Young: With this screwdriver I thee wed

WACO, Texas — Couples married a long time develop a code. But it can apply to newlyweds, too, like my bride and me.

Yes, we're married 23 years as of June. But that doesn't define our condition. Ours is clinically described as a terminal newlywed state.

I was reminded of it the other day when my wife asserted what I'm designating as a code of connubial contentment.

The phrase: "The screwdriver will do."

This has nothing to do with chores. By and large, I have nothing to do with chores. If there's a handyman in our house, it is the woman.

But I digress.

The screwdriver has to do with ice. And contentment.

I don't know exactly when the ice maker in our freezer stopped working. Years ago. Almost as soon as it stopped working, my wife and I stopped caring. And we started buying ice.

Now, at irregular, exorbitant intervals — we don't consume that much. I pick up an occasional bag at the store.

I haul it into the kitchen. I drop it on the linoleum floor to break it up. The cats scatter and mutter feline curses.

When we need ice from the freezer, we go after it with a large, yellow-handled screwdriver. That was the handiest tool when the practice first started. It has sat on the counter next to the refrigerator ever since. We use it for nothing else.

Time has passed. Two sons have grown into their 20s. Finances are a little easier. The other day in a flight of absurdity, I said something my wife immediately made me retract. I said, "Let's get an ice pick."

You'd have thought I'd said I was going to Sears for a snowblower.

"We don't need an ice pick," reprimanded my bride. True. The screwdriver works fine.

I had been caught thinking, oh, extravagantly. That's not at all like me. It must have scared her to death.

Newlyweds don't need ice picks or even ice makers. Until they're old and comfortable, they don't need extravagances.

I wrote about this condition about 10 years ago, about the state of being terminally newlywed. About not needing certain things we all associate with comfort and prestige. I mentioned then that we didn't have a dishwasher. Still don't.

Every dish that has passed across our table has been washed by hand.

The biggest reason for this is that we're still in our "starter house." Our cramped kitchen has no room for a dishwasher. But when we do have room, or if our next house has one built in, it might sit there ignored or spurned — like, say, an ice pick if a screwdriver is available.

Speaking of code: My wife and I have a phrase for marriages that are doomed. The phrase is "cowboy hat."

We know a couple for whom the climactic battle in a protracted break-up was over her desire to get a cowboy hat and go two-stepping. He found both ideas repulsive.

Of course, they had serious compatibility issues. The cowboy hat dispute simply was emblematic of them all.

For my wife and me, that screwdriver sums up a lot about what suffices for comfort, or contentment, or prestige, or a satisfied partnership. And a screwdriver also breaks up a bag of ice with great dispatch.

So, that's that. The cats will just have to live with it.

John Young writes for the Waco Tribune-Herald.