Stuart Watkins
This is a saga about a friend of mine, a first cousin. We will call him Mitchell.
He is from Alpharetta, GA, an upscale community near Atlanta.
He moved to SaddleBrooke a few years ago because it is an active adult community.
The problem was that he called me asking for advice concerning his wife.
Mitchell told me that his wife had recently been blasting a song throughout the house whenever he was watching TV, drinking a beer or two, and eating Cheetos.
Asking him what song, he replied “I Don’t Know Why I Love You, But I Do” by Tab Hunter from around the time they got married. He went on to tell me he thought his wife was sending him some kind of message about not knowing why she loved him.
He said he reminded her that when they went to the cabin they owned in the White Mountains, he always opened the door when she brought in the firewood.
He also told her he stayed in the car with the motor running to keep the air conditioning on so when she brought the groceries back and put them in the car she would have A/C. Another thing he reminded her of was the time he bought her a new vacuum cleaner when she complained about how hard doing the house cleaning was beginning to become.
Hearing this, I asked Mitchell when he last bought her flowers.
He replied that every now and then he would pluck some of the pansies growing by the swimming pool near the clubhouse and bring them home. Then he remembered snipping off some bougainvillea branches that he found overhanging the fence into the HOA community areas, and he would bring them home.
I suggested he attend the marriage counseling sessions offered for free at our local Methodist Church.
Mitchell has not called me in a few weeks. I think they are still married.