Cholesterol and wifely care

Back in May the Guy got his cholesterol checked, and was rather taken aback to discover that there were entire land masses of cholesterol moving at will through his body. Continents. Great big continents drifting around his blood vessels with the certain, single-minded dedication to disaster normally exhibited by television networks and heads of state.

Alarmed by this state of affairs, my husband promptly attempted to get his cholesterol under control by not exercising.

He lost ten pounds. This is apparently something men can do, shed weight at whim. This past week he got tested again. Good news. His total cholesterol is now under 200, but his triglycerides are still at 490.

There is actually so much fat in his body, the lab is not capable of measuring his bad cholesterol.

"...So I ate a salami sandwich for lunch," he told me over the telephone.

Because this is what you do when you're informed you have a fat problem.

Being a loving wife, I instantly went online and did research. The internet is good for research, especially if you're like me and implicitly believe everything you read. In this, I am not much different from my mother, who once paused at the supermarket checkout to read the covers of publications she had only been peripherally aware of before, and left Safeway's firmly convinced that there were aliens impregnating women with two-headed baby clones of Elvis. My mother lives in a strange and magical world. I digress.

The Internet told me that he needed to eat more fiber. "And what's great about this," I told him, "is that I have an entire container of Metamucil."

This did not bring the Guy joy. Men are unpredictable this way.

The next few minutes were regrettable, both for the general lack of appreciation displayed by my husband, as well as the demonstrably poor attitude with which he greeted my attempts to be a good wife and warden of his health.

I poured him a cup of barley tea and stirred fiber into it. By his own request, I also added a packet of Emergen-C powder. The result, it is true, did not look particularly appetizing. In retrospect, the Emergen-C might have been a mistake. The fiber, it turned out, had already stressed the saturation point of the water, so the addition of the vitamins had the result of building a tiny chain of powdery islands atop of muddy sludge.

The Guy was unenthused.

"What's really exciting about this is that you can actually see it hardening."

It took some vigorous work with the spoon to bury the islands. I am not entirely convinced that they dissolved. I'm fairly certain that they were, in fact, simply biding their time at the bottom of the mug.

"Did you want me to live longer? Or just feel like I'm living longer?"

It was not a large mug. It was, in fact, literally a cup -- perhaps less -- of water. It took him five minutes to drink it, interrupted by a trip to the bathroom so he could lean against the wall and hiccup like a hysterical pokemon.

"This is so yummy, Yuhri. Thank you."

It is sad to see a grown man cry. Honestly. I don't know what his problem was.

"You know, when I promised to grow old with you, I didn't mean all at once."

Not to mention the whining.

Men.

He should have his next cholesterol check in six months. One cup of metamucil a day seems a small price to pay for my continued happiness, doesn't it?