“Yes, hi, I would like to lodge a complaint,” she said.
“Very well,” he said. “Let me just retrieve the right form. One moment please.”
“No rush,” she said.
The man rummaged through a filing cabinet beside the bed and withdrew the correct form and a fresh pen, noting the date and time of the meeting. “We’ll start at the top: who is lodging the complaint?”
“Your wife,” she said.
The man checked a box on the form. “I see. And whom is the complaint directed towards?”
“My husband.”
“Yes, so with me.” He checked another box. “And what does the complaint pertain to?”
“Something you said to me over dinner last night,” she said.
The husband made another mark on the form. “To be specific, was this before, during, or directly after dinner?”
“After.”
The husband checked a box. “Before we continue, does the complaint relate at all to food? For instance, who prepared said food, how large of serving each participant took, the manner in which the food was eaten?”
“No, it had nothing to do with the food. The food was sublime, delicious.”
The husband hinted a smile. “Your comment will not go unnoticed.”
“Please, no tongue-and-cheek comments,” she warned. “I’m not in the mood to open another form about inappropriate behavior during an official complaint.”
“Noted,” said the husband, marking the form as such. “I’ve given myself a formal warning. Now, what is the nature of your complaint?”
“You don’t remember? We discussed it last night, briefly.”
The husband sighed, withdrawing a manilla folder from the filing cabinet, turning over a document dated from the previous evening. “Recalling the minutes of dinner last night, I noted tension at 6:45 PM, just as our plates were emptied and we debated dessert.”
“Do you remember what we wanted for dessert?”
The husband flipped the page. “Superman ice cream.”
“You couldn’t remember that just now? You had to read the minutes?”
The husband clicked his pen and wrote on the complaint form currently open, reading aloud as he wrote, “Plaintiff seems concerned about memory recall function of husband despite minutes written in detail.”
“What did I say about the tongue-and-cheek?”
The husband crossed out what he had just written and amended it as: “Wife appears concerned.”
“That’s better.”
“Should I keep on with the minutes to find the complaint you are referring to?”
“Please.”
The husband resumed reading, “6:46 PM: Wife asks if husband will be attending work party with her next weekend. She also notes the dress she has picked out.” The husband looked up. “Is that the complaint?”
“Partly,” she said.
“What’s the matter, exactly?”
“Read on,” she said. “Unless you can just tell me.”
The husband picked up the minutes and continued: “To which the husband replied, ‘I won’t be able to go, Honey, I promised Dave I would help him move out of his apartment.’”
The wife stared expectantly. “Well?”
“A perfectly acceptable excuse,” said the husband. “If you don’t believe me, I have your signature next to the minutes log. That means, per bylaws, you cannot go back on plans made yesterday evening, and I am entitled to a weekend excursion with Dave under the provision that I help him move out of his current apartment.”
“Why is he moving?”
“Irrelevant,” said the husband. “The minutes have been signed.”
The wife sighed. “Look, I understand that I signed. I want to reopen the case.”
“That’s a completely different form,” said the husband. “Why didn’t you say—”
“Because I shouldn’t have to.”
The husband dropped his pen on the floor and fumbled around in the fibers of the carpet until his fingers pinched around the cold, metal pen clip. He sat up, collecting himself. “Our household bylaws are not up for discussion. If you wish to reopen last night’s minutes form, a new set of minutes must be added and amended for tonight’s proceedings.”
“Along with the formal complaint you are filling out now?”
“Yes.”
“And this new set of minutes will compound on top of the complaint form you’re already filling out, in which case a series of amendments and disclaimers will have to be inserted, proofed, counter-proofed, re-signed, and be reviewed again and again?”
“Perhaps I should fetch our marital bylaws in order to cross reference proper procedure in the case of—”
“No, you’re going to stay put,” said the wife, pressing on his shoulders, keeping him seated upon the bed. “You’re going to talk to your wife, Brian.”
The husband, who kept referring to himself as such, said, “It is custom to refer to each other by husband and wife for the sake of honoring written bylaws.”
“What?”
The husband cleared his throat, repeating, “It is custom to refer to each other by—”
She craned over him. “I can’t understand you, Brian. What are you trying to tell—”
“Stop calling me Brian, bitch!”
The wife raised an eyebrow. The husband swiveled quickly to the filing cabinet by the bedside, retrieving another form. “I apologize, profusely. Here, I’ll begin my Official Husbandly Apology Form. Please, continue with your complaint.”
