Laura on Life

Compromise

By Laura Snyder

[October 21, 2009]  If I had it my way, my bedroom would have cranberry-colored carpeting, cherry wood furniture, a canopy bed and light, rose-colored walls. I have an alpha male who lives with me, however, and he believes that rose-colored anything is for sissies.

This is a man who won't even drink herbal tea. He calls them froufrou teas. If it was up to my husband, our bedroom would look like a portable military barracks, only not as clean.

As a result of the gap between our ideals and our many years of compromise, our bedroom, indeed our entire house, doesn't look like what either of us would call perfect.

I wanted cranberry carpet. He wanted the great outdoors. We settled for green carpet. I sneaked in a quilt that has cranberry highlights and some rose-colored elements. He starts out sleeping under this offensive quilt, but as if his unconscious body knows it's being touched by some sort of femininity, he wakes up in the morning, having shed the quilt at some point, wrapped in the blue and white blanket that is underneath.

He brought a giant banana tree plant into the bedroom to give it a "woodsy" air. The smell of dead leaves and dirt is presumably something he must have to sleep. It probably negates the effects of the quilt. However, the hem of my bathrobe is apparently the perfect length to drag across the top of the planter. Although my slippers are perfectly clean, the hem of my bathrobe tells the story of my nighttime meanderings in a Louisiana swamp.

He likes plants; he just doesn't like to water them. Unfortunately, this banana tree is annoyingly resilient to drought.

There in the corner of my bedroom is the banjo he bought and swore he would learn to play. He didn't, but it seems to belong there now. That corner would look naked without that forlorn-looking banjo.

Right smack-dab in the middle of everything is a treadmill, which was a great idea at the time, but it's now buried under my husband's technical manuals. This tells you which activity won.

The shelf that holds my beautiful display of dainty music boxes is enhanced by a framed picture of his dad holding a largemouth bass.

The mosaic chess table I made for him out of stained glass is laden with crossword puzzles, Kleenex boxes, coffee cups, a toenail trimmer and the remnants of a dimmer switch he was going to install someday. I would say that dimming the lights in this room could actually help quite a bit.

My collection of nail polish bottles, which makes a colorful addition to any decor, is precariously perched on a shelf that also harbors the cords for the various rechargeable appliances we own: the video camera, the cell phones, the battery charger, the walkie-talkies, the lawn watering system and his wireless tools. We unconsciously make excuses as to why we don't need to use these appliances because neither one of us wants to disengage the cords for fear of knocking over the nail polish bottles.

Hidden amongst these cords is the cord for our alarm clock, which has been blinking 12:00 since the last power outage four months ago. OK, now we're just talking lazy here.

Nevertheless, the point I'm trying to make is that compromise might not be all it's hyped up to be because, instead of getting what I want or getting what he wants, what we actually have is something neither of us wants.

Conversely, I have often told my husband that I could live in a cardboard box as long as he was there; and I'd bet that he could choke down some froufrou tea as long as he was drinking it with me. Fortunately, it has never come to that.

[By LAURA SNYDER]

Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist, author and speaker. You can reach her at [e-mail] or visit www.lauraonlife.com for more info.