Nick thinks of so many little things—little things that are not even on my radar. For example, he knows that I prefer to drink from straws. When we go to the Kohl Center to watch the Badgers play, the concession stands serve their fountain drinks without plastic tops or straws (to cut down on the refuse left behind, I assume). I have never really thought much of it…mainly because I am highly adaptable and talented enough to know how to drink both from a straw and from a glass. But Nick thought of it and remembered to smuggle in contraband. I sipped happily from the illegal straw throughout the entire game.

He can be so thorough that I can only be humored when confronted with gaps in ordinary processes.

We eat frozen pizza more often than any grown up should, but we can both be pretty weary after work. That frozen pizza may just save us from calling a handful of pretzel sticks "dinner." By contractual agreement, I remove the outer wrapping and place the pizza in the oven, and he takes the pizza out and cuts it. Along with our duties, it is assumed that I will remember to turn the oven on and that he will remember turn the oven off.

Frequently, the oven continues to heat long after it has been emptied, and this has become the source of one of our standing jokes. If it isn't the oven that he leaves on, it's the light that he turned on to check the "brownness" of the pizza when the timer first goes off. I usually take a turn in the kitchen to make sure everything has been turned off because I rarely assume anything with Nick anymore.

The other day, he was feeling pretty cocky as he sauntered out of the darkened kitchen with a plate of pizza. "Oven: OFF! Light: OFF!" No sooner did he finish his proclamation that the oven timer shrilled.

"And the timer?" I questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Timer: not off."