The Making of a Manservant

Apparently, I'm the lion samurai and Dave is the dinosaur pulling my rickshaw. ...With a..bra on his eyes? Image by "Wild Guru Larry"

I’ve recently noticed this terrible habit I have of asking Dave to do things for me that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself.

I don’t mean boy things like killing bugs and installing shelves and other gender stereotypes that I’m happy to burden him with.  I mean things like getting me a glass of water when we’re both comfortably sitting beside each other in the same room.  

Or sometimes I ask him where things are that I know he’s never touched or had any reason to touch.   Not because I’m accusing him, but because I’m enlisting him on a search in which he has no personal stake but to prevent me from warping into a frustrated, impossible beast.  I need him to be on my side and on the hunt.  Not only is it a good tactical step because it doubles  my searching power in the house, but I get some kind of personal relief in the knowledge that finding the item is not just my burden to carry.  

That, and he’s a damn good hunter.  It’s probably the man in him.  Or the common sense.  I lack both so it’s hard to gauge.

I’m not sure why I do this.  I was never specifically taught it.  And as far as I know I haven’t always done it.  It’s just something I’ve kind of noticed as he and I are together longer and longer….and longer… and longer.

Not only am I surprised at the realization that I do this, but I’m kind of shocked that it works.  Not that I intentionally have sought to make this a dynamic in our relationship, but now that I look back on it, it’s pretty obvious that it has a high success rate.   It’s alarmingly effective.  In fact, sometimes he elects to do things that I haven’t even asked him to do but he has a hunch I want.

That’s love.

For example, last night I ordered Take Out from the Cheesecake Factory because I’m apparently on a quest to spend all the money I make ever.  He went to pick it up for me and when he came back, I was missing the cheesecake. …Which is obviously the most important component of the entire transaction.

If you’re going to name your establishment a factory when it’s actually a restaurant,  you can at least have the good sense to be efficient at carrying out the business you appear to be so fantastic at that you can name yourself a freaking factory.  A manufacturer of cheesecake.  One that produces – and presumably delivers – mass quantities of cheesecake.

Anyway, after the realization that the slice was missing, Dave offered to go back and get it.  To go back and get it! He went to pick up food for me in the first place that he had absolutely no stake in and yet offered to do it a second time!?

In retrospect, I suppose doing so had two positive outcomes for him.  First, he didn’t have to see me transform into a frustrated, impossible beast (which apparently happens when I lose things and when I don’t receive cheesecake that is owed to me) and second, he could rest at night knowing that the local Cheesecake Factory didn’t hear me give them my shpeal on how they have no business calling themselves a factory.

I’m kind of concerned at the recognition of this power.   I would hope that I use it for good and attempt to stop asking Dave to do things I’m perfectly capable of doing myself.  But there’s also the slight possibility that I could use it for evil and see what I can get away with.

Imagine the possibilities. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011, relationships