Sunday morning I’m downstairs at my desk when my wife pulls in the driveway, back from picking up groceries after church. 

She likes going to the early service. 

I stay behind and write. 

Both reverent in our pews, attentive to the divine.

Hearing the garage door, I walk out to help her carry in. 

Find her sitting in her car, windows up. 

“You on the phone?” I mouth, making a telephone gesture with my left hand. 

She rolls down the passenger window. 

“I wish you could see your Dad right now,” she says. “His boxers are sticking out above his pajama bottoms.”

She has our daughter on speaker. 

“ ‘Thank you for helping carry in the groceries,’  is what she means to say,” I interject, loud enough for the bluetooth to pick up.  

“And his t-shirt’s too small. Belly’s sticking out.” 

I’m provoked into issuing a statement.  

“I will not be shamed for operating in Cozy Mode on a Sunday morning,” I enter into the record. 

“It’s almost noon,” my daughter chimes in on speaker.

I almost miss being a target of their pile-ons. 

“And, let it be known that Cozy Mode may remain in effect for the next several hours,” I add, which is simultaneously the most defiant threat I can think of, and quite possibly the most pathetic utterance of my life. 

“He looks ridiculous,” my wife adds, grossly overstating the obvious.

Or, overstating the gross obvious.  

“OK, I’ll go in and change, and you can carry in the groceries,” I fire back. 

Was pretty proud of that one. I’m usually not that quick. 

“And I’ll take back the salami I picked up for you.”

She is always that quick. 

Caught me flat-footed. I didn’t see the salami coming. 

Night before, she’s putting finishing touches on the grocery order. Asks if there’s anything I want to add. 

I think for a couple seconds.  “Ooh … do we have any ….”

“Don’t even say ‘salami,’”

In legal terms I believe her asking me the question is what’s known as ‘entrapment,’ but I digress. 

I braced a second too late for what I knew was coming next. 

“I’ve thrown out the last three bags you asked me to get.”

This is true. Not sure I even opened ‘em. 

“I’m not getting it again to have to throw it away.”

Totally understand. So wasteful. 

I feel remorse for requesting salami that I habitually ignore.

I’m not sure why I do this. 

I genuinely like salami. I mean, in between two slices of bread with some yellow mustard? Perfection. Makes salads instantly, you know, fancy. Rolled up with a slice of provolone … it’s like Cozy Mode on a plate.

I have it in my head that salami keeps for a long time. Takes weeks to cure, doesn’t it? You always see ‘em hanging from wooden ceilings on TV. 

So I feel no sense of urgency with salami. Assume it’s always going to be there.

I’m surprised when she throws it away. 

Every time she does, part of me thinks, “It’s still good.” 

I realize I may not be in full command of the facts on the topic.   

Maybe I should start treating it like an avocado. 

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. Doesn’t give you a chance to take it for granted. 

Or … maybe I just like the idea of salami more than, you know, consuming it.

Regardless, the way she kiboshed my request before I could even make it the night before left me convinced I’d have a lot of time to ponder the mystery while living out the rest of my salami-free days.

A punishment fitting the crime.

But … she added it to the order. 

Awwwww.

“She still loves me,” I thought.

At least enough to give me another chance.

I may or may not have placed my hand over my heart after she said it. 

Or, you know, over my t-shirt that’s at least one size too small. 

I mean, she got me salami. 

I’ve come to appreciate that such tiny graces are the wobbly cobblestones that give a marriage a chance to find its fragile footing.

“It’s still good,” I thought.

The fact that I only became aware of her kind gesture when she threatened to take it back was not lost on me.

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. 

“We are such an old married couple,” I said, loud enough for the Bluetooth to hear.

For the record, I was praising us, not shaming us.

Love looks different at 54 then it did at 24.

Says the guy whose boxer shorts are peeking out over his drooping pajamas past noon on a Sunday.

Sometimes you have to put on your cheaters to notice how beautiful it still is. 

I went around back to grab the grocery bags.

Still attentive to the divine.