HIM:  She made a list of New Year’s promises but nothing that would knock me off a chair. Since the list was bereft of anything that I could cheer about, allow me to draw up “Resolutions I would like to have heard her make.”

Resolution #1: She will quit smoking. Not only is it a dangerous, unhealthy habit…it is expensive. The cheapest cigarettes you can buy are a brand called Checkers which sells for $5.00 a pack at Tedeschi’s in the center. At two packs a day that comes out to be $70 a week, or $280.00 a month, or $3,360 annually…if the price remains constant. That’s a lot of money for something that can kill you! She is a bright woman, smarter then me…which is what baffles me about this habit.

Resolution #2: She will serve me breakfast in bed. First let me say, I am a prince. Maybe not a king but certainly deserving of being served breakfast in bed once a week, or at the least, once a month. I am a hard worker with a seven day a week schedule, what a great way to say, “I appreciate all that you are.” All I would require would be two eggs over easy on top of a generous serving of corned beef hash (with sautéed onions added), baked beans, home fries and corn bread. Instead, she tells me to stop at Persy’s and get the same thing with less fuss. It’s just not the same thing.

Resolution #3: She will make my mother’s meatloaf recipe: My favorite food is meatloaf with hard cooked eggs in the center. Each meatloaf slice has a nice round egg section to savor. She has made me meatloaf but refuses to add the egg. She tells me that the egg part went out 42 years ago when she agreed to marry me. “If you wanted egg in your meatloaf then you should have stayed at home.” My mother has been gone for years; would it be a big deal then to memorialize her a couple of times a year with a resurrection of her meatloaf recipe. She knows I am right on this issue but is too stubborn to admit it. I turned 67 two days after Christmas and my daughter Sue asked us over for a birthday dinner. I requested meatloaf with eggs in the middle and she said, “No problem.” Why can’t I get the same compliance from her?

Resolution #4: She will learn to pump her own gas. She absolutely refuses to use a self service gas pump. I offer to show her how to do this simple chore but she always responds, “I don’t want to know how.” The fact that gas costs more when an attendant has to pump it for you is of no consequence to her. She is totally irrational on this matter and I believe it would show real emotional growth if she tackled this issue in 2009.

Resolution # 5: She will stop nagging me about my driving. For someone who can’t pump gas she certainly has a lot to say about my driving. Her nagging begins from the moment we pull out of the driveway and doesn’t end until we arrive at our destination. For survival sake I make sure our trips are short ones, Braintree being the longest trek since 2001. She’ll stiffen up and say “watch out!” My head has to turn in all directions since I never know what great danger she is reacting to…which turns out to be that the guy in front of us was stopping to make a turn. All the required components of driving, like, slowing down, stopping, making turns, passing, accelerating when entering a highway, turning on the defroster, wiper blades or radio, become life altering decisions for someone who can’t pump gas.

Resolution #6: She will stop throwing out my sneakers . I love my sneakers, all of them. I form attachments with my sneakers and am loath to throw out a pair even when I buy a new pair. There is nothing more comfortable then an old pair of well worn sneakers with holes in the canvas. I feel the same way about wallets. Sneakers and wallets conform to your body contours, a process that can take years in order to get it just right. When it’s not raining or snowing and it’s not a teaching day…out comes the old sneakers, about 2-3 pairs to select from. She’s sneaky though and needs to be watched. On numerous occasions I look in the closet and find a pair or two missing. I immediately search the garbage bags and retrieve them. Lately she has become diabolical; she scrapes table scraps over them in order to impede my rescue attempts. She’s got to be stopped! A simple resolution would be welcomed.

Resolution #7: She will give me her undivided attention. I think it is only fair to say that I have much to say and that the calibre of what I have to say is such that she should provide me with her full attention. She constantly tells me that I have already had the same discussions with her over the years and since nothing has changed it does not bear repeating. She considers other topics irrelevant, some inane, many simply rants, and several simply stupid. I consider that to be a broad enough view as to leave very little else to talk about. Rather than dwell on her inability to recognize quality banter, I simply think out loud; she can choose to either listen to or ignore these thoughts. It does become tedious though to have both the first and last word.

HER:  When Dan took a trip to Israel and Egypt some years ago, his roommate, having spent one night in a bedroom with him, ran screaming to the tour director demanding a single room. What a twinkie that guy was. After 42 years of sharing a life with him, I deserve a medal, not suggestions on how I can improve. I’m lucky not to be wearing a strait jacket and a hat made out of aluminum foil and a coat hanger.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. His mother, God rest her soul, was a brilliant woman who could list my faults with the precision of a NASA scientist monitoring a moon walk, but she could not cook. Meatloaf, a terrible abomination and waste of meat, is not improved by the presence of two gray-rimmed cooked egg yolks and that rubbery white coating in the center. They look like pus on a gangrenous wound. I just can’t do it.

You would think that 42 years of marriage would disabuse him of the notion that I will change to any great degree. He still treats me the like the 16 year-old he met so long ago. If I hadn’t had a rich and full life before I met him, I’d still believe a house only needs three rooms, the bedroom, the laundry room, and the kitchen. He, and all his kind, are the reason the feminist movement was born.

He does not hear a word I say unless it’s about food. He has no idea what I do all day, but he’s certain that whatever I do pales in importance to what he does. As far as breakfast in bed, let me say that any woman who has endured labor repeatedly has no business serving breakfast in bed to the man that caused it unless both his legs are broken, God forbid.

Throwing out his sneakers is a kindness. I think people realize I don’t dress him, but I do try to keep him from looking needy by throwing out shoes that barely have soles. I throw out some of his clothes as soon as he brings them home from Ocean State. It’s not that you can’t find a good bargain there, but he doesn’t need thermal long johns in size 4X even though they were a steal at two dollars. Often I’ve sent his new clothes to a shelter for homeless men, and I’ve yet to get a ‘thank you’.

Why should I learn to pump gas? I don’t have a car, and even when I did, the idea held no appeal for me. Everyone should get their gas pumped by someone who knows what he’s doing and get their windshield wiped down like they did in the old days. That made sense and people had jobs doing that. Today you have to check yourself out at the gas station, the supermarket and Wal-Mart which is ridiculous. You’re there to give them your money and they put you to work for nothing which is a bit less than they pay their poor employees. It’s insanity and sociologically unacceptable.

I nag everybody about their driving. It’s what I do.

He has me on the smoking issue, but if I didn’t smoke cigarettes, I would gnaw my hands down to the wrist bones every time he calls me ‘the little woman’. I think he watched too many John Wayne movies as a kid. He praises me with the same voice he uses on his favorite dog. This may be the reason I don’t give him my undivided attention when he speaks because if I listened to everything he says I might be tempted to harm him.

I have my own New Year’s resolution. I will try to acknowledge and focus on his qualities and ignore his faults, and one resolution of that magnitude is enough.

Happy New Year Everybody!