Marriage: Where There’s No Cheapskatin’ on Compromise

Marriage: Where There’s No Cheapskatin’ on Compromise

Unless you consider perilously suspended display lighting and clog-free guarantee toilets portals to romantic ambience, Lowe’s certainly is not the most date friendly place to be on a Friday night.

But, alas, this past Friday Lowe’s is exactly where my husband and I found ourselves.

There was no leisurely hand-holding as we strolled down through the aisles, no envisioning our House O’ Dreams’ walls splashed with sea-foam green or streaked in sunset-mauve. No, siree. We were on a mission: scouting out the yellow clearance stickers like the keeping of our monetary scalps depended upon it.

After stalking through the refrigerator aisle without finding the stainless-steel, French-door with bottom freezer number for $1,000 buckaroos that our wallets were dead set upon (go ahead, laugh; I’ve seen it), we darted toward the lighting section in hopes of discovering the same bargain luck we’d found there two weeks before.

(At least I considered the $178 vintage chandelier for $27, the $159 foyer light for $32, and the $50 hall light for $20 pretty amazing bargain luck. But who am I? Just Queen Cheapskate herself. Thank you, thank you, all my royal peons may be seated now.)

In the lighting aisle there were two fixtures that, over the past three weeks, I had been watching: a chandelier for the living room that had a bundle of tarnished gold wheat sprouting from the center of 10 globe-style lights. I shook my head and tisked, tisked as I saw the price sticker: still as white as my pasty legs; no yellow clearance markdown yet.

The second light was on the next aisle over. It was Tiffany-style, almost flush with the ceiling, and its colors were teal, red, and orange. (Did I mention that I have an eclectic taste in decor? No? Well, I have an eclectic taste in decor.) And, yes, the Tiffany-style, teal, red, and orange light fixture did have Dragonflies on it that looked like something that had fluttered off Three Mile Island during the ’79 nuclear meltdown, but it was only $22 now, and I’d liked it even back when it was $44 marked down from $88. I mean, how do you justifiably pass up a deal as amazing as that? It’s almost like not finishing your broccoli when there are children starving over in Africa…you just know this is going to have a Butterfly — er, Dragonfly — Effect somewhere around the globe if you don’t do your bargain purchasing part where and when you can.

But apparently my Dragonfly Effect reasoning did not resonate with my husband, for he had absolutely no qualms about passing up a deal even as amazing as that.

He actually insisted upon it.

“Just look at these lights!” he said, swinging his arm into a wide, dramatic arch. “You could choose any of these, and you choose the ugliest of them all?”

“But it’s so cheap!” I whined. (Yes, I whined. Not even royalty’s perfect. Look at Prince Charles.) “We could put it in the nursery. You can get away with more dramatic lighting in a nursery.” (And no, Mom. I’m not expecting. I was just thinking ahead.)

My husband’s reply was this: “In the nursery! The poor kid would have nightmares!” Stabbing a finger in the direction of the numerous, blood-red, Dragonfly eyes, he cried, “Did you even see those things? How would you like having that dangling over your head while you slept?”

I shrugged while feeling my dander rise one bristle at a time. “How about the upstairs bathroom, then? We could put it up there, and you would never even see it.”

“Never see it!” my husband exclaimed. “Even if it was upstairs, wouldn’t I still use that bathroom from time to time?”

He had a point there.

But of course, right when my dear husband and I were about to launch into a War of the Wills over our decorating dilemma, the previously nonexistence Lowe’s help started swarming around us like bees to honey.

“Finding everything all right this evening?” they asked; “May I help with anything?”

The flintiness of my eyes beneath the veneer of my smile must’ve given my true feelings away, for the well-meaning helpers took one look into them and booked it out of that lighting aisle like someone from security had just squawked over the walkie-talkies, “Watch out! That lil’un–she’s gonna blow!”

Sighing while watching their rapidly retreating backs, I turned to my husband and said, “Well?”

He held up his wallet with the resignation of a surrendering flag and said, “I’ll be in the car.”

Having just received a wet blanket when what I really wanted was more fuel for my fire, I thought, Where’s the fun in this? So, glancing up, I gave that $22 (previously $88) Tiffany-style light with mutant Dragonflies one last, longing look and walked out of Lowe’s behind my husband.

Fifteen minutes later, in the freezer section of Wal-Mart, I asked him, “What kinda ice-cream you want?”

Just a moment’s hesitation, then he said, “Mint Chocolate Chip.”

I abruptly glanced over, for it is a well-known fact that my favorite ice-cream flavor my husband considers a step away from frozen toothpaste. But his face, cracked into a let’s-make-up grin, gave it away.

Getting the carton out of the freezer, I couldn’t help but smile myself.

“Well,” I drawled, “I guess that makes us even on the compromise meter.” I put the ice-cream in the cart and pecked him on the cheek. “At least for now.”