“Make your husband’s homecoming in the evening an important event.  Don’t let him walk into a cold, dark house.  Make dinnertime a special occasion.” Arlene Dahl, Always Ask a Man

Ian works two jobs, one as a newspaper photographer and the other as the director at the local Teen Center.  But this means that he is home a lot, so there’s isn’t much of a “greeting” phase, since I’m the one that works outside the home, jezebel that I am*.

But Thursdays he works afternoons, so for today’s stunt, I wanted to have dinner ready to go on the table as soon as he got home just after 6.  Then he got a call that he had an assignment at 6:30, pushing dinner back to 7 or later.  And I STILL panicked about getting it done on time.  I was planning to fry the ham, but the instructions said to bake, and clearly, I’m a slave to instructions. The sauce I tried to cleverly whip up tasted like soap, so that had to go.  I even got the table set!

But the ham is baked, salads are done, with two minutes to spare . . . but where is the Honey?  He’s late, which isn’t exactly his fault, but is there some housewife time-science I’m not privvy to?  How did Arlene know when her man was coming home, especially without a cell phone?  Or did he just have to eat a cold dinner?

My ex, Aaron, used to freak the eff out if I even spoke to him when he got home from work.  He said he needed time to decompress, and since he wouldn’t let me cook, that meant waiting in front of ESPN while he ate cookie dough out of the tub (yes, tub) without offering me any until he was finally ready for the difficult task of getting a pizza.  But Ian’s not a jerk, so when he DID come home, he was happy that I stood up off the couch and let him know that dinner was ready.

Ian enjoyed having dinner on the table when he came home…now if I could just get him to come home on time!