Between finally moving out of my parent’s house in my early 20’s to getting myself married in my early 30’s, I lived a number of years where I was the sole person responsible for simply keeping myself alive. I had to feed myself, maintain the hygiene of both myself and my environment the best that I could, and I had to keep a roof over my head. All of these things I did rather well. I was resourceful and actually quite MacGyveresque when it came to figuring my way around life’s obstacles.

Then I got married.

I’m not sure if it was immediate or a more gradual decline, but I realize that I have regressed to an almost childlike state of dependence on the wife. Never is this more clear to me than when she skips town for a couple of days – as she has done to me this week – leaving me to fend for myself.

In the 36ish hours she has been gone so far, I have realized the following:

I don’t know where food comes from

When home alone, I must walk from the couch to the kitchen at least once every 10 minutes to look in the refrigerator. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find. There are things in there…edible things…but they don’t look like anything I’m interested in eating. I think I’m hoping that the various ingredients may somehow form up into a meal of some description that may sustain me for the next few hours. When this doesn’t happen, I resort to eating Lucky Charms out of the box because I ran out of milk and can’t be bothered to go to the store. Where is the store, anyway?!!?

I can’t figure out the coffee:water ratio

Every morning after the kid heads to school, the wife and I enjoy coffee time. It’s nice and peaceful, and a chance to ease into the morning. Sometimes she makes the coffee, sometimes I make the coffee. We used to have one of those idiot-proof Keurig things where you pour any amount of water in there, insert the coffee cartridge, and out comes a cup. However, we recently returned to the more traditional coffee grounds and filter approach. The wife has taught me the perfect balance of beans to water that will make two cups of coffee. But now that I am by myself, I don’t know what the hell to do! One would think you just cut the ingredients in half…but it doesn’t work!! I drank two cups of coffee this morning just to avoid wasting it and spent the morning jacked up on caffeine! What’s worse – I never even drank coffee before the wife came along. Now I’m hooked and completely screwed!

I need more lap space

We’ve got three dogs. THREE! Nobody needs three dogs. We try to justify it by telling ourselves that they’re just small dogs, so it’s not a big deal. And yes, together they weigh less than 20 pounds, so there’s nothing big about them at all. However, all three of them are lap dogs. You can’t sit down without a dog immediately climbing up on you. This is less of a problem when you’ve got one human lap in the house for every dog. But now that I’m a solo human, there is an endless dog parade marching across my lap and using my crotch as a trampoline!

I have zero focus

I have a gnat-like attention span. At one point last night I had the TV on, the computer up, and a different cell phone in each hand…but I wasn’t looking at any of them because I was busy watching one of the dogs do something funny. Having the wife and kid around tends to give me something to focus on. Without them, my brain rattles around like a pinball machine. Not that you need proof, but that last sentence took me 10 minutes to finish because I decided I wanted to eat a piece of candy, pay a bill, then arrange pencils in a drawer. Yes, pencils in a drawer.

So there it is. After years of looking forward to and finally achieving some independence in my life, I find myself hopelessly dependent. But it’s all good, cuz I kind of like my wife. She’s a bit of alright and she helps me keep my business together. I just hope she hurries home before I’m wearing a propeller hat and velcro shoes!

Cheers!