The Tale of the Husband and the Soursop Ice-cream

It began with an ill-fated tub of soursop ice-cream while on vacation in Tobago.

Husband: Taste this

Me: (I tasted the ice cream and twisted my mouth) What is this?

Husband: Soursop ice cream

Me: What?! I thought I told you I don’t like that.

Husband: But you said ‘ok’ when I told you that that’s what I was getting.

Me: I thought you said you were buying sorrelcoconut!

Husband: How did you hear that?

Me: Well, Soursop didn’t register because you’re supposed to know that I hate that flavour

Husband: But I asked you – twice!

Oh boy did I let him have it – for a full ten minutes too! After seven years of being a couple and two years of marriage, how could he forget something as basic as the flavor of ice-cream I prefer? Shouldn’t he have memorized the expression of utter repulsion on my face any time any food item with this ingredient was passed my way? Surely, he must have been paying some attention all those years!

Of course, he reminded me that he’s always had a horrendous memory. I couldn’t expect him to change his personality overnight (9 years = overnight in a man’s world) now could I? Blame it on the genes! If he cared, he would remember something so small. Not so? He challenged me to remember all the things he had done that very day, to make me feel special. I was not impressed with these overtures intended to make me seem unreasonable, and ungrateful. I stuck to my guns: it is unacceptable that he always forgets.

Irritated, he announced that he was going outside as it was the perfect night to star gaze, (astronomy is a passion of his and I often jest that his telescope is his second wife!), and that I was quite welcomed to join him. You, women, must know what I said next, “Well you go if you want; I’m staying right here.” I proceeded to the bedroom, curled up into a ball and gave in to tears of utter frustration, that my somewhat brilliant husband had the memory of a goldfish.

Well the story does not end like this of course; scene two soon commenced. My husband, upon feeling guilty or feeling that he must at least make me happy once again, entered the room and plopped on the bed next to me. I was, at this point, drifting off to sleep and after a few minutes, I opened my eyes to find his closed! I whacked him across the head with my pillow.

Husband: What was that for?

Me: I can’t believe you bought soursop ice-cream

Husband: (rolled his eyes) oh geez…

Me: It’s not the ice-cream that’s the problem – it’s that you don’t LISTEN.

Husband: But I asked you and you said ‘ok’

Me: Well why didn’t you ask again? Didn’t it strike you as odd that I would agree to soursop ice cream?

Husband: No, because I didn’t know that you don’t like that.

Me: Exactly! After how many years of telling you that every time the topic of ice-cream came up - you STILL don’t know!

Scene three opens with silence: a customary occurrence in instances of marital discord. These periods of silence can last from a few minutes to a few days; thankfully my sister-in-law was not about to tolerate a prolongation of this situation. She entered the room hoping that we had kissed and made up, and on finding out that we hadn’t, decided to act as mediator, to restore us to our former gleeful vacation selves. But being a woman, at the end of the night, she eventually sided with me. She did however acknowledge that my husband had made some valid points.

You see, my dear husband is a businessman but also a chronic Forgetful Jones. He has way too much on his mind and simply doesn’t see things as ice cream flavor preferences or Saturday morning errands as important enough to be written in stone or stored at the forefront of his memory. We, women though, are very sentimental and more cognizant of the details than our men; therefore remembering things, such as birthdays, may come more naturally to us.

I will admit that my sister-in-law and I do cut our husbands some slack: we don’t call them out on every ‘mistake’ they make. They’re fallible – like all of us – but they do almost anything we ask of them, out of love. We agree to disagree on many things and we wouldn’t want them to change for the world. The bottom line is that we’re just ridiculously spoilt by our husbands and it’s truly all their faults. Now they have to suffer the consequences of their, oh so loving and adoring, actions.

In case you’re wondering, there was a fourth scene. It happened the very next day. I got the sweetest surprise: My husband went back to the ice-cream shop and got me my absolute favorite flavor and I fell in love with him just a little bit more.

- Karen Adam