The Missus and I were grocery shopping today and one of the
items we were looking for, Kleenex, sparked a memory.
In the late 1980s, I was a 20-something action-adventure
paramedic living in Cincinnati. I was
working a lot of jobs, mostly related to EMS, but still didn’t have much money,
mainly because I worked in EMS. But I
was happy. I had my own apartment, a
small circle of intensely close friends, did an exciting and important job, and
had no serious cares. I am also the type
who doesn’t equate being alone with being lonely and was comfortable with spells
of solitude. Most people who knew me at
the time (except those intensely close friends) assumed that I was going to be
a lifelong bachelor. It may well have
turned out that way because there wasn’t a need to change anything.
And then I met Shelagh.
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| The particularly pretty one and I met while running here. This squad is where we first kissed... BEST. VEHICLE. INVENTORY. EVER. |
As a result, in early 1992 I moved out of my apartment and into suburbia. The house I was moving into was instant and unadulterated “American Dream”…it came complete with a wife, two kids and two dogs.
It was a bit of an adjustment for me. As in, the Titanic took on a bit of water. While Shelagh and the boys had been living as
a family unit since Alan was born, I had been flying solo for the better part
of a decade, including the formative years of my early and mid-20s. There were any number of bachelor ways that
failed to conform to the standards of the landed gentry and, more importantly, family
man.
Gradually, I caught on.
Besides becoming fluent in British English, I became a better team
player, thinking in terms of ‘we’ and ‘us’ instead of ‘me’ and ‘I’. I became used to and adopted the various folkways
and traditions of the family I had married into. I was introduced to the concept of laundry
hampers, a truly radical idea for a guy whose apartment had been right across
the hall from the laundry room. We
decorated the house together, including a brief bit of madness where the particularly
pretty one and I tried hanging wallpaper together. Throughout the process of catching on,
however, I never had to give up the core of my identity: action-adventure
paramedic.
So I continued my paramedic ways, doing the things paramedics
do, and thinking in the twisted-but-self-preservational way that paramedics
have to think to survive the horrible things we encounter. I thought that little had changed in me,
except my behaviors at home. Then it
happened.
I was given a shopping list.
It included Kleenex. As I hit the
tissues aisle I started examining my choices.
The type with lotion was out since they are the exact opposite of helpful when
trying to clean your glasses. I found
the type I wanted and started to figure out which box colors would be
appropriate for the rooms where we keep Kleenex.
“Wait,” I thought to myself. “Colors? Where the hell did that come from?”
I stopped thinking about Kleenex and started thinking about
my own thought processes. At no point
did Shelagh ever tell me I picked the wrong color of tissue box, nor would
she. If brought home a red box for
placement in a room that was predominantly green in its décor, there would have
been no problem. No scoffing or
sighing. No rolled eyes or frowns. It would simply be put where it was needed. It was just a box of Kleenex. I was the one with the aesthetic tissue
issue. It came from me.
My arms dropped to my side, my jaw went slack, and I lost
focus on what was in front of me when I realized what had happened.
“Dear God,” I thought.
“I’ve been domesticated.”
