The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (6 page)

Actually, I realized I lacked sufficient Heimlich-maneuver skills while my sister, who probably knew how to do the Heimlich since she was a teacher and trained in CPR, fled the scene because she was afraid Perry was about to throw up and she didn’t want to see it.

No one will ever accuse either of us of keeping calm heads in a crisis situation. We were like Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda in
Nine to Five
.

After Perry realized he wasn’t going to be able to save himself on the back of a kitchen chair, I dialed 911. And an ambulance came. And paramedics rushed in the house. And we all had to go
to the hospital so they could administer some type of medicine to relax his throat muscles.

I also may have asked if I could have a sedative for myself.

If I recall, this earned me a dirty look from my beloved husband. But he had no idea the stress I was under. It’s not every day that you prepare a meal that almost kills your husband and then simultaneously discover you lack the skills to save him. Talk about NEW WIFE FAIL.

Obviously, he recovered from the experience. We discovered shortly thereafter that he had some acid-reflux issues that had caused scarring on his esophagus, which led him to choke easily. So we got that little problem taken care of, because calling 911 during family dinner is kind of a downer. Not to mention expensive.

And honestly, if I have any advice for a newlywed woman, it would be to set the cooking bar a little lower, and not just because you might accidentally kill your husband. In my enthusiasm for married life, I created an expectation that I would provide hot meals every night, and I regret it to this day. I should have been like my friend Jamie, who served her husband nothing but cereal in Styrofoam bowls. When she finally branched out and made a casserole one night, her husband wept with gratitude, whereas Perry thinks a casserole is cheating because it combines all dinner ingredients in one pan instead of being cooked separately. He likes to see all the various food groups represented on his plate like he’s a registered dietitian or something.

I blame myself. I made him rotten. Learn from my mistake, young women of America. Just because your Italian grandmother cooked three hot meals a day her entire life doesn’t mean we have to do the same. That’s why Chinese takeout was invented.

The other discovery I made now that Perry and I were sharing
a home was that he likes to change clothes throughout the day. Workout clothes, work clothes, sitting-around-the-house clothes. His life consisted of more wardrobe changes than Cher’s show in Las Vegas. And that, combined with the tragic fact our little townhome only had a coin-operated laundry facility, created some logistical laundry issues.

I am of the belief that laundry is something you do once a week. Most of my clothes at the time were work-related business suits that I sent to the dry cleaner, so washing clothes once a week was more than sufficient. However, Cher informed me that he really needed his laundry done at least every three days or he’d run out of clothes. To which I replied that he had two options.

1. He could go buy more boxer shorts and socks.
   
2. He could do his own laundry.
   

For reasons that still puzzle me, he chose to do his own laundry. And he still does it to this day. If there is anything I got absolutely right in marriage from the very beginning, this would be it. In fact, Gulley’s grandmother Nena was so inspired by my laundry coup that she informed Grandaddy after fifty-five years of marriage that she was no longer doing his laundry. I set her free from the bondage of the washing machine. I had no idea I would become a catalyst for laundry liberation among senior citizens.

And between you and me, I bet Kate Middleton makes William do his own laundry. Which is just one of the many reasons I know we’d be friends.

CHAPTER 5

A
FEW MONTHS AGO
Gulley and I decided it might be fun to have a garage sale. Mainly because neither of us had ever actually had one and had no idea that by the time it was all over, our combined earnings would average out to approximately forty-five cents an hour.

But we both had a lot of junk we’d accumulated over the last ten to fifteen years (ironically, some of these things were once wedding presents), and the prospect of having a garage sale gave us incentive to do a massive clean out of our respective homes. So for several weeks I made regular trips to Gulley’s house with all my unwanted items, and we began to prepare for the big sale.

The Saturday of the sale arrived bright and early. Two things I never am
 
—bright or early. Especially at the same time. Fortunately
Perry made a run to Shipley’s to get us all fresh donuts, or we may not have survived.

While we were setting our wares out on the curb and the driveway, Gulley discovered a long-forgotten engagement portrait of her and her husband, Jon. They were wearing matching khaki shorts with denim shirts and loafers in their best imitation of a 1997 Gap commercial. Best of all, they were leaned in for a kiss, and Gulley’s leg was kicked up in the back the way I used to pose my Barbies when they kissed Ken.

