This morning, I was making eggs for my family's breakfast and using leftover heat from the oven (cooking bacon) to warm the plates so that the eggs would not get cold after being transferred to the plates. I have done this hundreds of times. Warming the plates prevents otherwise cold plates from sucking the heat from the family's bacon, eggs, and pancakes at breakfast, thus making their breakfast more enjoyable for them.

This morning, the heat broke a plate. This is a Gibson everyday plate, not too hard to get a replacement for, we can definitely afford it, many thousands and thousands of times over. Up until now, heating breakfast plates this way has never been a problem.

Hearing the plate break, my wife rushed into the kitchen and loudly/angrily exclaimed "oh no, one of my plates!!! I always tell you to never heat the plates like that! Oh no, my plate my plate!" in front of our kids.

Okay, two things:
1. She has expressed uncertainty about the heat possibly damaging the plates, like 2 or 3 times in the last 3 years, not "always". But, okay, people exaggerate.

  1. However, she did not once ask me if I was ok or injured at all. Instead, she made a replaceable plate more important than my well-being, in front of our children.

After repeated criticisms and angry statements from her about the plate, while I held my tongue, I brought her to another room and privately pointed out to her that she was making the plate damage more important that my health and safety by not asking if I was ok.

I went back to the kitchen to try and continue breakfast preparations, and she came in and continued to criticize me for breaking the plate. I eventually had to point out, in front of the kids (since she was making it a public discussion) that she seemed to care more about the plate than about my well-being and safety.

She tried to make excuses ("you didn't say you were hurt so I assumed you weren't!" kind of thing, despite the fact that silence is a fairly normal shock response to a bad injury) but I kept going back to her initial concern being about the plate than about my safety.

I get that this is a pretty tiny exchange against the larger backdrop of male dehumanization... I am past middle age and know that society doesn't value men in general. But, wow, to have a plate declared as more important than me in front of my family, that really, really, hurt.