Last night Jake came home from work to find me half-lying on the couch, half-lying on the floor with a blank, Zombie-like expression on my face , hands around my head like a lifeless puppet, as I asked, “Now, why do we live here again?”

Sensing one of my moods a-brewing, he quickly changed the subject by inviting me to join him in his 7,000-ton (thereabouts) Freightliner hauling truck to pick up his Bobcat at a job site on the other end of the county. It was pitch black outside and the temperature was brisk.

Now, when Jake invites me on these “togetherness” excursions, I’ve learned to decipher the subtext: Chores. He needs help in some excruciating hellish manual labor task usually involving chains or saws and diesel fuel.   I politely said “no thanks.” But he insisted: “It’ll be fun.”

Skeptical, but needing a break from the confines of my writer’s prison, I agreed. Sure enough, we drove to the middle of a field in the middle of some farm in the pitch black night, and we had to load all of his construction equipment onto the back of his trailer. Jake has learned to have very low expectations for me in these situations, so last night he was as caring and compassionate as an orderly in an old folk’s home.  Which I greatly appreciated.

But eventually, he needed my help strapping down chains to secure his zillion-ton Bobcat into place.

To tighten a chain, a wench-like device is used (I think that’s what it’s called). You have to crank this apparatus in two different directions with both hands in order to take the friction out of the chain. It’s physical work.

As Jake merrily winched away, I stood by him, half my face covered by a scarf, counting the minutes before we could return to the warmth of the truck’s cabin. He looked at me shivering and asked:

“Do you want to take a turn cranking the chain?”

Me: “Not particularly.”

Jake (huge grin on his face): “Oh, come on. It’s good exercise. It’ll be fun.”

There was no getting out of using the fun winch, and truth was, a little movement would do my carcass some good. I took the chain cranker in my cold and hands and begin cranking it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Before long I was panting. Funny how rivulets of pleasure did not course through my veins upon doing so.

Jake: “It’s fun, isn’t it?”

Me: “Yeah, it’s like Christmas.”

And I realized that little exchange encapsulated all of our differences. Jake will forever think cranking chains is a barrel of laughs. I will forever think it’s not. Yet we’re inseparable all the same.

Marriage is kind of funny like that, how two people can have such wildly oppossing ideas of “fun” and still not be able to live without each other.