Henpecked
Every day I get up early and make the coffee just the way Henrietta likes. Except it’s never quite right. Too much water. Too many grounds. The beans not ground fine enough. The beans ground too fine, leaving a little silt in her cup. When I suggest we get one of those newer machines with all the fancy timers she informs me that I’m terrible at learning new things like that.
She’s probably right.
Our daughter moved out of state for college a few years ago, so it’s just the two of us in the house now. Mostly when not at work we just watch TV, or Henrietta watches TV and I read a book. Sometimes just for a change of pace I check a movie out from the library when I get a new book, but Henrietta never wants to watch the things I get and gets angry at me for it.
She likes medieval costume dramas the best, things with swords and castles and the ladies in waiting all gussed up in their finery. That Tudors program from a few years ago was a particular favorite of hers, though I think that was mostly for the Irish actor who played Henry VIII: something-Rhys-something.
“It’d be nice if you had a butt like his,” she told me once. Except that when I joined a gym for a little while she hated the way my sweaty clothes stunk up the house, even when buried in the bottom of the hamper. I volunteered to do the laundry, but she said I never folded her stuff correctly.
So when a traveling exhibit of medieval things passed through our local Historical museum, of course we went. Not really my thing, but it was a neat exhibit, though I frustrated Henrietta by lingering in front of some of the paintings. “That’s not what we’re here for, George,” she said. I think she preferred her handsome TV Henry VIII over the images of the chubby real one.
I don’t know why I did what I did, but I don’t think anyone can really blame me. Not really. I’d been a good husband and a better father, and it really did look quite nice just sitting there. So when no one was looking I climbed over the velvet rope that separated us and sat my butt down on the throne that had belonged to King Such-and-such of Whereverland four hundred years ago.
All told, it wasn’t a bad place to take a load off.
Henrietta fussed, but I didn’t pay attention. I imagined ordering my guards to haul her away for execution like one of old Henry’s wives. And when the museum docent finally called the security guards, I laughed as they hauled me away. It had felt damn good to be king of the castle, if just for a few minutes.