“That’s the problem, Brian,” she began, but her husband lifted a finger, objecting to the use of his name. “Sorry, husband. There’s more to this than not going to the work party.” She hesitated, then finally said it. “Last night, when we were through with dinner, you asked what I wanted for dessert and—”
“Please read the minutes if you are referencing something I said specifically.”
“No, husband, I won’t. Because what I said was, ‘I don’t want ice cream. I want you.’”
The husband paused filling out his Official Apology Form. He cleared his throat. “What you are referring to sounds familiar; I will have to check the minutes for specific language.”
“Don’t bother. I remember what you said. You said, ‘Ok. I’ll get the Official Sex Form.’”
The husband tilted his head, almost confused. “And what is the matter with that?”
“Your wife says she wants you and your reply is to offer her a form to sign?”
“The form is merely a formality.”
“Hardly,” she said.
“I disagree,” said the husband. “The Official Sex Form is a brief survey of what level of sexual completion you require on said occasion: amount of foreplay, intensity of orgasm, duration of the act.”
“I know what’s on the damn form,” she said. “My question is why do we need it?”
The husband put aside the Apology Form and pulled out a fresh piece of paper. “You’re bringing up a very important point. It’s clear, from this discussion, that there is a loophole in the marital bylaws. What we are missing, in our proceedings, is a failsafe when breakdowns occur.”
“Brian,” she sighed, this rhetoric all too familiar.
“No, no, this is important,” the husband continued, writing longform on a blank piece of paper. “If there is ever a need for a failsafe, it is now. This new form, as you can see here, will remind us to reinforce the bylaws, the ones we both agreed and signed for at the start of the fiscal….”
The tip of his pen ripped through to the other side of the new form, stabbing into his pantleg. A blotch of ink stained into his khakis.
“Brian,” she whispered. “Please stop—”
“No, Janet, I won’t!” He paused, the air unwilling to exit or enter his sternum. She touched his shoulder and he breathed again. “I mean, wife, there are certain rules in place so that…”
“Say it,” she said, sitting down beside him. He didn’t move away.
The husband stopped writing. He shook his head no.
The wife looked to him. “Please.”
He recoiled from her touch, turning away. “Because we don’t want you cheating on us again.”
They sat in silence for some time, a stillness that hadn’t existed between them since she had first told him of an affair the year before.
“I’d like you to formally complain against me,” she said at last.
The husband looked up. “Why?”
“Should I reread the minutes?” she said, reaching across to the filing cabinet next to the bed, withdrawing a blank piece of paper from the open drawer. She took his pen and asked, “Name of the plaintiff?”
He hesitated, the hurt coming back. She put a hand on his knee, and he didn’t swat it away, as he usually did. “Your husband,” he mumbled at last.
“Who?”
He smiled slightly. “Brian.”
“And who is your complaint meant for?”
“My wife,” he said. She stared. “Janet.”
She checked an imaginary box on the blank piece of paper. “Very well. And what is your complaint?”
He didn’t want to say. She kissed his cheek and smiled.
“I want to know why,” he strained to say.
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Can you be more specific?”
He cleared his throat and said, “I want to know why you did it.”
She lifted her head and said, “Is it ok if I write my official response?”
The husband conceded.
He watched his wife, Janet, as she turned away to write. He wanted to peak around her as though back in grade school, trying to lift a few answers from the person in front of him. He didn’t speak, and he spent his time looking over the metal filing cabinet that he had bought the day after she had told him about the affair. It was a cold and hardened thing, an obelisk in the stead of a bedside table. Inside were countless forms, each cataloguing the Dos and Don’ts of their lives from that moment onward. He hated it, the procedural and metallic failsafe.
“Done,” she said at last, turning to him with her written response. “Do you want to read it with me here, or would you like me to leave the room?”
“Stay,” he said, surprising himself. He took the page, expecting a few paragraphs of explanation, but instead found a single line.
Because it took the mistake of my life to realize how wonderful you are. Bylaws and all.
When he was through, he looked to his wife, and stormed the filing cabinet, gutting the insides of manilla folders and excess forms. He threw them to the carpet, ripping to pieces an entire year of catalogued love and unlove.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice quivering.
He stopped ripping up documents and grabbed his wife, kissed her, and said, “Before I destroy every one of these files, I need to reopen last night’s minutes and ask you a question. And, believe me, the rest of our lives depends on your answer.”
She smiled. “Ok, anything.”
“What would you like for dessert tonight?”