The picture was enormous and framed in a gilded frame. Her mother had given it to her years ago because there was a time when that seemed like a good thing to hang in their little newlywed love shack. But sixteen years later that time had long passed, so we put a price tag on it for $1,000 and titled it
Young Love
.

And then we sat back to watch the reactions of our garage-sale patrons.

It was a fascinating study in human behavior. Some people clearly realized it was a joke, but then there were others (and I probably would have fallen in this category myself) who stared at it for a long time trying to figure out why this picture of two unknown people in denim shirts was worth $1,000. I could tell by their faces that they were wondering if they were passing up some incredible find just because they didn’t have any sort of art education.

By the end of the day, no one had even tried to haggle with us over the price of
Young Love
. There were no takers. I can’t imagine why. Did they not see the denim shirts?

But that portrait started this whole conversation between Gulley, Jon, Perry, and me about Young Love. In those days of engagement portraits and newlywed years, everything is so new. You’re on your
best behavior. When you have an argument, it feels like the end of the world. You can’t eat or sleep until it’s resolved. You might belt out Faith Hill’s song “It Matters to Me” as you drive around the block crying. You think you need to turn off the TV at night so you can have long, meaningful discussions about current events. You still believe it’s a good idea for your husband to go home with you every time you visit your family because you’re worried about what people will think if he doesn’t, even though it means he’s going to be bored for three days straight and may end up going to the mall by himself in a desperate attempt to find something to do.

(This actually happened. It’s the first and last time I’ve ever seen Perry in a mall.)

Young Love is sweet. And naive. And a little exhausting.

Then there’s Old Love. Old Love is the comfortable shoe of relationships. You know each other. Each of you is a little more worn and not as pretty and new as you used to be. And yes, you are going to get irritated beyond all reason when he insists on recording
Drury Outdoors: Wildlife Obsession
when you need the space on the DVR for the new episode of
Parenthood
, but you get over it because that’s just how he is and you know that. He’s been that way for sixteen years. And before the advent of the DVR, he used to record over your VHS recordings of
Friends
. So technology has done nothing except provide you with a new reason to be annoyed.

And when you fight, you no longer feel the need to dramatically slam out of the house and screech out of the driveway and drive around the block like you’re planning to actually go somewhere. You can still eat and believe that you could go DAYS without talking to him and be fine. Because history has proven that it will all work out eventually. That’s Old Love.

At some point during the Young Love portion of our marriage,
maybe a month or so into our new life together, Perry and I got into a conversation about something that has been long forgotten (obviously it was a matter of great importance), and I just couldn’t let it go. We had beaten this dead horse until it was way past time to call it a lost cause. Yet I still wanted to discuss and cry and share all my feelings because that’s what Young Love does. Perry (always the voice of reason) finally said, “It’s late. I’m going to bed. If you want to keep crying about this, then you can follow me upstairs and we’ll talk about it there, but I’m tired and I want to go to sleep.”

And with that, he got up and headed up the stairs. I was stunned. Here I was in the midst of a good crying jag, and he rudely interrupted me with practical considerations such as going to sleep. The more I thought about it, the madder I got, so I picked up our poor, defenseless (and I should mention ONLY) cordless phone sitting next to me and threw it at the wall. (This was light-years before the iPhone. I’d never throw my phone now because it contains the key to my entire life.) It bounced off the wall and crashed to the floor, spewing batteries and battery covers everywhere. It was like Scarlett O’Hara had taken over my body.

I heard Perry’s footsteps as he made his way back down the stairs, peeked his head around the corner, surveyed the telecommunications damage, and calmly said, “Well, that is the most white trash thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.” And, with that, he headed back up the stairs.

That statement pretty much ended the discussion, but we learned two important things that evening. One, do not get into any kind of heated argument at ten thirty at night when you’re both tired and unreasonable, and two, when you are a poor newlywed, it’s best not to throw your only cordless phone.

Oh, and three, if you’re a woman who is prone to throwing
things in fits of anger, it works out really well if you’ve married a man skilled in Sheetrock repair.

