You are so Lucky....

Or more aptly, I guess I am a bad wife because I do not cook. If one more well meaning, but utterly clueless person tells me I am so lucky because my husband cooks I reserve the right to initiate a smack down. I know that I am raging against the machine here but come on, it is 2006 so why is it so amazing that my husband cooks and I don’t? People who know me of course know that while I make a mean cake I can not cook, well not well. I forget things are in or on the oven, and when I lived by myself I lived on Spaghettios and microwave popcorn, and, more often then not, baked potatoes from Wendy’s. People, including my rents, would ask often if I needed money because the only staples I kept in the house were coffee, milk and sugar (for the coffee) and copious amounts of Coke. But I didn’t need money for food, I just needed a chef. Enter Jeff. When he and I started dating I think everyone that I knew let out a collective sigh of relief, finally here was someone who would make sure that I ate something more then popcorn for dinner (which hey, don’t knock it until you try it). But as our nuptials approached I began to hear a calling in the breeze, not from anyone who really knew us, but from those people who exist on the fringes of our existence, the acquaintance. It began like this, so the wedding is coming soon huh? Wow now you will have to learn to cook. I had trouble following this line of thinking, so after knowing someone for four years, and having them feed me daily, now that I am promising before God and the state of Illinois to spend my life with someone, I am expected to be Julia Childs. What my ability to cook had to do with a pretty new piece of jewelry is beyond me, and for the record those people were wrong. I have actually started learning some new recipes, but only because I think it’s mean to make Jeff cook everyday, but most of the time he does anyway. I have found that I can not cook while he is home because he begins to take over and sooner rather than later tell me to “get out of his kitchen.” But more importantly, my hubby is a great cook, any one who knows him will testify to that, so why shouldn’t he cook?

So why in the world do people I barely know continue to tell me how lucky I am that my husband cooks? They do not say this because they know that he makes yummy food, they say this because they assume that because I have a uterus, I should be the one behind the stove. It doesn’t matter that I do other stuff (yes Stephanie I do other stuff), the laundry fairy does not clean our clothes and put them away. Nor do said fairies clean the house, pay bills, keep a budget or keep track of important papers in their color coded and cross referenced files. Jeff and I figured out long ago that we should be in charge of the things we are good out, and leave the gender roles at the door, and it has worked out very well. I eat well, and Jeff never has to worry about where that document is, he knows that I know. So I can only hope that eventually the rest of the world will catch up with us, and if they don’t do it soon I may be in trouble for taking down the next person who tells me I am lucky with that look in their eye that I am somehow a bad wife. Until then, everyone meet at my place for lasagna, Jeff’s specialty, and I will make the cake.