Who's the Anal One?

Have you ever had one of those moments? You know, one of those moments when you look over at your husband and think to yourself, "Really, I married this guy?"

One such moment occurred to me yesterday afternoon. We got home from church and were trying to decide what to have for lunch. We had leftover chicken enchiladas we had made the night before, but decided to save those for dinner. I thought a grilled cheese sandwich sounded really good until I saw the jar of peanut butter in the cabinet. I hadn't had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in so long and nothing was going to stop me. My husband thought it sounded pretty good too. So begins our story.

I will tell you I'm usually the uptight, anal one about most things. But there are a few things my husband is very anal about. I just didn't know a pbj was one of them.

I had no idea the preparation or calculated steps that must be taken to make a pbj for my husband. I was going to put the peanut butter and jelly into a bowl and mix it all together before I put it on my bread (my favorite way because that's how my grandma always made it for me). Oh, the look of disgust on my husband's face. It was as if I was about to commit the sin of the century.

He said, and I quote, "You can't do that. The peanut butter has to be on one piece of bread and the jelly on the other. It needs to be about 1/8 inch thick and has to be spread from corner to corner with no bread exposed. The peanut butter and jelly can only come together when you put the two pieces of bread together. And you have to use two knives."

Wow. That was my moment. "Really, I married this guy?"

So I decided to humor him not disgust him and forgo mixing my peanut butter and jelly beforehand. I spread out some peanut butter to which my husband said, "That's not right. You have a big ridge of peanut butter and all of the bread is not covered."

"Really, I married this guy?"

And then came the jelly. I plopped some jelly on and spread it out only to hear, "That's not right. The jelly belongs on the other slice of bread and it's not even. There's still bread exposed."

"Really, I married this guy?"

Then it was Mr. Anal's turn. As he made his perfect pbj he said, "Good thing about this squeeze jelly is you can strategically place it where you want it."

"Really, I married this guy?"

I kid you not, as he was about to join the two pieces of bread together for their first meeting, his mind was blown. "I can't do this now. The bread doesn't line up."

"Really, I married this guy?"

And here is the point where I almost choked to death on my pbj: my anal husband sat down to partake of his perfection and said, "Now with each bite I take, there won't be any dead bread."

Yeah, every last millimeter of bread was covered with peanut butter and jelly.

And really, I married this guy.