A few days ago, my ex-husband Marvin had a dentist appointment in our neighborhood. Marvin doesn't even live in Greensboro anymore, and I don't know why he doesn't switch from our old dentist, but who am I to nag him? I have handed the baton of nagging duties to his next wife.
The point is, we decided to meet for lunch after the dentist. He had really wanted to see the dogs, so I said, "Just come to my house after and hang with them. In fact, why don't you pick up stuff from the place and we can eat at my house?"
What's nice about having been married to someone for 39494939 years is you can say "stuff from the place" and he knows what you mean.
"I'm having lunch with Marvin," I told Ned, who as usual has no issue with Marvin or with the part where almost all my friends are men or with anything, really. Ned is what you'd call self-assured. Plus there's the part where I am a giant moon of mooniness around Ned, so it's not like he ever has to ask himself, " I wonder if June likes me?" That'd be like me wondering if Edsel liked me.
"Marvin is bringing lunch over so he can hang with Edsel and Tallulah. He'll screw up my order."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I told him what I wanted from the place, and he'll get me the wrong thing. Fifteen years of marriage. He always picked up the wrong thing."
Always, you guys. Always. Once it was Christmas Eve, and I think I had a cold or maybe we were having people over or something. I forget what. The point is, I sent Marvin to the store for tomato paste and he came home with tomatoes. "It's the SAME THING," he kept insisting.
Since it was Christmas Eve, I couldn't just GO BACK to the store, and I cried, and from that moment on we always referred to The Great Tomato Incident of 2003 when I'd GO GET STUFF MY OWN DAMN SELF.
So I got home from work Monday and Marvin had just gotten there with the food from the thing. "What'd you get me?" I asked.
"A gyro and a Cheerwine."
...!
It was all I could do not to text Ned right then and there. "But I wanted a Pepsi," I said.
"They didn't HAVE Pepsi. So I got you a Cheerwine."
See. Now, if it were YOU, and someone asked you to get them a PEPSI, would you not then get them a Coke if they had no Pepsi? I mean, unless you were getting soda for one of those rabid PEPSI ONLY or JUST COKE FOR MEEEEE freaks, which I am not.
I don't know how it is Marvin and I got divorced.
Anyway, I filmed for you Marvin's entrance into my house, because I was kind of excited to see how the dogs would react to him.
They didn't.
He'd already been there that day, since his dentist appointment got out early, and I'd SAID he could come over (he fixed the TV!), but he also said they weren't excited to see him the FIRST time he walked in.
I mean, maybe the dogs seem excited to you, but trust me. I've seen the Ashley-comes-home-from-the-war greeting they do with people they're excited to see. Yes, I DID pull that tired example out again.
And Edsel always, ALWAYS has something in his mouth when he comes to the door. Usually one of my shoes. But if I've actually tidied up, he'll pull a dish cloth out the laundry. Would anyone like a dog?
So that was pretty much it. Marvin and I gossiped about our families and TinyTown and I asked him about his wedding plans (so far, no official date set) and that was it. I went back to work and he went back to his regularly scheduled life.
Maybe the dogs were pissed off about the Cheerwine.
