Should You Thank Your Wife for Heating up a Frozen Pizza?

Question: Should you thank your wife for heating up frozen pizza for dinner? This was a hot topic at my house on a recent Friday night. Most evenings we’re like any other family when it comes to preparing dinner: We make seven-course meals with mostly fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthy dietary options while drinking organic Jamba Juice¹, but on the occasional Friday night we take the cheap and easy way out.

On this particular evening, I requested frozen pizza for dinner. My wife, who arrived home early and was in a good mood because she was only minutes away from seeing my handsome face², heated up the oven and threw in two frozen pizza pies. My daughters and I arrived home. We sat around the table discussing the finer points of English language—namely when and where it’s appropriate to say the word “poop”—when the oven dinged and my wife dished out the frozen pizza.

Then there was an awkward moment. And an argument. A ridiculous argument over whether or not the girls and I should say thank you to my wife for heating up store-bought frozen pizza for dinner.

To settle our dispute I did what any self-respecting adult would do in this situation: I asked Facebook. 

Thirty-three people commented on the post. The answers ranged from this:

To this:



To this:



 
In fact, by a landslide 31-1 vote, the consensus (whatever that means) was that “Yes, you thank your wife for making dinner, even if it’s just heating up frozen pizza in the oven.” Many of the responses stuck it to me, with a “I can’t believe you would even consider not thanking your wife. You’re dumber than a slug!”³

One comment, though, wasn’t a vote. It pointed out an oddity in the question: “I'm still trying to figure out what science has to do with this.”

While the scientific note was mostly a joke, it did serve a slightly grander purpose: Everyone thought that I was arguing NOT to thank my wife. That assumption was dead wrong.

Every night when my wife makes dinner—whether it’s chicken parmesan, quesadillas, salmon and rice, macaroni and cheese, canned soup, or frozen pizza—I thank her. And I make sure all our kids thank her too. I do this because 1) I think it’s important to thank whoever put in the time (no matter how little time it takes) to prepare your dinner and 2) I want my kids to always show appreciation for their mom, someone who works tirelessly at a 40-plus hours-per-week job to help provide for them all while taking care of us (which is probably more exhausting than the 40-plus hours-per-week job). And just because on occasional Friday nights she’s too tired (and I’m too tired) to make a big meal, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be showing our gratitude for the meal she did make.

So when the girls and I thanked her for making the frozen pizza, she—my beautiful, lovely, kind and generous wife—argued that we shouldn’t thank her for simply heating up pizza. I said that we should. She told me to stop. We actually fought about this for quite awhile. And, while I’m not proud of it, there was some name-calling:


Me: “You’re so unreasonable! Just accept our gratitude you clown!”
My Wife: “I’ll tell you where you can stick that thank you, you super-sexy piece of man meat!” ⁴


The point is, my wife fluffs off a lot of things because she believes that's just what you do for the people you love. I want her to know that we appreciate her, even for the simplest of tasks. And, thanks to modern marvels like Facebook, I proved that I’m right.

Which means that for the first time in the many years that we’ve been together and the many disagreements that we’ve had, I can finally utter the phrase, “I was right.” ⁵

So I’m going to continue thanking my wife when she makes frozen pizza (and when she does other things to care for our family, no matter how big or how small). And I’m going to make our daughters do it too. I guess she's just going to have to live with it, just like she lives with this super-sexy piece of man meat.





¹ This is a lie. We eat Burger King.
² This is also a lie. She was happy to have a few quiet minutes to herself before I brought all our loud kids home (though I’m sure my handsome face helped too).
³ Except for those snooty, elitist Ivy League slugs. Thankfully none of them read this blog.
⁴ Well, that’s what I heard anyway.
⁵ This is a big lie. I’ve been right twice before: 1) Bacon is not gross, it’s delicious and 2) watching “Who’s Harry Crumb?” with me repeating every line IS fun!

GREAT GIFT FOR PARENTS:
Oh Boy, You're Having a Girl
(A Dad's Survival Guide to Raising Daughters)

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Adams Media

IndieBound

****** 
* Subscribe to The Life of Dad via email or RSS feed!  
* Also, follow me on Twitter @BrianKlems. I promise to occasionally say funny things.