Jack Sprat and the Mrs.

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition on 3/9/12

Do you remember Jack Sprat and his wife?  No, they haven’t been in the news for espionage or for embezzling funds or for blatant infidelity.  These are the characters from the old nursery rhyme.  Surely, you remember Jack Sprat, the man who could eat no fat?  Remember his wife?  How could you?  She didn’t even get a name.  I suppose we are supposed to be satisfied with calling her Mrs. Jack Sprat.  Regardless of her appellation, we do get the picture that she was the rounder one because she simply could eat no lean.

To me, it’s an ideal relationship.  The Sprats could go out to dinner, and after the Mrs. had wedged herself into the booth, and Mr. Sprat had planted his knobby knees under the other side of the booth, they could order just one meal.  He would guzzle down the water and chomp on a few ice chips while the Mrs. went to work on the creamy mashed potatoes and the slab of beef.  I’m sure she would need a milkshake, and if you’re going to splurge on a milkshake, why would you deny yourself the whipped topping and that single Maraschino cherry?  Jack is going to indulge in none of that.

What about the blooming onion with the sauce?  It has its basis in a vegetable.  Forget that. Jack might have to settle for only a whiff of that calorie-laden decadence, and even that might be too much for him.  The aroma alone would probably bowl him over.  He would probably just eat the green beans, even though that would seem somewhat cannibalistic.  If the man has any fat on him, it’s going to be in the form of his wallet. 

When the dessert rolls around, she might let him have a bit of the fruit filling from her pie – if he behaves himself and doesn’t make rude comments regarding her calorie intake.

I feel something like that couple.  My husband possesses much better will power than I do.  If he decides he will or won’t do something, you may as well throw in the towel.  You might feel like throwing the towel at him, but he is fairly firm in his convictions. 

He has a very strict dietary regimen.  Lots of tomatoes and fish – oatmeal and green tea, almonds and walnuts, blueberries, and spinach salads, and the occasional sugar-free cookie.  I, on the other hand, will everything else.  By choice.

The other day, our nine-year-old daughter complained that he hadn’t even tasted the birthday cake that she had dutifully made for her brother, even though she had removed the frosting from his tiny portion.  (I might have helped save the planet by making sure the frosting did not go to waste.)

When I conveyed his latest affront, he decided to be a good sport and made a big show of eating that one morsel of cake.  One.  It put the biggest smile on our little girl, because Betty Crocker isn’t always a piece of cake, you know.  It takes so little to make some people happy.  For a smile like that, I could have eaten the whole cake.  In fact, I might have…in small portions, of course.

So, what is the secret to the happy marriage of Jack and his nameless wife with the shameless eating habits?  We’re never told if Mrs. Sprat is a marathon runner.  You never know.  At least she might have been assigned a number for us to remember her by.  From the illustrations that accompany these rhymes, though, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that she was not.

You may recall that my wedding and engagement rings had to be cut off of my finger in the summer, just a few months before our 25^th anniversary.  That was because the 25 extra pounds I have added over the years had decided to aggregate right around that ring finger.

My husband, however, has lost 45 pounds over the last year.  A couple of months ago, as he was changing a filter in the car (at night), his wedding band slipped right off and went clinking into the abyss.  It hasn’t turned up anywhere in the car, and we still haven’t found it in the driveway or the grass. 

So, as a result, 25 years into our marriage, neither of us has our original wedding band on.  It’s a good thing I don’t believe in omens.

In the meantime, if someone wants to lend me a metal detector, don’t be shy. Mrs. Sprat will be happy to take you on a tour of the driveway.