The Grilled Cheese Sandwich and the Irrational Lady

This past weekend I wasn’t feeling so great.   It was Sunday afternoon and so I was laying around in my pajamas, downing Sprite and saltines.   Lunch time came around and Chris asked what I felt like eating.   Grilled cheese, please.   I love grilled cheese sandwiches on a cold day so much that I didn’t care what this Bean in my stomach wanted to eat, I was going to have a grilled cheese sandwich.   Then I discovered that we were out of cheese and I crawled back in my hole on the couch and continued to complain about my stomach hurting.

To shut me up Because he’s a sweetie, Chris offered to run to the store and get some cheese for me.   Perfect!   I continued my wallowing and he ran up to the grocery store.   A few minutes later, he comes back into the house holding a pack of sliced cheese in one hand and an entire McDonald’s extra value meal in the other.

“I brought you cheese,” he said.

I could actually feel the irratinal anger filling my veins.   I could feel it seeping into my face and bursting blood vessels.   I could feel it steaming out of my ears.

“You. Brought. Me. Cheese?” I said.

“Yeah.   Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“You stopped and bought yourself an entire meal at McDonalds and didn’t stop for one second to think that maybe I’d prefer a double quarter pounder WITH CHEESE instead?!?!”

(I should mention here that I don’t even like McDonalds…)

At this point, Chris starts to back off like an antelope that has accidentally entered a pride of lions.   He slowly sets down the cheese on the counter, and starts to back up into the living room, never turning his back to me.

“Now, settle down, Kate,” he says.   “You wanted a grilled cheese, so I brought you cheese.   I think you’re about to be ridiculous, so I’m just going to sit here in the living room and you stay there in the kitchen and cool off a bit.”

I knew he was right.   I knew I was overreacting.   I knew that no sane person would murder someone over an extra value meal, but at that moment in time I did not trust myself around the kitchen knives.   I’m not a violent person, but I could have hit him right in the face.   Really.

So, I spend the next hour slamming things around in the kitchen.   I slam down the pan on the stove.   Slam down the butter tub.   Slam down the bread.   And I practically hurl the cheese across the room.

And the whole time I am thinking to myself, “You’re being ridiculous.   You’re overracting.   He brought you the cheese.   Let him live.”

Finally, one hour and one grilled cheese later, after I had contemplated divorcing him verses killing him, I took several   deep breaths and went into the living room.

And I apologized.

Man, I hate apologizing.   But I did it.   Because I knew I was being ridiculous.   And because my grilled cheese was really good.   And because Chris brought me cheese. But much to my delight, when I was hugging him, Chris whispered, “Maybe next time I could call you if I’m going to McDonalds.”

“He must know how close he came to death,” I thought.