She looked across the bed at him. What did he just say? Did he just tell her that the way she had carefully folded the towels the way he liked them folded was wrong?
“It’s fine Love. It’s just that the cabinet they go in is a certain shape and I like to fold them so they fit well. I’ll refold them, thanks though.”
OMG. She was dying. Her new boyfriend of a few months was amazing. And incredibly rigid. He had a way of doing things that was not only foreign to her, it was baffling. But she adored him for so many other reasons so, here she was, trying to adapt to folding the fucking towels in a certain way. And yet, she’d STILL done it wrong.
They stood across the bed from each other. Her temper flared. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You really need to have the towels folded that way?” “Yes, I do. They won’t fit in the cabinet any other way,” he said, beginning to sound indignant. “And you know, it’s not so unusual. This is standard towel folding practice.”
That was it, she lost it. “Who are you? Martha Fucking Stewart? Who has ever heard of standard towel folding practice anyway?”
He paused, hands on hips and said in a calmer tone, “So what if I like them folded this way? So what if I’m Martha Fucking Steward and like to have my home and the things in it cared for in a certain way. Why does it bother you so much?” He walked out of the room.
She was still fuming as she attempted to fold the rest of the laundry, wondering if it would all get refolded later. As she focused on the socks, she thought about what he said. This man had unending patience and had learned many of her peculiarities without flinching. Yet she was unglued at the towel-folding request. It went against her carefree nature. But clearly it didn’t go against his. She looked over at the refolded stack, noting what he’d done differently. Still hot, she decided she could learn the standard towel folding practice too.