There’s a good boy. Now bring me chicken cacciatore at once.
Last night, while ensconced in my car, I caught the last twenty minutes of an NPR interview with Amy Tan from this last December. Friends, I thought I knew Amy Tan. I knew Amy Tan, beloved and bestselling novelist. I knew Amy Tan, prominent sufferer of Lyme disease. But I did not know Amy Tan like I know Amy Tan now: as a misandrist hero.
It came up casually — how easily I might have missed it. The interviewer asked Amy about what it was like, building a new home and writing a novel at the same time, and they chatted about the details amiably, when Amy mentioned that her husband brings her three meals a day — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — into her office while she works. Every day. All three meals. At her request.
Amy Tan is a misandrist hero.
Perhaps a particularly strong-willed woman could get two tray-brought meals out of her spouse every day. I do not know; I live in glorious solitude, like a witch, and I eat when I please. But it seems to me that the average husband would at least desire his wife’s company at dinner. Not so in the house of Amy Tan. Her husband brings her dinner at her writing desk and then melts into the woodwork, like the ghost of Jeeves.
Every morning she tries to outwit him, to request a meal that he cannot bring, but he has never failed her in their many years of marriage. The neck of a white wolf. Three plums floating in a decanter of aged brandy. Limited edition Cinnamon Toast Crunch-flavored Eggo mini waffles. Regret and the smell of ginger. He finds them all, and he brings them to her, and she eats them.
[Image via Achievement.org]
All I’ve ever asked for is tea; clearly I need to up my misandrist game.
perfection.
“I live in glorious solitude, like a witch, and I eat when I please”
YUP.
I imagine Mallory’s table being set by a menagerie of woodland creechrs, so that her grand and terrible solitude is unmarred by so pathetic an animal as man.
(brb must cultivate the tray-carrying and culinary skills of my familiars)
Can I request the next Toast t-shirt/miscellaneous paraphernalia to have this on it
Plums indeed.
Number Four. ::BELCH:: Number Four. ::BELCH:: Number Four. ::BELCH::
exactly where my brain went when I saw the words “plums floating”
I literally came here to type this.
I have always referred to “Single Plum Floating In Perfume Served In A Man’s Hat” as my usual.
As in, husband asks if I want anything, I say “The usual”, and he replies that we are missing one or more ingredients.
I once tried to teach my ex to make me coffee [which he did not drink] and he broke my coffee grinder. I’m sticking with glorious solitude unless someone turns up who naturally has all the skill and discretion of Jeeves.
That is basically the ideal man.
But has he ever given her soup made out of the flesh of his own arm?
A+ AMY TAN ALLUSION, MINDY.
This pleases the grade grubbing Waverly Jong in me soooo much.
I had a husband who did such things – not every day, and I wasn’t a writer, but he did all the cooking so that kind of counts. Granted, I divorced him but maybe that makes me a different kind of misandrist in my own right. I had such a man, but I had so little use for him that I divorced him.
LOL “I had such a man, but I had so little use for him” I just… love that line so much
this is actually a pretty convincing argument in favor of heterosexual marriage. probably cheaper than employing actual servants.
I am now legally obligated to post the Butler sketch from Mitchell & Webb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DW1giVv3x4
This is pretty much the reason men throughout history have gotten married, yeah: “Servant I can have sex with.”
there’s no sex involved, how improprietous.
and not pay.
She also dresses him in awful sweaters so that he will not draw unsolicited attention on the rare occasions that he must venture out to the grocery store for meal ingredients.
My boyfriend makes me dinner every night, but I have been setting the bar too low. Need to shop for trays ASAP.
My dude will occasionally bring me food in the morning to which I tend to grouse something along the lines of “I AM ASLEEP” but clearly the delineating factor is a tray. With a tray I would be compelled to sit up and take notice, otherwise the coffee mugs and proffered toast grow cold happily blocking the clock that would otherwise tell me to wake the fuck up already.
“last night, while ensconced in my car”
YOU’RE MY MISANDRIST HERO
I may have just propped my head in my hands and sighed gustily in delight at this.
“Husband! Bring to me a skylark’s tongue, pickled in the tears of a old monk.”
“It is done, beloved wife.”
BRILLIANT.
Jeff Bridges, as the President in the film The Contender (2000), repeatedly trying to confound the White House chef with demands for weird food like shark steak sandwiches.
And I can’t even get my man to turn the blood of my enemies into a delightful sorbet. Sigh.
What we, nay, the world (!!) is clamoring for is a detailed methodology from Amy in the proper training and management of husbands. It’s clear that many men are untrained in proper husband behavior. Her guidance would be invaluable.
Maybe she could start a training camp? I’d really like to train my boyfriend, since his serving is a little lacking (last week he put down dessert forks for my dinner! Can you imagine?) but I don’t have time to really do it properly.
Not gonna lie, at least 25% of the reason I’m sad my relationship turned into an LDR is that my boyfriend is no longer an able to make and bring me my 3 meals a day (with napkins and dessert and real silver which he washed for me). And, you know, also because I love him but those meals were so tasty.
