Extraordinary Thing #32: No Longer Newlyweds

Many lovely things are associated with being newlyweds. Ah love, young love. I know that. But I am so extraordinarily happy that Erik and I are no longer BRAND NEW at this marriage thing. We have been married almost four years, edging into firmer and firmer territory and discovering fewer and fewer unpleasant things about each other and saying (on average) 142 less dumb things a day. I know it’s so easy to gloss over those primitive struggles in a marriage and idealize young love, but today I reread a blog I wrote during our first year of marriage, and it made me really, really glad that we are beyond that stage, that boxing match, whatever you want to call it. I really would not want to go back there for anything. And I still resent that very nice person who fondly described her first year of marriage as being “like butter.” OK. Shut up.

Here is a snapshot of our marriage circa 2008. It is awkward for me to relive; hopefully not as awkward for you to read…

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Because we don’t have any money, I’ve taken to shopping at Aldi. If you’ve never been to an Aldi, here’s what you need to know. There are only three aisles. Well, four, if you count the half aisle of scrawny produce. You have to put in a quarter to be able to take a shopping cart (apparently knowing you’ll get your quarter back at the end keeps bad people from stealing the carts). You have to bring your own boxes, bags or other means of transporting your groceries home, and you will also do your own packing and bagging. You will be buying generic versions of everything so don’t look for your favorite brands of cereal or syrup. Knowing this ahead of time, if you still want to shop at Aldi, be my guest.

I grew up shopping at Aldi. My mother and grandmother loved that place, and my brother and I always had to go along. We were excruciatingly bored the whole time and always sat on the orange counter where the ladies with plastic scarves over their curlers bagged their groceries. We would crawl around on that counter until our grandmother told us to stop. But my clearest memory of Aldi’s impact on our life was their Kleenex and toilet paper. Aldi sold Kleenex and toilet paper that were made from plywood, or at least it felt like it when they came in contact with your sensitive tissues. My mother exclusively bought Aldi’s products so we never knew what it must feel like to wipe your nose with Puffs or your rear end with Charmin. At least, we might not have known the difference had our grandma not had the softer, name-brand kind at her house down the street, and sooner or later we started begging our mother to stop making us wipe ourselves raw with those stiff scratchy sheets. I am scarred (not literally thank God) by Aldi’s bathroom products. What’s more, I have an aversion to the idea of generic things, because I always wanted the Cheerios, not the Nutty O’s, and the Cheetos not the Cheese Balls, but never, ever got them. Plus, I feel like I’m living in the Great Depression not being able to shop at a regular grocery store.

But when you don’t have money, you begin to rethink your snotty dread of things like generic cereals and orange counters. So I went to Aldi the other day by myself. Erik was still in bed when I left so I braved the four aisles alone. The trip proved quite successful (I even remembered the quarter for the cart) and I returned home with my bags that I’d brought with me, quite pleased with myself. Not only had I saved money, but I had overcome a childhood loathing of a silly supermarket. It made me feel much closer to the ideal of womanhood.

I remained on that cloud until lunchtime. My beloved partner and I decided to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and what would we use to make them, but the new $0.99 bread I had so thriftily chosen? I pulled out the loaf with a carefree flourish. I glanced at Erik and raised my eyebrows, knowing that praise of my womanly virtues would not be far behind.

“I hate that bread,” he said. “It’s so gross.”

The language he chose was a bit strong, or so I told myself as the words punctured my cheerful spirit and the air rushed out of me. I stared at him and said, “It’s not gross. It was the cheapest bread they had. I was trying to save us money.”

“It’s gross, and I hate it.”

Again, those strong words. And wasn’t it excessive for an innocent loaf of wheat bread that we were going to disguise with peanut butter and jelly? “I was trying to save money,” I explained for the second time. Maybe he hadn’t heard me before. I had just been to Aldi. I had just gone shopping at the world’s generic headquarters. The whole point of doing this was to benefit our family finances. Which it appeared, I was singlehandedly saving.

“Why did you have to get this bread, I told you I hate this kind,” Erik said gloomily, stuffing the slices into the toaster.

That was it! My entire trip to Aldi had been a huge, disgusting failure, and everything I bought was wrong. “Stop saying that!” I shrilled. “Stop saying it’s gross!!”

“What is the big deal?” Erik demanded. “I told you I don’t like the bread. I’ll just get my own kind.”

“No! We are a family! We have to share the same bread!”

“No we don’t! I can have my own kind of bread and you can just eat this kind.”

“Do you think I like this kind? I got it because I WAS TRYING TO SAVE MONEY!”

That’s when I broke down in tears. I fled to the couch, sobbing.

“What is wrong?” Erik followed me, clearly baffled. “Why are you crying? It’s just BREAD.”

“You hurt my feelings,” I wailed. “I have feelings about the bread.”

Silence. Then he roared with laughter. “You have feelings about the bread?” Finding the humor that I can’t see in a situation is Erik’s specialty. “You just said you have feelings about the bread!”

I was crying and yelling at him at the same time, sounding kind of like a litter of puppies and a dump truck, when we heard a knock on the door. I quieted my sobs, cowered down on the couch trying to hide my tearstained face and Erik opened the door.

There stood my friend Michelle—holding a vacuum. “Hi,” she said. “I texted you… I thought you might want this vacuum I’m getting rid of… Is this a bad time?”

I suppose bad time described it pretty well. I tried to take the vacuum and hug her but I couldn’t do it without lapsing into gasping sobs again, tears pouring down my face. There I was, caught dead in the middle of a horrible, stupid argument over bread with my husband who was supposed to love me. We were supposed to be happy. This ruined it all. Now the world knew that we were miserable.

Poor Michelle did not know what to do. She patted me and looked around frantically, meanwhile holding the vacuum by the neck like a large animal who might try to escape. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to take the vacuum. I’ll just come back later.”

After 15 assurances that my aversion was not to the vacuum, she left it. I finally stopped bawling. Erik apologized for calling the bread gross. Moral of the story? Don’t underestimate the power of bread to evoke painful emotions. And never, ever criticize a loaf chosen by someone dear to you.

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