by Kevin Burton
So, what happens at the Burton household when Jeannette is away visiting relatives? Well it’s not fodder for a screenplay, I can tell you that.
You can call it bachelor for a day if you want, but this truly is not that. We have long since commenced functioning as a team, no matter what our physical proximity may be on a given day.
That actually is a running joke between us, very much at my expense.
Understand that my parents had a disaster of a marriage. That probably is fodder for a screenplay. All the good parts of the marriage happened before I was born or when I was too young to know what was going on.
Spin it forward several years, boy Kev meets girl Jeannette. I warmed up to her pretty quickly but was famously wary of marriage. More than one friend was shocked after hearing I had proposed to Jeannette.
In the old days my brother and I joked that based on our parents, “we know what not to do” in a potential future marriage. It’s a good line, but cold comfort as I tried to carve out a real life.
One fateful night when Jeannette and I were dating, she was in Topeka (or Lawrence, or Leavenworth or wherever) for work, she said something to the effect that she missed me. I said something to the effect of “you know J, we’re together, even when we’re not together.”
She has since told me she held the phone out and stared at it thinking, “did he really say that?”
It’s about the least romantic thing you can say. It’s a business agreement kind of thing to say. So guys, learn from my mistakes.
It’s not that Jeannette brings this up sometimes when we are apart for a bit. It’s that she brings it up each and every time we are apart.
So, left to my own devices, what did I do? I followed instructions, that’s what. I changed the cat litter. I tried to fix the sliding closet doors (not yet done, progress though). I printed the last of the three zillion retirement documents she needed.
Two loads of laundry. One sink full of dishes. Raked some leaves, took out the recycling. Took some mail out, brought some mail in.
Even dinner was a honey-do of sorts. I made burritos, using up the leftover eggs that she would never eat, finishing off those three forlorn little flour tortillas just to get them out of the way. I was cleaning out the fridge really.
We (the cats and I) did use the occasion to bump up the volume on the music juuuust a touch more than usual for a Friday night. Earth Wind & Fire, Badfinger, Sly and the Family Stone. Some Supertramp too.
Then I listened to Wichita State Shockers basketball on radio. They beat St. Louis to go to 5-0!
After that, I went back to my multiple fantasy football podcasts, to see what the experts were saying about Deebo Samuel and Kareem Hunt.
Did blogs of course, this one and some others.
Got on the keyboard in the middle of the night, this time without the headphones I use when Jeannette is here.
Jeannette was attending a dinner with her mother at her mom’s assisted living facility. That’s why she’s wasn’t here. The previous night I went to a dinner with my mom at her nursing home. I called mom on my bachelor-for-a-day night, just to check in.
I called Jeannette too, but I didn’t say anything about how we’re together when miles apart.
Before she left, I cooked bacon, eggs and toast Friday morning for Jeannette because I know how she loves it when I cook breakfast. I also did that so she would stop smelling the cat litter.
Yes, I’ve learned a thing or two over the years.
And yesterday, after a good night’s sleep, I welcomed my wife back to a house where there is love and ice cream, coupons she got from Hallmark and extra blankets. All the things that keep you warm as another Kansas winter approaches.
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