We practice a lot of martyrdom in our house, but it's not the kind one would normally think of.
When the checkbook is screaming for mercy we will buy store-brand diet soda, which, truth be told, isn't half bad. If Pepsi or Coke is on sale, we'll grab that instead--after all, what's a few cents once a month? And we like to add flavors like root beer, Dr. Pepper, 7Up, that sort of thing.
Eventually the fridge will play host to a mixture of the good stuff and the not half bad stuff, and then the game begins.
Me: "Hey, grab me a soda while you're up."
Him: "What kind?"
Me: "A cola's fine."
Him: "OK. Here's yours, I'll be a martyr and drink the store brand."
That used to bother me; now I just smile and say thanks.
We went from soda martyrdom to air conditioning martyrdom about a month ago. I have a small office on the northeast corner of the house and it gets plenty warm and stuffy in there in summer. I love the privacy, and it's got quite an organized-chaos thing going on, but stepping foot inside the door discourages serious work of any kind. The ice cubes in my name-brand soda melt awfully fast so I mentioned how nice it would be to have an air conditioner in there. Without the slightest hesitation, the remaining air conditioner was given up, installed and started up for me.
"I don't need one," he said. "I'll just use that old box fan and stick it in the window."
I shrugged, got a tall glass of Diet Coke and ice and disappeared into my cool little office.
Eventually I noticed that someone wasn't spending much time at all in his favorite room, and I began to feel bad. Not bad enough to give my a/c, just bad.
I began dropping hints that this was a good time of the year to buy air conditioners, but someone really relishes his role as martyr so nothing much happened at first. Then the 90+ degree days began piling up, and I could feel a weakening in someone's resolve, so off we went to compare prices.
We split up and went to two different stores. Cell phones charged, we gave one another time to get to the proper department then I placed the call.
"I'm looking at a 5000, 8000, 10,000 and 12,000. Didn't we decide it should be 8000?"
"Well, yeah, but I'm not really in front of mine yet. Hold on a sec."
And that's when a helpful, elderly clerk approached and asked me what I was doing. It obviously looked like I was spying for someone and giving out pricing information, so I decided to act natural. "I'm letting my husband know how much the air conditioners are so he can tell me which one to buy."
On the other end of the line I heard, "Huh?"
I continued. "He's outside having a cigarette and he wanted me to come on ahead and pick one out."
"I'm not outside having a cigarette. I told you I just wasn't in front of the air conditioners yet."
The clerk narrowed his eyes, but I was sure he couldn't hear the other end of our conversation. Still, I felt guilty, so I smiled and shook my head. "I've got someone here helping me, and hey, he's pointing out that there's a rebate with this one." I nodded at the clerk, and he proceeded to pick up the unit I pointed at.
In my ear I heard, "Don't pick anything out yet until I compare prices over here. Can you hear me?"
The cart trembled under the weight of the giant box now nestled inside it, and I walked away with a rebate form in hand. "OK," I said, "I'll let you go now. Give me a call when you're ready." And off I went to wander around the store until the phone rang a few minutes later.
"I think I got a real good deal here. I'll be there to pick you up in about five minutes."
I thought about the nice man who had helped me out, and then I headed for the customer service desk. The folks there were polite and understanding and allowed me to leave the loaded cart and rebate form with them. I'm glad I didn't run into the clerk on the way out.
Once home, we switched out the living room unit, put in the new one, read the instructions and waited for cool dry air to make living in our home tolerable again. The smaller unit went upstairs, and all seems to be well. A certain someone is spending more time in his favorite room.
I guess in some cases, martyrdom isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
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