Me: I love “House.” I want him to be my bestie.
Dan: I don’t think he would.
Me: Why not? I’m like-able.
Dan: Because you use words like “bestie.”

—-

Dan: I really like “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Master Cook.”
Me: Me too. Gordon Ramsey is hilarious and seems genuinely nice even through all his yelling.
Dan: …
Me: …
Dan: I want him to be my bestie.

—

Me: While driving, looks over to see Dan reaching for an imaginary object and pulling it towards him. What on Earth are you doing?
Dan: I’m excited about this vacation. I’m full of nervous energy.
Me: But what are you miming?
Dan: I’m practicing for the slot machines. Gotta be ready for Vegas.

—

Me: Via text Have fun in Vegas! No prostitutes or circus midgets.
Dan: Ok, I promise no prostitutes.

—

Dan: I think he’s Polynesian. That’s Asian, right?
Me: I think it’s technically considered Pacific Islander.
Dan: I thought Pacific Islanders were the …you know… big guys. Holds his hands out to the side and pretends to waddle.
Me: “Big guys?” What do you mean? Like, Samoans? Or sumo wrestlers?
Dan: Yeah, Samoans. Those big guys!
Me: The racism in this conversation is incredible.
Dan: I’m not racist, just ignorant. *proceeds to laugh hysterically at himself*
Me: You’re a dork.
Dan: A good joke is a good joke, no matter who it hurts.
Me: You made fun of yourself!
Dan: I repeat, a good joke is a good joke…

—

*High fives himself.* That’s right. I just high fived myself. That’s how awkward this conversation is.

Situation: The spouse wants beef stroganoff for dinner.

Dan’s version: After hearing Sara’s request, he goes to Whole Foods and buys all organic products. His wife is allergic to random things and he wants to make sure she enjoys the meal without irritation. He brings the ingredients home and lovingly slices everything. He makes the sauce from scratch, using fine wine, and lets it marinade for the maximum amount of time in order to bring out all the flavors. Total prep and cooking time, 6 hours.
Sara’s version: After hearing’s Dan’s request, she orders chinese.

Situation: The spouse is in the mood for Italian.

Dan’s version: After hearing Sara’s request, he goes to the store and buys the ingredients to make hand rolled cannelloni. He fills each with a mixture of cheeses and spinach. He prepares a fresh side salad and buttery, hot garlic bread. He adds extra Parmesan to the sauce, because he knows Sara loves Parmesan.
Sara’s version: After hearing’s Dan’s request, she orders pizza.

Situation: The spouse wants a birthday cake.

Dan’s version: Dan gets Sara’s favorite chocolate cake recipe from his mother and lovingly bakes the cake from scratch. He doesn’t like fruit filling in chocolate cake, but knows that she does, so he makes fresh raspberry filling and drizzles it between the cake layers. He serves it warm, dripping with gooey chocolate icing. He uses stuff they have at home, so the cake costs him little more than $10 in total and about two hours of time.
Sara’s version: She finds a cool looking cake online that is three tiers and involves modelling chocolate, spun sugar and multiple cake flavors. She goes to the local baking supply store and spends $25 on cake decorating tools. She then heads to Michaels to buy another $20 worth of cake decorating gadgets. She heads to the grocery store and spends 30 minutes wandering the aisles, trying to find things she’s never heard of such as meringue power and low-fat buttermilk. She gets into an argument with an employee about the fact that corn syrup is with pancake syrup instead of near baking supplies. She calls mom to ask about the difference between light and dark corn syrup. She almost picks a fight with the smug housewife who laughed when she overheard her calling mom to ask about the difference between light and dark corn syrup.  She waits in a long line, finally forking over $50 on her cake ingredients. She heads home and is entirely too exhausted from the ordeal to do any actual baking. She’ll do it tomorrow…   Total cost: $95 plus gas. Total time: 3 hours plus whatever she spends once she actually bakes the darn thing.

I am proud to announce that we have switched out our recycle and trash bins. The larger ones used to be for trash and the smaller ones for recycling, but we’ve found that we are recycling much more than we’re throwing away. Every once in awhile, I see that Dan has tossed something that can be recycled. I always take the opportunity to point this out to him. (You’re welcome, Husband.)

Dan: I get confused sometimes! Some boxes are recyclable, while others aren’t. Some envelopes have to be taken apart before they can be recycled. It was so much easier in PA. You had three bins, one each for plastic, paper and glass. Everything went into those and you didn’t have to worry about rules.
Me: It’s even easier here! You just dump it all in one large container. They probably had the same rules but you didn’t pay attention to them. They probably had to sort through and pull out the unrecyclable items themselves.
Dan: Maybe so, but it was so much easier back then.
Me: It was only easier because you didn’t have a wife nagging you about recycling correctly.
Dan: Ah, so that was my downfall. Getting married.

I love you too.