He Doesn’t Own a Single Saucepan
You know when you move in with someone and you find out all this weird stuff about them … Well, yeah, that. Let’s talk about that right now. Why? Because I vomited this morning and it seems like a really great place to start.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
“Babe, the kettle’s broke.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding. Oh my god, I’m going to die. This is it, this is how it ends for me. Lack of morning tea. Bye Bear, I love you.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, I can sort this out. And then I’ll run out and buy you Costa-tea and a kettle. How’s that?”
Twenty minutes, Bear (dressed in just stripey briefs and a goofy grin) stood in our bedroom doorway with a cup of steaming hot tea in his hands.
“I made you tea. See – didn’t I tell you I was great in a crisis?”
I was impressed. All I really need from life is a man who can make me tea on demand, so if he’s cracked this one, I’m marrying him. I raised the tea to my mouth, taking a deep gulp.
“Bear, this tastes funny.”
I take another sip before passing him the cup. He takes a sip.
“Nah, it’s fine. But I get it, I’m getting dressed now. I’ll go and get you good tea and a kettle. Remember I made that though. Like, from scratch. I boiled the water by hand and everything. Are you going to leave it?”
I tried to take another sip. It tasted like … oil? Like chip fat?
“Bear … what did you boil the water in?”
“The frying pan. Why?”
Oh god. There was old chip fat oil in my cup of tea. The cup of tea I’d taken three or four almighty gulps of. I could sense the heaving building deep within me. I was going to barf. It was going to happen right now.
I laughed about it half an hour later, of course, but that’s when I realised that I shouldn’t be worried about him seeing the weird secret, single behaviour I display when left to my own devices. [As discussed in Bring. It. On.]He has weird secret, single behaviour of his own to worry about. Like not owning a saucepan.
Who doesn’t own a saucepan?
“The last one went weird and rusty, and I guess I just haven’t cooked anything since then to need or buy a saucepan.”
For the record, he also doesn’t own a potato masher, a chopping board, any drinking-glasses … It’s probably for the best that I leave it there. It’ll go on for a while if I continue.
He’s started “life” all over again a bunch of times, I know that, and he’s had some really shitty periods in his life too, I know that. But who doesn’t own a saucepan? Like, who doesn’t cook in their kitchen enough to buy a saucepan? I don’t cook half as often as I should do, but I still owned a vast array of saucepans. Frustratingly, I left those in the last place. They were covered in grease because of Housemate M anyway. God, that guy was a proper prick.
“My house needs a feminine touch, babe. That’s why you’re here.”
The feminine touch? I don’t even know where to start. I find myself wandering around his house making a mental note of all the things we need to buy, and it’s starting to get mighty expensive. I don’t know if it’s the divide between men and women (it’s just him and his 14 year old son), or if I’m just being really picky, but there’s a whole bunch of missing stuff in this house that’s pissing me off.
Coathangers. Do you know how annoyed I am by the fact that I can’t hang my t-shirts up? My dresses – they’re all safely housed in the comfort of my new closet, but my poor t-shirts are stuffed in a drawer, unloved, unremembered, unworn.
A mini garbage can in the bathroom. Where am I going to put the plastic from around my tampons? What about my used cotton buds? Face wipes? General waste I create?
Toilet roll. If he uses my baby wipes to avoid going to the shop to get toilet roll one more time, I’m going to make him eat the damn baby wipes. He leaves the house a hundred and one times per day. He runs to the shop to buy junk food a hundred and one times per day. He “forgets” toilet roll. I’m starting to wonder if he does it on purpose.
I’m being ridiculous, of course. I love this man. I’ve been here for almost one week, and I’m so happy. I wake up happy, even when I’m being force-fed cups of tea infused with old cooking oil, and I dance and sing a lot these days. It’s nice, even with the shocking revelation that he doesn’t own a single saucepan. And how was I to know? We’ve been unpacking my boxes ever since I moved in, and adding to the mounds with takeout boxes too!
We laugh a lot, even with all the bad shit that’s happened. My broken Mac, the oil-infused tea, the total lack of essential kitchen homewares … It’s all fucking hilarious. It’s a little bit like living as a student again, and sometimes there’s really nothing wrong with that. Things are changing now, obviously. I can’t live like this for long. The poor postman is going to hate me by the time he’s finished delivering my goodies. Never will he have seen a girl get so excited about a potato masher.
Or a saucepan.
*For the record, in order to make up for tea-gate, Bear bought me a brand new kettle, and two blueberry muffins from Costa. He’s a good egg really 🙂
Featured image by Icons8 team on Unsplash
I think you have now answered your own question about when is too soon to move in with someone. ‘If you don’t know them well enough to realise they do not have a fully stocked kitchen, do not move in with them’! 😀 Joking, although this does imply that you had no saucepans either? And how did he manage to raise a kid with no saucepans?? So many questions…