I have a chivalrous husband. He runs my bath water. He pumps gas for me. He makes my coffee in the morning. He helps me with technical stuff, like the clock in my car.
“Is that the right time?” he asked me today, when he sat in my passenger seat.
“No, it’s fast,” I affirmed.
“I thought I fixed that for you,” he said, thumping the face of it.
“You did,” I reassured him. “But it keeps skipping ahead. It was only two minutes fast. Now it’s five or six minutes fast.”
“That doesn’t drive you crazy?” He couldn’t understand how I could tolerate the inconsistency between my watch, the stove, and my dashboard.
“No, I like when I think I’m running late for work and I get there and find out I’m early.” I smiled broadly while remembering that feeling. It’s like a massage therapist squeezing my neck tightly, then slowly letting go to relieve the tension; only it’s a lot cheaper.
He didn’t get it. “That seems like a lot of avoidable stress.”
But I wouldn’t know what serenity is if I didn’t chuck a pebble into my placid pond now and then. I create the ripples so I can consume the calm. It’s an addiction.
(Lucy Adams is a syndicated columnist and the author of If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny. She lives in Thomson, GA with her husband and heir four children.)