Melanee was picky.
I don’t mean occasionally particular about something. I mean she knew exactly what she liked, how she liked it, and wasn’t especially interested in hearing about the wonderful alternatives available.
Food was probably the most obvious example.
Going out to dinner with Melanee rarely involved an adventurous exploration of the menu. She knew what she liked, and chances were pretty good that she would order it again. You could take her somewhere with thirty different options, and she’d find the one thing she was comfortable with.
I used to wonder why she’d bother looking at the menu.
Cooking for her required a certain amount of precision too. Nothing overly seasoned, nothing in excessive quantities, and whatever you did, don’t let the food touch.
That last one was particularly important.
Apparently mashed potatoes and green beans could occupy the same plate, but they needed to respect each other’s personal space.
There was also a difference between making something the way I thought it should be prepared and making it the way Melanee wanted it. I learned that distinction over the years, occasionally the hard way. You could put a perfectly good meal in front of her, and one small detail might be enough to make her less than enthusiastic about it.
I wasn’t always particularly patient about that. Sometimes I just wanted to make dinner without having to treat the plate like a carefully planned subdivision.
Her wardrobe was another matter entirely.
Melanee loved her clothes. She had her spandex, an impressive collection of bras and underwear, antique garments, and, of course, shoes.
Lots of shoes.
At one point, she had approximately 110 pairs.
Now, I’ve known people with far worse shoe collections, so I suppose I should consider myself fortunate. Still, 110 pairs seems like a remarkable number of solutions to the problem of having two feet.
And these weren’t necessarily random purchases. She had particular things she liked, particular styles she preferred, and her own ideas about what worked for her. Just as with food, she knew what she wanted.
That preference for familiarity extended beyond dinner and clothing.
Melanee liked plans. She liked knowing what we were going to do, where we were going, and preferably how everything was going to turn out. Just winging it wasn’t usually her first choice.
Camping was an excellent demonstration of this.
If we were going camping for one night, we needed to pack.
If we were going camping for a week, we also needed to pack.
As far as I could tell, the amount of stuff required for those two trips was exactly the same.
We brought things we might need, things we probably wouldn’t need, and things that, after several camping trips, I was increasingly convinced had never actually been used by another human being.
But they came along anyway.
There was apparently no reason to risk being somewhere without something that might, under a very specific set of circumstances, become necessary.
Of course, the person responsible for fitting all of this into the vehicle generally had a slightly different opinion about how much was necessary.
That would be me.
After 32 years together, I understood that Melanee wasn’t particularly interested in stepping outside her comfort zone just for the sake of doing something different. She found things she liked and stuck with them. A familiar restaurant order, a particular way of preparing dinner, a favorite style of clothing, or knowing what to expect from a trip.
Sometimes it frustrated me. Sometimes I teased her about it. And sometimes I just made sure the food didn’t touch, loaded another bag into the vehicle, and accepted that apparently we were bringing enough equipment to survive a considerably longer camping trip than the one we’d planned.
I don’t think there’s any need to pretend I always found it charming. There were times when I would have loved for her to try something new, take a chance on an unfamiliar menu item, or leave half the camping equipment at home.
But that was Melanee.
She had her preferences, and after all those years I knew most of them pretty well.
I knew what she’d probably order. I knew how to prepare her plate. I knew that packing for an overnight trip was going to take longer than I thought it should.
And I knew better than to suggest that 110 pairs of shoes might be excessive.
Besides, I suppose I should be grateful.
At least the shoes didn’t have to be packed for camping.