But do you know her as Amy Tan, lover of hoodies with many pockets?
Oh my god. I’m obsessed with pockets! I’m going to buy all of these things now!!!
How did she find this guy? Does he come from a long line of butlers?
Also I would use a dating service that was exclusively for finding dudes from butling families, fyi.
I would BE a butler in a hot second.
I would sign up for that service instantly.
Honestly, if that’s what you REALLY want, you could probably find a man like that on fetlife.com.
Last weekend, I mentioned in passing that I have been craving shrimp lately. “Maybe it’s the iodine? I dunno,” I uptalked.
Sunday night, my husband – a vegetarian of 20+ years who misses shrimp more than any other meat and who never, ever drinks wine – came home after work with bags of groceries and cooked dinner, surprising me with a huge bowl of perfectly cooked shrimp over garlic pasta with asparagus and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
He does not need to be sent to Amy Tan’s Husband Re-Education Camp
I had regret and gingersmell for lunch today.
I wish I had had pizza instead.
My husband brings me breakfast and lunch at my desk almost every day! He also makes dinner not infrequently. Not gonna lie, it’s pretty good but it does make me feel a little guilty sometimes.
Time to go reread all the Amy Tan I’ve read, and then read the rest of what I haven’t.
AMY TAN YOU ARE A QUEEN
I feel it important to note that Amy Tan is not just a misandrist at home. She was in a band called the Rock Bottom Remainders with several other authors (Stephen King, Mitch Albom, Barbara Kingsolver, Ridley Pearson, Dave Barry, James McBride, Matt Groening, Robert Fulghum, etc). As one of the few women in the band, Tan would at one point dress as a dominatrix, sing Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots are Made for Walkin’, and whip her male fellow-bandmates.
That’s the only reason I can forgive her for being snippy to Lisa Simpson. If I spoke up she’d probably flog me.
This is the set up in my house as well. My soon-to-be-husband makes me 3 meals a day and delivers them up to my office when I work at home; or sends me commuting in the car with an egg sandwich for breakfast, etc. I’m responsible for my own coffee-making though because I am weird about it. I don’t usually have specific requests but he cooks to my taste, mostly, while still requiring me to eat hateful vegetables and lettuce and healthy crap like that.
He’s basically retired and spends the rest of the day doing the cleaning and laundry and shopping and then whatever hobbies (music, surfing) he feels like. I work at a start-up many many hours a day (and many more if I have to go into the office). It’s a pretty typical 1950s arrangement but with no kids and swapped around genders. When I try to help with dinner I get a “WOMAN GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN! Go make us the Gs!” which suits me just fine and I love my job and all the work there but am otherwise ridiculously lazy. We’re lucky that we can afford to do this but he’s so good at house management we’re actually living more cheaply as two than I did alone eating takeout and delivery 3 meals a day.
He can live after the revolution, right?
Not every man will be killed in the revolution. Some will be allowed to stay on as our manservants. Yours sounds as though the position will suit him nicely.
You’re the best on the whole entire Internet, Mallory.
Y’all, I thought I was doing okay with training mine – not Tan-levels yet, but he does all the tea making and grocery shopping and, the worst task of all, taking the kids to the doctors.
But as we were leaving margarita night just now, complaining about the cold, my friend (whose husband also cooks, like, roasts all the time, and walks the kids to school, and had their sons take her name instead of his) said she had no problem with cold because:
HE GOES TO BED ON HER SIDE, TO WARM IT UP FOR HER, THEN SHOVES OVER TO THE COLD SIDE WHEN SHE RETIRES.
I immediately knelt at her feet and asked for some wisdom.
my ex’s dad used to warm his wife’s side of the bed with a hairdryer in the winter
I can just about get a cup of tea if I’m lucky.
My husband is a saint, but if I am not around to cook or don’t feel like it, he just makes protein shakes until I cook again.
Is your husband my mother?? When my dad was away for a few months (for work) I cam home to visit and found that the only things in the house were coffee, a block of cheese, and stale crackers, because that was all she was eating. I immediately had to run to the grocery store to get food so I could cook for us all week because if no one is there to do it she wont do it herself. My mother is wonderful but she’s definitely a ‘food for sustenance not enjoyment’ type of person.
I can just about get a cup of tea if I'm lucky.
We were standing by the pancake ingredients when Dudefriend quietly suggested ‘would you like to make them?’
I laughed ‘HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR. No. YOU cook for ME.’
Sometimes I doubt myself, but then my inner misandrist leaps out and demands pancakes.
My father makes my mother breakfast in bed, packs her lunch, and cooks dinner for the various and sundry members of my family every single day. I think once in the past ten years I have heard him request someone else to make dinner. Obviously, I am leaning on Mr. September to adopt this model.
I don’t like working, so I don’t think I’d mind being a house husband. But it seems like so much work! You have to dress right, know how to cook, keep yourself in shape, be good with the kids, make your wife laugh after a hard day of work…
“I live in glorious solitude, like a witch, and I eat when I please.”
Thank you for giving me my new outlook on life.