Page 24 of Croc Food

“I’m here to support you,” Zach protested. “Can’t wait to eat Bitsy’s cooking.”

Mr. Van Buren was annoying as fuck as I drove them the short distance to our condo.

“You know, my boy, you’ve got a very good golf game.”

“Thank you,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Some of the loveliest work in the rough I’ve ever seen. The way you get out of those sandtraps is a caution, boy. But your wife—I don’t know.”

“Nothing’s wrong with my wife,” I bit out.

“She’s very traditional,” Zach put in innocently. “You might not think it to look at her but she is.”

“Oh, really?” Mr. Van Buren perked up. “Real traditional? Makes her own bread from scratch?”

“I’ve never seen her do anything but. She’d faint to see a store-bought loaf,” Zach lied cheerfully as we got out of the car.

“What are you doing, idiot?” I hissed, grabbing his arm and yanking at his cufflinks. “That’s not Bitsy.”

“Because heads I win, tails you lose,” he grinned. “If Mr. Van Buren is unhappy, you’ll lose the promotion. And if Bitsy is unhappy, you’ll lose her, and I’ll get a shot. Either way, everything’s coming up Zachary.”

“No way,” I shot back, trying to suppress the pangs of jealousy I got at the idea of Zach getting a chance with my wife.

The first inkling I got that this was going to go badly was that I stepped on a chicken.

I jerked my foot up as soon as I felt something squashy under my wingtip and the chicken gave a loud squawk of indignation and ran off with the tail feathers poofing in the air.

“What the hell?” Mr. Van Buren expostulated, and Bitsy appeared in the front door.

She was dressed in a long gingham dress with a bonnet over her bright blue hair, and she was holding a butcher knife in her hand.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” she said, waving us inside. “I love being a sweet lil housewife and doing everything the traditional way from scratch. There’s only one thing left to prepare and that’s the chicken. Maybe one of you fine gentlemen can select a chicken for me and I’ll wring its neck.”

Mr. Van Buren looked like he was about to puke.

“Bitsy, that will not be necessary,” I squawked. “You don’t have any other chicken?”

“In this house, my husband’s word is LAW,” she said cheerfully. “Plus, we have other meat.”

“I like chicken, I don’t want to eat one I saw wandering up the stairs,” Mr. Van Buren bleated, but she ignored him.

We walked up the steps to find my father-in-law on the front porch with a small fire, turning around what looked like a roasted armadillo.

“Roadkill,” he said. “We don’t waste food ‘round these parts.”

Croaking out some nonsense, I hurried Mr. Van Buren into the house, because my boss looked like he was about to hurl.

Inside, Bitsy had removed all of the unique decorations, like I had so foolishly requested. In their place was great quantities of hay and even more chickens, and I was staring open-mouthed when a sheep butted me right in the ass.

“I say! What the hell is going on?” Mr. Van Buren sputtered, as Bitsy began to churn butter by hand, so hard that little globs of half-churned yellow milk were flying around everywhere.

“I thought you liked traditional wives,” Bitsy said sweetly.

“This is not traditional!”

“What do you think traditional is?” she retorted. “What do you think making everything from scratch is? It’s a lot of damn work!”

“It’s—it’s not about that,” he said pompously. “It’s not about a bunch of farm animals. It’s about creating a space where a Man can be a Man, and not worry about piddling little things like chores. It’s about a space where a Man can relax and always have his slippers and a good pipe laid out at the end of the day.”