Blogs

By Dean Norman

“Nobody in this town knows how to drive in snow!” I was shouting at cars that were slipping and sliding and weaving and getting in the way.

If those clowns had stayed at work until the streets were plowed, I would have no trouble driving home one mile from Hallmark headquarters in Kansas City. San Van Meter usually took the bus home. Since he lived in the same apartment building, he agreed to ride with me in case I need someone to help push or shovel. We made it to our apartment building. Sam opened a bottle of white wine, and we celebrated our success while I waited for my wife to get home.

This was back in the dark ages when you communicated at long distances by talking really loud, or sending smoke signals. Well, we did have telephones, but they were attached to buildings and poles. You couldn’t carry them in your pocket, or hold them against your face, and pretend you were in the same room with someone who might be anywhere.

So I had called Bette before I left work and said I wouldn’t try to pick her up from where she worked at the Music Library at Kansas City University. I was going to try to drive home, and half expected to get stuck, leave our car in the street, and walk the rest of the way. If I tried to drive to the Music Library, our car would surely get stuck somewhere, and we would both have to walk home. If she couldn’t get a ride from someone, she should probably just walk home, because it wasn’t that far. She usually took a short bus ride, but buses were few and far between in weather like this. Instead of standing for hours in the snow, you might as well be walking and generating some body heat.

Well, distance from her job wasn’t that far in good weather, but it was too far when she had to wade through snow drifts. The snow pushed over her winter boots, soaked her shoes and socks, and made her legs below the knee a bright red. It wasn’t frostbite, but her mood was pretty biting. When Bette walked in, I hollered, “Yaaay! You made it. Have some wine with me and Sam to celebrate our survival in this storm.” She declined to celebrate with us, and said frostily, “I’m not making dinner. You can do it.”

Sam decided to retire to his apartment where there was no domestic tension, because he was unmarried and lived alone. I don’t know why wives make such a big deal out of making dinner. You just fry some hamburger in a skillet, open a can of beans, heat them in a pan, and you have dinner. Salad requires more work, but you don’t need salad on a night when a life-threatening storm happens.

So I fixed dinner. We survived the storm. And our marriage survived. Because a husband who wouldn’t go through hell and high snow to fetch her from work was better than a husband who wouldn’t make dinner when told to do so.

— Dean Norman 

Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards, The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.