The Old Man and The Old Woman

The way it should be...

The Old Man had been in holy matrimony with The Old Woman for a half century. Actually, he stopped counting at 50 years and it was probably closer to 60, but what’s a decade among Old Married Folk?

They married one another for better for worse and all that matrimonial stuff said at ceremonies. Neither is quite sure who got the better end of the bargain, but The Old Man and The Old Woman were happy together.

The Old Woman was kind, considerate, generous with her talents, and a gracious host to all who stepped into her home.

On the other hand, The Old Man was cantankerous, ornery, salty, shrewd, and aggravating, though he occasionally displayed bad qualities too. As a team, they were like salt and pepper, night and day, ebony and ivory, and all those other opposites that don’t make sense in the context of humans. After all these years, she had been successful at refining his bad qualities. They weren’t good yet, just less bad.

Their children insisted on admitting them to an assisted living facility after he got into two fender benders within three months, but it wasn’t without a lot of kicking, screaming, and threatening the kids be taken out of their will. The couple lamented giving their oldest son a Power of Attorney to make such decisions, but in the Facility they went.

The Facility housed and fed 25 widows, 6 widowers, and one unmarried couple. They were the only married couple there.

The Old Woman never once felt threatened by all the widows her age because she knew The Old Man better than any person on the planet. He wasn’t going anywhere, plus he could barely walk down the hall. They complemented each other’s idiosyncrasies with their own dysfunctionalities and weren’t willing to take new foibles from strangers. After all, it had taken them 60 years to figure each other out. It would take another 60 with someone else.

The Old Man and The Old Woman were stuck with each other, and it’s the way it should be.