I haven’t thrown anything else since. Not because I don’t want to be white trash, but because our stuff is nicer now and I’d hate to break anything. That’s part of transitioning to Old Love. Not to mention that all we have now are iPhones and they tend to not do well when thrown against a hard surface, as evidenced by all the times I’ve accidentally dropped mine.

Plus, as a general rule, Old Love realizes that throwing things usually doesn’t solve the problem. And could also result in a nasty rotator-cuff injury because, well, you’re not in your twenties anymore.

While we’re on the subject, Young Love typically doesn’t live in a very nice home because Young Love is usually poor and just paid for a bunch of presents for bridesmaids and groomsmen. But, on the upside, you’ll probably never again have a sugar bowl without a crack in it or nicer towels than you do at that moment, so enjoy those things while they last.

About a month or so after we got married, some friends of ours invited us to join them at their beach house for a weekend of fishing. This was an older couple, and by older I mean that they were probably not even in their forties at that point, but they seemed old to us because we were twenty-six. And when you’re in your twenties, anyone over thirty seems ancient. It’s a wonder they can even get around without walkers.

So Perry and I drove down to the coast, looking forward to a fun weekend. And it was. We ate good food and laughed and talked with friends and then woke up at an ungodly hour on Saturday
morning to go fish because someone started an ugly rumor a million years ago that fish bite best in the morning.

At some point everyone decided it might be fun to leave the calm, still bay water and head out to where the waves were breaking to look for trout. I didn’t really care one way or the other because YOUNG LOVE
 
—I was just pretending I liked to spend all day out on a boat. The truth was, it was a good opportunity to work on my tan, and if I could make my new husband happy by holding a fishing pole at the same time? Bonus.

Unfortunately, prior to this point in my life, I had no idea that I tend to struggle with seasickness. (This will come up again later in the book.) (No pun intended.) But this quickly became evident as we anchored the boat in the waves and I smelled our live bait and began a desperate attempt to MIND-OVER-MATTER the fact that I was in desperate need of a yuck bucket.

Earlier in the day we’d had a discussion about newlywed life. And I commented that one of the high school girls we mentored had asked me if Perry and I just snuggled on the couch all day long telling each other how much we loved each other. Our older friends laughed at this, and we all agreed that the reality of marriage looks a lot different than you imagine as a swoony sixteen-year-old girl.

As soon as I realized I could no longer use my Jedi mind tricks to fight seasickness, I ran for the edge of the boat and began to empty my digestive system of everything I’d eaten since 1982. There I was. A fresh, new bride. Yacking right in front of my new husband. Our friend Bobby glanced my way and motioned at me with his thumb as he told Perry, “Now that’s a pretty good picture of marriage right there.”

Yes. His delicate bride wiping her mouth before another wave
of nausea hit and she cursed the day eating a bag of Cheetos seemed like a good idea.

Perry later confessed that he was really tempted to just put me in a life jacket and let me bob in the water next to the boat because the fish were biting and he hated to leave a good spot just because I was clearly about to die. It’s a good thing common sense prevailed, because otherwise this would be a short book. A short book entitled
That Time I Killed My New Husband
.

During the first six months of our marriage, Perry and I were fortunate enough to live in a townhome at a reduced rental rate in exchange for Perry’s serving as the property manager. This worked out because he was a youth minister at the time and, in case no one has ever told you, no one is in youth ministry for the money.

It was a nice little place. Two stories with two bedrooms and two baths. Of course, there was a time when the two bedrooms created their own set of issues.

We’d moved my queen-size bed into the master bedroom and put the twin bunk beds from Perry’s childhood room in the second bedroom, because when I call it a bedroom, I’m being generous. It was actually more like a large closet with a window. The problem arose when Perry decided my queen bed wasn’t good for his back and he was just going to sleep in the other room in one of the bunk beds.

You know what isn’t good for a new bride? Hearing that her husband already wants to sleep in a different room. I was sure it was a sign of bad things to come. He was already tired of me, but I wasn’t going down without a fight (Young Love!), so I moved into the guest room with him and slept on the top bunk.