WEEKS, I tell you.
For a while, the amount in the box seemed to be shrinking regularly, so I didn't begrudge the box's place on our counter space. Much.
But then came a week where the amount in the box didn't get any smaller. I assumed that Hot Guy had eaten all the flavors he liked. I assumed that the box was just taking up precious counter space in our tiny kitchen. So I threw it away while Hot Guy was at work and I had a rare kitchen cleaning fit.
I had no idea how much my husband apparently loves authentic saltwater taffy.
"WHERE'S MY TAFFY?" he yelled from the kitchen while I was trying to convince the kids that they really did want to go to bed.
"The trash!" I replied cheerfully as I tried to brush Hugmonkey's new teeth.
I'm not an expert on marriage, my friends. But I can tell you that if you throw something your spouse likes away, even if you had a perfectly sensible reason like he hadn't been eating in for weeks and it was probably all stale and the clutter on the kitchen counter was driving you bonkers, you should not do it this way.
"WHAT??????" I know he didn't actually fly up the stairs, but it certainly felt that way. Suddenly he was sort of looming in the bathroom doorway and he looked pissed.
If this was a Lifetime movie, this is the scene where we'd find out the nice guy is actually violent and evil, that's how creepy it seemed. Fortunately, this is not a Lifetime movie and Hot Guy is neither violent nor evil, but he is really, really, into taffy. Apparently. Because he's bought like taffy like twice since.
The gravity of the situation was beginning to sink in, so I launched into a long explanation of my reasoning.
Unfortunately, my reasoning mostly boiled down to, "The kids threw 8 million tantrums today, I'm exhausted, I just wanted to have a clean kitchen, I have PMS and that box of taffy was getting on my last nerve for some unfathomable reason."
Pro Tip: Start with an apology.
"WHY DID YOU THROW MY TAFFY AWAY?" was his reply. Clearly my explanation was not effective in getting him to forget about the taffy and pity me for the tough day I'd had.
In fact, nothing made him forget about the taffy, folks.
Not even approximately 8 years.
That's right. Even though he's only bought taffy 2 other times in the last 8 years, which seems suspicious if it's something he loves SO MUCH, he still complains about it regularly.
He still brings it up so often that the kids will joke about it, even though none of them remember the actual taffy incident.
A few days ago I threw away some gravy.
In my defense, this gravy was approximately a milliliter's worth at the bottom of a measuring cup left out on the counter. Okay, I'm not sure milliliter is correct. I'm old and never learned the metric system properly. But it was definitely less than a quarter of a cup.
Not even an hour later, I heard, "WHERE'S MY GRAVY?" from my life partner.
I've learned something since the taffy incident, friends. I didn't start with, "How was I supposed to know you were saving the gravy left in the bottom of the measuring cup?" I started with an apology.
And a plea that instead of periodically yelling, "Where's my taffy?" he could now yell, "Where's my gravy?"
I think the apology worked, because he stopped yelling about gravy pretty quickly. But the plea didn't. He's still bringing up taffy whenever he loses anything.
Sigh. I left half of a taco shell on my counter when I cleaned up last night. Just in case he was planning on coming back for it.
If you ever show up at my house unannounced, please don't look at my kitchen counters. Deal?
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