He’s the burp, and she’s the, ‘Excuse me.’ That’s paid off for these 2 for 24 years

Everyone in my house has a role that the family depends on to keep things running the way we like. The boys are reluctant gardeners. The dog is an eager guard.

And then there’s me and my wife. “You’re the burp,” she explained to me once, “and I’m the, ‘Excuse me.’”

Her words were too true to offend me. Plus it’s hard to offend the burp.

Back when I was single, I could be little rough for polite society, too quick to push aside niceties of etiquette and decorum that threatened to get in the way of a good time. The woman I proposed to was a charming, cultured beauty who, to my surprise, liked the way I kept things loose and lively.

She said yes, kicking off what is so far a 24-year-long test of just how long opposites can keep on attracting.

Sometimes it’s funny to watch, like the evening I brought a pinata to a beautiful catered party my wife organized to mark the 10th anniversary of my move to the Midwest.

This was a party attended only by adults, I should point out. Big, strong adults who demonstrated, in case anyone other than me wasn’t sure, why you only see pinatas at kids’ parties. We didn’t make it past one swing of the bat before everyone had to stop and pick up candy and chunks of papier-mache from all over the beautiful catered party.

And then there are the times that one of us pulls the other so far from their natural environment that folks watching are surprised to see us come through on speaking terms.

I’m thinking here of our recent vacation.

We both love to hike, but the vacations my wife plans that involve hiking also include the refined culture of bookstores, museums and a comfortable bed at the end of each day.

My wife did not plan our latest vacation, which is why we ended up on foot in the southern Rockies with our sons’ Scout troop for almost two weeks, far from any trace of culture, refined or otherwise, that couldn’t be stuffed into a 65-liter backpack.

It was sort of a repeat of a trip I made two years earlier with my older son. I’d never been through anything tougher than that trek, but also nothing that felt more like what I was built for. We lived like animals in the best sense, out in the weather and up on our muscles through days of little more intellectually taxing than eating, chatting and navigating to our next sleeping spot.

I say “sort of” because against all good judgment, this year we let the Scouts choose a route that kept us at higher altitudes for more time so we could summit more peaks. It was going to be tougher than the toughest thing I’d ever done, and this time the whole family was coming.

The only similarity to my description of that earlier trip that my wife acknowledged during our first days on the trail last month was that we were living like animals, period.

She started to talk more about the gorgeous landscapes a few days later, but she also pointed out that people enjoy plenty of other perfectly good mountain vistas without hauling heavy backpacks.

And then on our final evening out, she admitted that our hike that day to the meadow of tall grass and wild irises where we set up camp was the most beautiful she’d ever experienced.

It’s a safe bet that my wife will never again bed down such a long walk from a soft mattress. But she’ll also never forget what it’s like to live so simply away from the responsibilities of everyday life, or that a new world of surprising adventures opens when opposites attract.

We’re socking away money for our next big vacation now. She gets to pick this one, which means I’ll be puzzling out the intricacies of her natural milieu — wine pairings, how much to tip a concierge, what, come to think of it, a concierge is for.

She’s helped me get pretty good at navigating that world over the years, and my life is wonderfully richer for it.

I’ve gotten so good at it, in fact, that I might take her hand over a candlelit dinner on that next vacation and mention that an ancient South Asian poem describes almost perfectly our natural and inseparable union of two people from completely different elements who were wise enough to let opposites attract: “In love our hearts have mingled like red earth and pouring rain.”

Almost perfectly. To someone who’ll always feel a little rough for polite society, there’s no beating the poetry of “You’re the burp and I’m the ‘Excuse me.’”

Richard Espinoza is a former editor of the Johnson County Neighborhood News. You can reach him at respinozakc@yahoo.com. And follow him on Twitter at @respinozakc.