Friday, April 07, 2006

The Man Made of Oil

I was talking to an old boyfriend the other day. He really has no clue about us, our lifestyle, anything. And doesn’t seem that curious about it either even though he is nice enough to call now and again and I surely do enjoy that he does. Still he seems like a whole lot of other people who seem to assume that if you (we) “got on the right path” (or something), then you’d (we’d) be pursuing the almightly highest dollar too. I always wonder when people’s curiosity will kick in, when their assumptions will run out.

The news that day was of Exxon’s profits. He and I have never talked politics, not 30 years ago and not now, but he brought this up as though I should think it horrid. How did they make such a profit with production down, etc. etc. “Just don’t buy the oil,” said I. Several times. It didn’t seem that even after my suggestion that he considered this a valid alternative.

A little later on the conversation turned to the weather. “It is supposed to get 32 here. Husband said he just might make a fire for me if I was nice,” I said.

“He’d better,” he said, “It’s downright cold.”

“Ah, the charm of cutting wood starts to wear thin by about February and it seems you can do without a fire when the next day is going to be sunny and warm.”

“You ought to have a chainsaw,” he said.

I smiled. “We’re down to a spade and a hoe in the garden, and a bow saw, an ax and a maul for heat.”

“Well, that’s ok if you don’t have much to do.”

And I thought, what do you have to do? Heat one house, not a neighborhood, and only up to so much, not a steady 72. And who are you going to feed? He’s not feeding a large family, that’s for sure, and not feeding them whole and non-poisonous food either. And who is it in this relationship who doesn’t have time to go to a play together, or a concert, or just dinner? It isn’t me. With all that I do, the milking, the making all dairy products, making all bread, all the dailies, even adding horse and garden and fishing and yes working -- who is it who always says he doesn’t have any time?

Bless his heart.

4 comments:

javaseeker said...

Harrumph! We haven't gotten as far into the good life as you yet, but we get the same "must be nice to have the time" bit when we say we bake all our bread, cook from scratch, don't use a microwave to bake a potato, etc. They're the same ones who say they wish they could afford organic, but "wal-mart's so much cheaper". Poor, brainwashed sheep.

Anonymous said...

Javaseeker,

The brainwashing is amazing, and no mistake! On our hardscrabble farmstead the garden is the center of the universe. Once a couple were visiting here and toured the garden and corn plots and such and then said, "Ah, yes, one day we are going to have a garden too, when we can afford it."

!!??

I was as boggled by that as anything in my life, how could you afford to NOT have a garden?! The people I know who sweat away 70 hours a week, most often both spouses, and they are always broke. Yet our large family with an annual cash income that bids fair to stay in the four figure bracket always has money when we need it.

Jim said...

Wow! CG-

You've been holding out on us but now we discover that you have a sweet and lovely voice to temper that wonderful contrariness we all know and love!

More! More!

This comment belongs to the audio post above but for some reason there's no link up there for me to comment from.

CG said...

Hey Jim, thanks, but I turned off the comments there! LOL! MadCap said "sneaky" and Eleu said "cowardly"! Such am I.