re married?

She was a freshly minted attorney, which meant this wasn’t the old-fashioned “she’ll take your name” layup I thought it might be. I tried logic. I tried the “think of the children” argument. I probably even tried sounding worldly and modern, which I absolutely was not. But attorneys don’t accept logic as payment. They want terms.

So, I started mentally inventorying what I could offer in a trade. She didn’t smoke, so I couldn’t nobly quit smoking. She wasn’t a vegetarian, so I didn’t have to pretend tofu was a personality. But there was one thing she loved with the kind of devotion usually reserved for religion or college football.

Coffee.

She treated coffee like a constitutional right—after dinner, with dessert, on weekends, on weekdays. Meanwhile, I had never intentionally purchased a cup in my life. The only coffee I’d ever choked down was during an in-home sales job when a customer brought me a piece of apple pie and a black coffee. I wanted the sale, so I drank that lukewarm battery acid like it was a dare, praying my stomach wouldn’t stage a coup on the drive home.

During those months of seating charts and cake tastings, I figured coffee might be the ultimate bargaining chip to seal the deal on the name. It turns out there was no real wrinkle at all; she would’ve taken my name without requiring caffeine-based reparations. She just wanted to see me sweat a little.

But here’s the twist: I ended up liking the stuff.

Thirty-five years later, I like it for breakfast with my peanut‑butter bagel. I sometimes like the quiet of an afternoon cup with something sweet. And most of all, I like bringing her morning refills. It feels like one of those tiny, everyday vows you keep long after the wedding is over.

In the end, she got the name, I got a lifelong habit, and we both got the better end of the deal.

In Common Law

I was having a text conversation the other day with a friend.  As the conversation wound down, he told me to, “Enjoy my in-laws”.  (They were visiting so this was appropriate.)  As I thought about his comment beyond the obvious, I was hit with a realization.  What does a person who is not married but has been with the same person for 20+ years call their wife’s parents?  The rest of this post is my mental meanderings about this topic.  (It is not my purpose to discuss the merits or non-merits of this arrangement.  It is only a discussion of how to best reference the parties involved.)

In many states, once a couple carries on for an extending period of time in a married fashion, they are awarded the designation of “common law” marriage.  (If the title is not awarded, it may be simply them claiming the title.)  While I refer to my wife’s parents as the “in-laws” or “mom and dad”, I have a suspicion my friend refers to his common law wife’s parents the same way.  (Technically, I suppose “mother in common law and father in common law” are the correct title.)  While it would be appropriate for parents in-laws to call son in-laws by their first name, I cannot think of more than a couple of times I called my in-laws by their first names.  Fortunately, the kids of common law parents face no confusion – mom, dad, parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents share the same titles regardless of the parents status.

Is this a fluff posting to meet a quota?  It might be.  Is it a real thought I had within my brain that needed to see the light of day?  Debatable. Do I celebrate marriages but still hold those who stay in committed heterosexual relationships in high regard?  Absolutely!!

Mommy Directions

After going to the Christmas musical at Gateway church last year, we (definitely my wife and girls for sure) were excited to go again this year.  When momma wants to go, we try and make it happen!

Unfortunately, today was not an ideal day to make it happen.  As we fought the sprinkles and the full parking lot, our battle proved impossible when we wanted to find 7 seats all together inside the auditorium.  My wife ended up sitting with two of the girls (one exchange daughter and one bio).  My son and I sat together in the overflow area, and the other two girls sat together inside the auditorium because they would not tolerate watching the Truthical on “screen-only”.

Just after we sat, my wife gave me a quick text about our post-musical meeting place- “Meet you outside the entrance where we came in”.  The church is monstrous, but I was certainly capable of retracing my steps.  I texted back letting her know to look for the two other girls before settling in for the show. After a few Broadway songs with “revised” words, some witty dialogue, a few cute kid moments, and the post-musical altar invitation, my son and I easily found the entrance my wife described in her text.

The first 5 minutes we waited, we assumed it was difficult to pull all of the girls together.  The next ten minutes were spent watching the crowds thin as the “leavers” swarmed to the exit and the “comers” for the next performance rushed to fill the vacated seats in the balcony above.  My phones vibration pulled me away from my people watching.  After confirming I was at the correct entrance, my wife requested I raise my hand.  Of course, if she would have been at the correct entrance, we would easily have been reunited at this point.  My son’s phone call to mom confirmed what we suspected-the large Christmas tree at the OTHER entrance had caused my wife to lose all sense of direction.  Just like at a Disney amusement park, she was drawn to the big object regardless of where she really wanted to go.

Although the large quantity of incoming and outgoing cars and those jockeying for better parking spots to avoid excessive rain accumulation on their umbrella-less bodies greatly delayed our evacuation of the Gateway premises, my wife was confident behind the wheel.  You see, in our 20+ years of marriage, we have learned a couple of things about each other.  I was not shocked or angry when she was unable to find the entrance she described.  And, I was relieved beyond my ability to express when she volunteered to drive us out of this parking lot of perdition.  Individually, we have a few faults, but the team is AWESOME.