Hubbie dropped me off at the Super Hardware Store because I wanted to buy some paint for a project I was working on. Yes, a hardware store. If they sold paint at a boutique or bookstore, we would have gone there, of course. So I’m in the store and Hubbie goes to wait for me in the car. I finish buying my stuff, only taking fifteen minutes, and return to the car. There he is all happy to see me, and ready to go home, however, my gaze goes forth to large cup of coffee in his hand, then onward in search my own. Oh, goodie, he’s bought me a Skinny Latte, I think, proud at how thoughtful my partner in life can be.

I cast about the SUV in full search.

It’s not there.

In fact, nothing is waiting for me.

“Where’s mine?” I ask.

His eyebrows become one. “Well, I thought about getting you something, but we were so close to home I figured you could have some coffee at home. Here, have the rest of mine,” he adds, handing me his cup.

“But how could you not buy me a cup? How could you get something for yourself and not for me?” Obviously, I’m incensed. “How could you not think of me?”

“I did think of you. But I decided it made more sense not to buy anything.”

What?! Hello? Is this some kind of twisted male logic? How had I missed it?

And, so, I feel myself wanting to kill him.

Me: “How could you do that? How could get yourself that big cup of coffee and nothing for me?”

“It’s not big. It’s medium.”

“I don’t care if it’s thimble-sized, it would have been nice if you’d gotten me something, too. I would have done that for you.” I then explain how doing little things for each other brings us closer, yada, yada. I do this as if he is five.

“But I felt I was doing something by waiting in the car while you shopped.”

“Shopped? I was the hardware store, Mr. Magnanimous.”

“Now I feel bad,” he says, and then shakes his head. “But I still don’t get why you’re blowing this all out of proportion.”

“I wouldn’t blow anything out of proportion as if you’d thought of me,” I reply.

He sighs, and it’s like all the air zooming out of tires of a semi-truck. “But I did think of you,” he insists.

“And how do I know this? By the way you didn’t buy me anything?” And they say women are less logical than men.

I. Don’t. Think. So.

As I contemplate separate bedrooms for at least a year, we continue our discussion at home. Finally I note a gleam in his eyes, which I read as an epiphany. Yes! He finally gets what I’m trying to tell him. He promises to stop applying logic to everything having to do with our relationship, and to instead think about what I would like.

Oh, happy day!

The next afternoon, my husband goes out to run some errands for me. Winking over his shoulder, he asks me to make some coffee for him when he returns. I know he’s serious. Coffee, as you can tell, is serious business at our place. So I brew up a cup of cappuccino, and when he returns, I am drinking it.

“But where’s mine?” he asks.

“I thought of you, honey, I really did. But I figured it made zero sense to make you anything when you could just as easily buy yourself a cup at Dunkin’ Donuts. But I swear, I did think of you.”

He turns crimson, and I note a brand new epiphany in his gaze. Then we burst into laughter, and I hand him the remainders of my cappuccino. After all, it’s only logical.