Life With My Geek…..Chopsticks

I live with a geek.  Because of this, there is A LOT of material provided to me for all sorts of fun-making.  I try really hard not to exploit my geek in my writing, as exploitation of others is mostly a bad thing.  Don’t get me wrong; I TOTALLY make fun of him to his face, but I’m remiss about doing so in front of the whole blog sphere.  However, great material is great material, and it’s with my geek’s permission that I offer my first installment of “Life With My Geek”.

CHOPSTICKS

The Geek is prone to making sweeping statements.  Some of them get adopted into his everyday life, and some (thank heavens) are forgotten as soon as the moment has passed.  Last year The Geek came home from work, walked through the kitchen with his motorcycle helmet still on his head, and announced that he “needed to spend more time walking around in his underwear”. 

Random.  Out of the blue.  And totally adopted into his life.  It is now not uncommon for him to walk into the kitchen and grab a cup of coffee wearing only a bowling shirt with flames on it, manties, and  black dress socks pulled all the way up his scrawny legs. “Why don’t you just put on your pants while you’re getting the rest of you dressed?” I ask.  To which he replies, “‘CAUSE I’M WALKING AROUND IN MY UNDERWEAR!”

Clearly.

Last week, during dinner, The Geek stated that he should start eating everything with chopsticks.  I stared at him.  I’ve found that if you don’t say anything and just look at people, they often unravel little pieces of themselves that give you great insight.  (In The Geek’s case, that insight usually either makes me laugh until I’m crying, or it frightens me and reminds me that I could probably only make it about 37 seconds if I were trapped in his head.)

I go on staring, and thinking to myself, “great, here comes another THING”.  He’s walking over the the silverware drawer, yammering on about how great it’s going to be for him to only eat with chopsticks from now on.  Grabbing my new, lovely chopsticks, he sits back down and digs in.

How does this sort of stuff occur to him?  Seriously.  How?  I would get it if we were eating Chinese food.  Or Japanese food.  Or even something with the thinnest hint of anything oriental.  Even American food with an oriental condiment.  But we had none of that.

The Geek proceeds to eat his pork chop, roasted curried veggies, and couscous with chopsticks.  And he was monumentally please with himself, going on and on about how good it was going to be for him to eat with chopsticks.  Listening to this was a testament to my self control.  I did not, even once, roll my eyes.  Why would I roll my eye, you ask?

Have you EVER watched someone eat couscous with chopsticks?

It’s painful.

And it goes on and on and on and on and on for a painfully long time.

The Geek was true to his word, and has eaten every meal at home with chopsticks.  Everyone else in this nut house accepted this without blinking their eyes, which makes me wonder about a good many things.  Brats with chopsticks?  Check.  Indian food with chopsticks?  Check.  Salad?  Check mate.

So you can imagine my surprise when I walked through the kitchen yesterday and noticed The Geek eating his lunch with a fork.  “You done with the chopstick thing?” I ask.

The Geek gives me the same look that he gives me when I can’t find the ‘on’ switch on a computer.  The look that says he can’t BELIEVE he’s married to someone who copes with such insurmountable mental challenges.  And then he says:

“NO!  I’m not done with the chopstick thing.  But you can’t eat scrambled eggs with chopsticks; that’s just wrong.”