Friday, August 1, 2008

You Marry A Man

A favorite, made-me-laugh-aloud passage from Let Me Be A Woman by Elisabeth Elliot, from the chapter entitled You Marry a Man:

"He is likely to be bigger and louder and tougher and hungrier and dirtier than a woman expects, and she finds that bigger feet make bigger footprints on the newly washed kitchen floor; they make a bigger noise on the stairs.  She learns that what makes her cry may make him laugh.  He eats far more than seems necessary or even reasonable to a woman who never ceases her vigil against excess weight.  When he takes a shower his broader dimensions mean more water used and a greater surface for water to cling to and therefore she finds that the towels get much wetter, and he probably doesn't hang them up folded in three as she wants him to in order to display the monogram.  He may not hang them up at all.  He won't use a washcloth, which means he consumes three times as much soap as she does.  When she cleans the bathroom she finds she has to clean in places she never had to clean before.  He's a toothpaste-tube twister instead of a roller.  Anything he does which seems to her inexplicable or indefensible she dismisses with "Just like a man!" as though this were a condemnation or at best an excuse instead of a very good reason for thanking God.  It is a man she married, after all, and she is lucky if he acts like a man."

And oh, how mine does!  Thank God...or at least I'm trying to!  :)