Yardmaster — By Tommy Purser

I learned at an early age to be a bit of a bit of a domestic.
My grandmother gave me cooking lessons when I was still in elementary school. And for a while, I did most of the cooking around the Purser household.
I’ve been known whip up some savory meals and the good wife and I had a deal — I’d cook and she’d clean up. That worked for a while then, slowly but surely, it seemed I was cleaning up more than she was.
That was then, though, and this is now. Things have gotten all whacked up. Here lately, the good wife has gotten back to cooking more and she appears to have come to the conclusion that she, not I, is the best cook … or at least she cooks things the way she wants to. She’s also gotten to where she washes dishes more than I do and that’s fine with me.
She’s also decided that she has developed a distaste for smoke. She repels at the thought of cooking smoked barbecue, for heaven’s sakes, and now prefers a pan fried hamburger over one cook over a bed of smoldering coals, for heaven’s sakes once again.
As a result of her change in eating habits I, too, have had to change my eating habits and I ain’t one bit happy about it.
And another thing has changed.
Years ago, I used to be the head man in charge of our yard. I cut the grass, watered the grass, weeded the grass, fertilized the grass, etc.
I also chose what flowers and shrubs I wanted in the yard, where they should be placed, how often they should be watered, when they should be fertilized, how they should be cared for, etc.
But, ever so gradually, things began to change. It wasn’t an overnight change, it was a creeping change. A change that came about so gradually that I didn’t realize what was happening.
It was so gradually that I didn’t realize it had happened.
But it did happen. And now the change is complete.
My yard authority has been usurped. The good wife is now in charge. I have absolutely no sayso these days.
Today, she, not I, is in charge of the yard. She decides what’s planted, where it’s planted, when it’s planted and whether or not it needs to be moved.
The other day, I decided to move my rose bushes to another location. Notice I said “my” rose bushes. She suggested the best spot to move my roses and, after I moved them, she saw fit to correct me.
“You didn’t listen to me,” she said. “That’s not where I said to move them.”
Mind you, they were a mere foot or two away from the aforementioned spot she had chosen but, nonetheless, I stood corrected.
And another thing. I’ve decided I want a lap dog. A snuggly, little, cutesy dog that would so love me he’d become my constant companion.
But the good wife nipped that idea in the bud.
“I know what’ll happen,” she announced, hands on hips in her best I’m-the-boss pose. “I’ll wind up having to clean up behind it. AND feed it!”
Oh, I simply hate it when she’s right.