Two Words Would Have Sufficed

We bought some healthy-sized lamb chops at Costco the other day and I decided to make them for dinner while they were still unfrozen. Too late, the wife had thrown them into the freezer after asking me whether she should.

I'm not going to criticize her for that.

Anyway, I asked her to take them out and thaw them, which she did. Well, almost. They had frozen solid, so she took them out of the freezer bag and had them thawing in front of the fan (by the way, FYI, that technique works very well).

I had found a marinade recipe based on balsamic vinegar and garlic, so I mixed up a batch and wanted to soak the meat, which was still frozen together solid and required a short stint in the microwave so I could separate them.

There was a recently used gallon Zip-Lok bag on the counter that I could use to marinate the chops, and I asked the wife a simple question that called for a very simple answer. The question: "What was in this bag?" The simple answer: "The lamb." Two words. That's all it would have taken.

Her actual answer involved telling me to "Turn the bag over and read what she had written on it. See? It says there in plain writing what's in it. Instead of asking what, why don't you just look on the other side and you can see what I wrote." (Or something to that effect.)

I made the mistake of replying to her, saying all she had to say was "the lamb." Oh my Lord, that unleashed another four-dozen-plus words essentially going over the same thing. So I did what any husband would do. I let her talk herself out before telling her she wasted a lot of breath and was making me light-headed.

Big, BIG mistake. It rewound her monologue. My ears were ringing, but this time, I just kept my mouth shut and proceeded to marinate the meat in that accursed plastic bag while she talked herself out. In retrospect, I should have just taken out a new Zip-Lok right from the start and not try to reuse the old one.

When will I ever learn to just swallow it and keep my mouth shut?

But at least, the lamb chops turned out great.