The Great Mystery

The Great Mystery

It is impossible to imagine what our child will be like coming from parents so starkly contrasted in both personality and looks. I’ll go so far as to squint at my husband — attempting to transplant his square shoulders and mountain-man scruffies onto a baby girl with my coloring and pointed chin — and I get stuck.

“What?” he asks. “Got something on my face?”

Then I try to figure out the amalgam between Randy’s introverted personality and my own, which at times has been compared to a hyperactive golden retriever, and the same thing happens. What kind of child can be created from one parent who rates meeting new people right up there with the Apocalypse and one parent who considers the checkout girl at Wal-Mart to be a potential best friend?

Even the way my husband and I cook is polar opposite. I believe recipes are mere suggestions whereas Randy adheres to every teaspoon and pinch as if his culinary soul depends upon it. He always keeps a damp cloth handy so he can wipe down the stovetop if a speck of food dare leap from the pan to mar its shiny black surface, and every item is immediately returned to the cupboard as soon as my husband finishes uses it. The first five seconds I cook are as organized and calm as a Martha Stewart production. But when dinner hits the table fifteen minutes later, I am wearing an apron made from whatever mystery ingredients were involved and the walls around the oven resemble a Jackson Pollock canvas.

I am also slightly disheveled when it comes to home repairs. Eight years ago I traveled with my husband’s family to Bogota, Colombia, where we painted an entire floor of an orphanage. By the time we left two weeks later, my skin was coated with more sea-foam green than the walls. My husband seems to be scarred from this memory. I don’t know if he doesn’t want his wife looking like a knockoff version of the Wicked Witch of the West or if he fears for our home, but he always plugs his ears and hums whenever I bring up a project involving paint, glitter, hammers, or caulk.

I would love for Baby Girl to adore the arts like I do — to play the cello, read Shakespeare by candlelight, and wear long prairie skirts and feathered earrings — but as far as business smarts are concerned, I hope she takes after Daddy.

This week we drove to Knoxville to look at a new vehicle since my Jeep has been on its last tire for the past decade. As my husband pulled into the used car parking lot, I said, “You offered below the asking price, right?”

Randy nodded.

“What did he say?”

“He’d take it.”

“I knew it!” I swatted the dashboard. “We shoulda offered less. He’s obviously chomping at the bit to sell.”

Randy shook his head. “We’re already offering a thousand below the asking price, we certainly can’t ask lower now.”

I agreed, but if my husband hadn’t been there, I still would’ve tried dickering with the salesman even after coming to an agreement over the phone. As it was, that salesman just didn’t feel like giving me any more of his time when I finished looking at the car we had traveled an hour and a half to see and wanted to test drive another just for fun. I think it had something to do with how I’d pointed out every minute imperfection on the first car’s body and said — so that the higher ups in the offices could hear — that the vehicle looked like it had hail damage.

Hopefully, Baby Girl will take after Daddy when it comes to keeping her mouth shut, too.