Looking for Sue
Today's guest blogger is Russ. Russ and I are both happily married men and deacons at my church. Despite the fact that he's as old as my parents, we're good friends who have more interests and personality traits in common than any two people from separate generations have ever had.
—Curt
The other day Mr. Happy mentioned that one of the things he looked for in a wife was someone who would allow him to warm his feet on her legs in the winter. This got me to thinking about what kind of qualities I was looking for in a wife before I got married. I couldn't remember any. This makes sense to me because (1) I have been married for over thirty years and my memory isn't worth two cents and (2) I met my future wife, Sue, when we were fourteen and immediately fell in love with her. Although we didn't start dating until 3 years later she was never out of my mind. I compared every girl I dated to her, and I am sure that if I ever thought about marriage during that time I thought about marrying a girl just like Sue. I wasn't looking for qualities; I was looking for Sue. But looking at our marriage now I realize that I cherish qualities about her I never could have dreamed of looking for. The qualities that emerge through regular daily living, the kind of qualities I tend to take for granted unless I make the effort to look for and recognize them. So I decided it was a good time to look for them, and I'm finding lots of them. Lots of them. And I thought it might be nice to share a few, at random:
- Sue does not cook fish. This is a good thing, because while I don't like the taste of fish I absolutely loathe the smell of fish cooking, particularly in my own house. Sue does like to eat fish, but in deference to me she only partakes of it in restaurants.
When we were first married Sue did make fish for dinner a few times, and one other thing I appreciate was that she never said to me "the way I cook fish, it tastes like chicken." Everyone else who has ever cooked fish for me has told me they make it taste like chicken, and they all lied. Nothing tastes like chicken except chicken, with the exception of the hydrolyzed vegetable protein at the Zen Palate restaurant. I love my wife for never saying that.
I am still waiting for someone to claim that the way they cook chicken, it tastes like fish. That would probably be a lie too. - Sue knows how to bargain with salesmen. I hate to shop for a new car. Left to my own devices, I would pay full sticker price for the first car the salesman showed me, and I would throw in a tip. Sue not only knows the specs on every new car that comes on the market, she somehow brings the salesman to his knees on the sale price, and she doesn't even break a sweat. I am the only man I know who will not go car shopping without his wife. Thank God for her.
- Sue has nice feet. Dainty. Her toes are nice and straight, each one just the right size. I don't know why this is important to me but it is. I read a poll recently that named Catherine Zeta-Jones the most beautiful woman in the world, and that may be true, but I'm telling you, if I found out Catherine had ugly feet she would suddenly look like Ernest Borgnine to me. Well, back to Sue. She was standing in the kitchen barefoot the other day, and I was in one of those moods where I just felt like thanking God for some of the little things he has done in my life, and two of those little things are Sue's feet. Thanks, Lord.
And she almost never tries to warm them on my legs. Thanks again, Lord. - Sue not only indulges my secret desires, she participates in them. No, not those kinds of desires. Wholesome stuff. One illustration: Last February Sue actually shared in the fulfillment of my lifetime dream of going to Punxsutawney, PA for Groundhog Day. This may not sound like much, but believe me, the real experience is nothing like the movie. Groundhog Day in Punxie (we insiders call it that) involves standing in a crowd of 30,000 people on top of a mountain from 3am until daybreak in the dead of winter, waiting for the moment when a group of men in tuxedoes and tophats marches up the mountain to help Phil the groundhog emerge from his (heated) tree stump and predict the coming of spring. Not exactly a night at the Plaza Hotel. But Sue knew it was important to me, so she not only came with me, she actually enjoyed it. In fact, she bought more souvenirs than I did.
So I never had the opportunity to come up with a list of qualities I was going to look for in a wife. God let me fall in love before I had the chance. But I've had all this time to discover the qualities that make up the woman he planned for me to marry.
