Food Fight: A Dimwitted Man is Easily Outsmarted

She’s like a psychological Sun Tsu of domestic warfare. I probably never stood a snowball’s chance in hell in this particular conflict, and I never even saw it coming

And yet, I rode arrogantly into the ambush like a hopeful Browns fan named Custer with a belly full of beer right before the first quarter of a game against the Lakota in Little Big Horn Stadium. Mixed and confusing metaphor, I know. That’s not the point. Send help… and a chef.

“She just sits there with an unsettling grin on her pretty little face, munching away and doling out compliments between contented bites.”

It started, as most of my problems do, with way too much hubris on my part. I recently began working from home and setting my own deadlines, and I was feeling a little heady. My girlfriend was busy with her real job, so I felt compelled to offer to help out by making dinner for us. Initially, it kind of came from a good place.

Except that it really didn’t, or, if it did, it didn’t stay there very long. At any rate, there was definitely some unspoken “I have time to do this now and you don’t” pride involved when I confidently decreed, “You know what? I’ll just take over cooking dinner from now on!” You heard me. And I didn’t stop there.

“In fact,” I boasted with completely unwarranted confidence and a dash (wait, that’s a cooking word, right?) of superiority, “I’ll just do all of the grocery shopping as well.” And then, just for good measure (another cooking word! [kinda]), “I’ll be sure to do most of the cleaning around the house too.” Go big or go home, right?

In my defense, a little of this was actually rooted in guilt. I’d left behind my insufficient but steady previous paycheck to pursue a professional interest with a much less guaranteed income, and I’d left her (once again) to play the role of the responsible adult in a relationship where there really ought to be two. She’s a saint, and I’m… “challenging”, to say the least.