AVOIDING A FIGHT

Today Phil came into the house and said, "I saved you."

I said, "What? You saved me? Don't you mean, you saved 'us'?"

"No, you," he said.

"Oh, thank you, then," I said as I came toward him. I put my hands on his arm and caressed him. He smiled for just a minute until he realized my hands were dripping wet.

He said, "Hey," and pulled away but I wasn't finished, I reached up and cupped his face. By now he's laughing.

He put his cold fingers on his neck.

We laughed together and then I gave him a saucy look and went back into the kitchen to finish getting dinner and he went downstairs.

This might have turned out so differently. I might have said other things, like "we are in this together, buster and don't you forget it!"

And then he would have retaliated and there might have been a fight. A fight over NOTHING!

I'm glad we were silly instead. It was much more fun and then after dinner he read to me while I wrapped caramels and then I read to him while he wrapped caramels. When he read he inserted words to see if I were paying attention and they made the text very interesting. If we had fought earlier I would have wrapped alone and he would have been alone downstairs and it would have been a miserly, lonely evening.