A husband and wife formalize their division of labor.
MY HUSBAND is the secretary of defence — not of our country, but of our household.
His name is Samuel Vinod Kumar, and he has always been protective, my safety monitor, as I used to call him. But I promoted him to SecDef after a shameful incident in which I called him late one night while he was away on a fishing trip. I knew he was waking up early the next day to rendezvous with the fish; but I was desperate to talk to him: I was convinced there was an intruder lurking in our apartment because I kept hearing strange noises outside our bedroom door. The real culprit was the ice maker in our refrigerator, something Samuel guessed a minute into our phone call. But he stayed on the line with me for hours, calming me down and advising me on how to barricade the bedroom door.
Needless to say, the ice maker didn’t come for me that night, and all we lost was some sleep. Samuel didn’t get upset with me (bless him), but he did get a security bar for our front door to ensure no one could force their way in at night. And in recognition of his heroism, I appointed him SecDef.
“Now, where should we put this thing when we’re not using it?” I asked about the new device.
“That’s up to you,” he said. “You’re in charge of the Department of the Interior.”
With one position apiece, we felt we should continue to name our Cabinet. Some decisions were easy. He, by far, the more confident and competent driver, was a shoo-in-for transportation secretary. And since I have more enthusiasm for shopping, I was the natural choice to lead the Department of Commerce.
Others aren’t as obvious. My husband does the cooking, but I buy the groceries. So which one of us should oversee the Department of Agriculture? Samuel is more diplomatic than I am, but I host more of our parties. So, who’d be the better secretary of state? And which one of us should helm the Department of Energy? The one who pays the electric bill (him), the one who uses the appliances (me), or the one who brewed the coffee that day?
One appointment came as a surprise to both of us. We were chopping ingredients for a salad (again, who’s in charge of Agriculture?) when I got essentially — an onion splinter. Yes, an ultrathin sliver of red onion slipped inside the pad of my finger.
As I started incredulously at my injury, Samuel got the tweezers and plucked out the offending onion. And just like that, he became surgeon general.
Sometimes it really is just that easy. I bought a Swedish dishcloth the other day and instantly assumed the responsibility for the Environmental Protection Agency. Sent a letter. Boom: postmaster general. And because I checked Zillow most recently, I’m our new secretary of housing and urban development.
That said, our Cabinet is far from complete. I’m on deck to run the Department of Education, but my duties won’t start until we have kids. Neither of us have entrepreneurial aspirations, so I doubt we’ll ever have our own Small Business Administration. And our families get along, so we could even get away without a UN ambassador.
But there’s one Cabinet position neither of us wants and we hope we never need: attorney general.
Ha ha ha ha 🙂 🙂 🙂
