Mixed marriages are somewhat more challenging than those in which the partners share identical backgrounds... yet they can be successful despite the odds against them. This I know from personal experience: She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have been happily hitched for over thirty-five years despite a fundamental difference in our upbringing.
What is that fundamental difference? Glad you asked.
It is not a difference of a religious nature: both the Missus and I are Jewish. We have never had to grapple with the issues related to raising children in a household in which two belief systems coexisted. There was never a seasonal battle between Chanukah and Christmas factions, nor any problems with accommodating the disparate holiday observances of two different families.
It is not a difference of regional culture, despite the fact that I am a damnyankee from New York and the Missus hails from the Lone Star State, part of the old Confederacy. The fact is, back during the Late Unpleasantness, our progenitors were too busy being chased around by pitchfork packing, pogrom plying peasants in eastern Europe to be concerned about matters Union and Confederate. Our accents may be a bit different, but that’s about as far as our regional divide separates us. (Well, that and SWMBO’s unexplainable desire to drink iced tea in the dead of winter.)
No: it is a difference much more fundamental than region or religion, a difference that even transcends politics. It is a difference that is brought into sharp focus this time of year, when the Missus and I are with her family at the onset of the holidays.
She Who Must Be Obeyed, you see, grew up in a family of Unders. I, on the other hand, was raised to be an Over from my earliest days.
I refer, of course, to the direction of the Toilet Paper Roll. Some people adopt the benighted and backward practice of arranging the roll so that the paper hangs down under the roll; others, far more enlightened, hang the paper over the roll.
It is a tribute to SWMBO’s high intelligence and adaptability that she and I have never had any disagreements on this issue. Since before we established our household together, she has, along with me, been a member of the Over camp.
My in-laws (save for Morris William), however, still live in the outer darkness of the Under tribe. And I needs must grit my teeth with restrained rage whenever I take a crap in their house.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
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9 comments:
No, no, don't grit your teeth in that situation. Keeping your mouth relaxed helps the process along -- or so I've heard....
It is a fact that little kitties are drawn to the over flapping in the breeze. The under is against the wall and does not flap. Unders wins!
The horror! The horror!
Pish tosh! Minor difference of opinion. The TRUE test of water closet compatibility is a little known secret that many couples only find out about after marriage. How you hang the paper is a mere prelude to the REAL deal breaker. The truly civilized fold the paper along the creases and count squares based on the difficulty of the job. Much superior to the wad and swab crowd. Barbarians...
The logic in the "under" practice is to tear the paper needed against the roll as it comes from under the roll. In other words, my ass doesn't really care.
Over is the only civilized way to unspool your butt wipe. That is not opinion, but fact.
A true barbarian squeezes the toothpaste in the middle, instead of from the end. Shortly after our marriage I had to tell my lovely bride to stop that foolishness and 28 years later all is well.
That is also the only time I have told her what she can or cannot do. I am glad I used it something important.
As someone else said earlier, I am a convert to under after many years of being an over. The conversion facilitated by the presense of a little Birman kitten who came to live with us. That little sucker can unroll a roll of TP mounted in the over fashion in about ten seconds. The under frustrates him as he cannot get it unrolled so he just bites big jagged holes in the roll. Hand placement then becomes critical when using it!
And then are some of us who transcend the over/under debate. I speak on behalf of those who dont even bother to hang the roll.
Given a kittie-less venue, I' am an over. But after seeing one of my cats running up the center of the house with the loose end of twenty feet of toilet paper, I became an under.
At eh office, it seems that we're a mix. Fortunately I'm ambidextrous.
MC
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