The Wish List

Christmas was always his favorite day of the year, aside from his birthday. He loved receiving gifts and being the center of attention. His girlfriend knew how to make him feel special and cared for. He and his girlfriend had been together for a few years and would often make extra special plans for the holiday season.

He loved his girlfriend dearly. She was smart, funny, resourceful, pretty, and successful. She was, by many standards, a catch. The total package. However, she was not a homemaker. She didn't want kids, didn't want a traditional relationship, or believed in gender roles.

His girlfriend owned her own small business, had stock investments, and owned her own home. Regardless of these things, she still loved him and supported him in a way he appreciated but he felt something was lacking.

He didn't necessarily want a "Stepford" wife, but he did want a wife who would look after their future children and home while he worked during the day.

As he was leaving the department store with his girlfriend's gift, he spotted a dark brown leatherbound notebook in the stationary section on his way out. He stopped to look at the embossing on the front which read, "The Wish List."

Intrigued, he opened the leatherbound notebook to look inside and saw that each page was formatted for list making. He actually needed something like this for his ever-growing to-do lists. He purchased the book and proceeded home.

Once home, he put his coat, keys, and wallet away on the entryway table and set his new notebook on his small desk and began to write his grocery list. Afterward, he went to the kitchen to grab some left-over takeout and was astonished to find the items from his grocery list were in the fridge!

Confused, he grabbed the notebook to check what he had written. How was this possible, he wondered. As a test, he simply wrote down "gold watch" and to his surprise, a gold watch materialized. He realized very quickly he could have whatever he wanted so he started to think of what he wanted the most. A traditional wife.

The following night, he and his girlfriend had pre-holiday dinner plans at her place, and he couldn't bare another takeout dinner from her no matter how thoughtful she was of his meal preferences. So, he set out to list every quality he wanted in her that she did not have.

The next night when he arrived at his girlfriend's house, she greeted him at the door with a whisky neat and offered to take his coat. He was so stunned that it took him a moment to notice she was wearing a vintage looking A-line dress similar to one he saw his grandma wearing in a photo from the 1950s.

He took his whiskey and then noticed it smelled like she had cooked! He was astonished. They sat down to their meal, ate, talked, and exchanged gifts. He was so thrilled that she didn't talk about work, politics, or her next big goal. Instead, she spoke of having kids and moving into his apartment.

Later that night, as he slept, he felt something wet in the bed that woke him. When he tried to open his eyes, his vision was blurry, and his mind was foggy. In this groggy state, he could barely see his girlfriend, but he knew she was there. It looked like she was maybe cutting or sawing something as she was moving back and forth. He asked her as best as he could what she was doing.

In a sugary sweet tone, his girlfriend replied, "butchering the meat for tomorrow's dinner, of course," as she continued to saw his leg off.