'That settles that' really doesn't

By DAVID J. COEHRS

So anyway, she sets this salad in front of me, which she knows better than to do. It's alarmingly leafy, and not part of the comforting dinner I envisioned would save this rotten day, which nose-dived almost before I got out of bed.

I look at the greens on the plate, most of which I can't identify. They're adorned with tomato wedgies and onion and carrot twirlies and grated cheese stringies, and six or seven of those oversized Italian-style croutons you could use as door stops. There's even a modicum of those fake bacon bits I'm convinced are made of spackle, even though the jar doesn't exactly mention that ingredient.

She's calling the boys to the table, averting her eyes because she knows she's broken David's Fourth Com-mandment: Thou shalt never, ever serve me salad. It's in the top five of 392 commandments I presented to her along with the ring when we got engaged. It comes right after Remember my chocolate cravings, and keep them sacred, so it's pretty important.

I watch to see if maybe this is accidental or some kind of twisted joke, but no, she places identical salads at the other place settings. The boys come running, salivating like Pavlov's dogs, but the salad before me makes them screech to a halt so abruptly their shoes are left behind. They gasp simultaneously.

"What is this, some kind of twisted joke?" the teenager demands. "Who gave him a salad?"

"I did," she says.

The 11-year-old covers his horror-stricken face. "You broke it," he says through his hands. "You broke his fourth commandment."

Okay, so it's not as if she put strychnine in my Wheaties or dropped a 10-ton weight on my head (although my more obnoxious behavior makes her suggest both). I could actually handle those much better than this plate of plant life. She may as well have stripped foliage off the tree in our yard and garnished it with cow chips.

"I'm not eating this," I say defiantly.

"Oh, but you are," she replies.

She's wearing her familiar look of resolve, the one that says I may wear the pants in the family but she wears the crown. I hate that look, because it usually means we're going to argue, which means I'm going to dig in and sternly say things like, "I'm putting my foot down on this" and "This discussion is over," and yet I'm still going to lose. And I never quite know how the losing part happens, because I always use my angry husband sneer and jut out my chin like I have actual power, and sometimes pound my fist, but on a soft surface so I don't get a bruise.

"This is salad," I point out. "This is a direct violation of my Fourth Commandment."

"Your diet is atrocious, and I'm worried about your health," she says. "You are going to eat that salad."

She knows I don't like eating leaves. Just like she knows I don't like wearing ties or figuring out the family finances or people touching me with their grimy feet. But she also knows that mentioning concern for my well-being is a shrewd way to suck the wind out of my protests.

"So you want to play dirty?" I counter. "Well, bring it on."

Apparently, she plans to. She sets a bottle of salad dressing in front of me and audaciously uses my own line against me - "This discussion is over" - and gives me her wicked That Settles That smile. It's a smile you don't want to cross, because when she gets really angry she can melt polar ice caps faster that global warming. The boys, still shoeless, look from me to her, and back to me, like they're watching a particularly vicious tennis match, and I know what they're thinking: Ain't no way he's not eating that salad.

It's not often they see us go head-to-head like this. The last time was over my impulsive purchase of a nauseatingly expensive 10-in-1 kitchen gadget with a built-in nachos warmer. I personally believe you can never have enough stuff like that, but she loudly disagreed. So there were two ensuing days of snarling and caterwauling over it, and of course I returned it because jutting out my chin and punching a fluffy pillow didn't work again, and besides, the nachos warmer leaked.

I fold my arms. "I'm not eating that plate of leaves. I'm not a child, and you can't make me."

She flashes that wicked smile again. "Really? You don't think so?"

The boys are watching intently, so I have to make a stand.

"No, I don't," I respond, puffing out my chest. "You're going to remove that salad and never do this again, and that settles that."

Or so I thought. The cheese stringies aren't bad, but the spackle bacon bits are going to give me indigestion.