Marriage is like a box of paper clips

 Let me tell you a little story about paper clips.  Paper clips are innocent enough, usually they are pretty mundane, not much noticed while they lay around in desk drawers next to the box of staples and pens and pencils.  But you would be surprised how much of my thinking has been taken up by the little paper clip and all because I decided to get remarried. 

My association with paper clips mainly started off with the Chronicle paper route and the need to attach monthly bills to the newspapers.  We found out that large paper clips worked well for that so eventually we bought a large package of them, probably about 10 boxes of paper clips and we had so many of them they outlived the paper route and just got used for general use mostly by me when paying bills and keeping financial records.  I found I had little use for any small paper clips, they were just too wimpy to hold much and didn't fit my big clumsy hands that well. So little paper clips were banished to the back of the desk drawer and large paper clips were always handy for when I needed them.  And that would be the end of the story except I got remarried and now the paper clip story takes a new turn.

Shortly after we took up housekeeping together, we got rid of the old green desk and everything I had in the old desk of importance had to move to Cathy's desk which was already pretty full of her stuff.  No big deal, I'm and easy-going guy this should work out just fine.  And everything did except for the paper clips, Cathy had a bunch of wimpy little paper clips and they were in a little plastic case that you had to open up to get a paper clip which wasn't that big of a deal but there were no big paper clips in that case, so instead of making a big deal about it I just added some of my big paper clips to the case of little paper clips and everything was wonderful.  But- in time I grew tired of fishing around in the little plastic case for a large paper clip and it seemed the little ones were always on the top and in the way of getting the large paper clip.  Did I complain?  No siree, not me, I'm an easy-going guy and why should I disturb our marital bliss by complaining about a little paper clip?  So, I decided to just handle the matter privately and wisely, which I did by finding a little dish that fit nicely in the drawer into which I put all the large paper clips from the plastic case leaving all the small paper clips in the case for anyone who wanted a small paper clip.  See how easy that was?  No muss no fuss as they say.  Things went along well paper clip wise for a good time until one day I reached into the large paper clip dish to pull out a large paper clip and to my disappointment I found I was holding a small paper clip in my hand; how did this happen?  Well obviously, my better half had decided that a paper clip dish is a paper clip dish and no one really cares what size goes in the dish, right?  On further inspection I found numerous small paper clips had been dropped into my large paper clip dish.  At this point I needed to decide what to do, do I bring up the problem, explain the whole situation from the beginning to the sad state of affairs that the paper clips had evolved into?  I knew doing that would risk me losing my easy-going persona that I rather liked having so I decided I just needed to put up with a few small paper clips in my large paper clip dish and move on with life. No sense making myself look small and petty.  This went on for some time but it seemed the large paper clip dish became fuller and fuller of small paper clips and finally in a flash of brilliance I realized I could just keep a small envelope of large paper clips in my financial folder that mostly only I use to pay bills and take them out when needed and put them away safely out of reach of any indiscriminate paper clip users.  And so that was the final solution, or so I thought.  Because eventually we merged our financial accounts to one bank with joint accounts and of course joint credit cards, so sometimes when Cathy uses the credit card if it something she wants to pay for herself she will attach the cash to the credit card bill for me to pay, with- what else? a small paper clip!  Now sometimes they are colored and cute paper clips but they are still small paper clips and since I have banished small paper clips from my life, I don't want to  put them in my secret large paper clip envelope in the financial folder so I just casually stroll into her little room where her desk is and drop them politely into the former large paper clip dish which is now just chock full of small paper clips then walk out knowing I am a bigger person for not complaining about it and  also realizing that she doesn't even know that the "paper clip war" has been raging on for years now.  

So, my take on all this is that marriage is a very good thing and why spoil it over petty things like the size of a paper clip?  Besides, how do I know that if I shine the light on the "paper clip war" she won't inform me of numerous "wars" I don't know about that she is fighting with me?  I'd rather stay dumb and happy and be an easy-going guy.