Laurie's Version

Glenn and I just got home a few days ago from a two-week-long road trip. We took our trailer down to Portland and then spent some time in Northern California. We went as far south as San Francisco, toured around the Napa region, went to the Redwood Forest, and then camped along the Oregon Coast as we slowly made our way home again. We had a great time together and only had one small dust-up despite spending two weeks in pretty close quarters. So close that when we arrived home and I opened the door to our 1000-square-foot condo I thought “Holy smokes, this place is HUGE!” When we went on our road trip last year we felt a lot of pressure to see everything we could possibly see, thinking that it may be our last trip together, but this year that same feeling wasn’t there and we were able to relax. Some days we didn’t do a darn thing except drag ourselves to the beach and sit for a few hours or stay in our trailer reading a book or playing cards and taking lots of naps. It was awesome.

While we were in our trailer I started thinking about another couple who spent a lot of time alone - Adam and Eve. I don’t think the Bible says how long they lived in the Garden of Eden before they were kicked out, so I started to imagine them as a middle-aged couple like us. After 34 years together we usually know what the other is thinking and have an unspoken language between us. There’s a comfortable flow to our relationship, but sometimes we drive each other nuts too. I’m not surprised Eve was talking to the snake, who can blame her?

So I decided to rewrite the story a bit, and this is my version of how events may have gone down:

God created Adam, stepped back and took a look at his handiwork and said “Yeah, I think I can do better.”

“Adam’s fine, but I think on this upgraded version I’ll add a few curves here and there, make it a little softer, and ooh, I know, I think indoor plumbing would be a nice touch.”

One day God said to Adam, “Buddy, I'm putting you in charge of all the animals, so I think you should go outside and start naming them because I need to talk to Eve alone."

Then God said to Eve, “Eve, you’re my girl, and I’m making you the Head of Production and Product Development. One day you are going to be the mother of all mankind.”

And it was good, for a while anyway.

The only rule was they couldn’t eat the fruit from one of the trees. They didn’t know why, but they were humans and weren’t interested in eating fruit anyway, so it wasn’t a problem. Maybe they preferred fried chicken and waffles, or had figured out how to make bacon by then, who knows?

The years passed and eventually, they had two boys, Cain and Abel. The boys didn’t like each other much and were always fighting. Adam was never home, always busy taking care of the animals, and she was getting tired of being stuck with two thankless kids. One day Eve had had enough. She had to get out of the cave and find some time to herself, so she decided to leave the two little maniacs on their own and go for a walk to calm down. After all, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like they're going to kill each other.

Along her walk, she happened to bump into Adam, and he started to tell her how she should handle the boys and not let them get to her.

Well, that was the exact wrong thing to do. After all, there’s nothing a woman likes more than to have a man explain to her how to do something when they have no idea what they’re talking about, especially one they’ve been married to for years.

Eve fired back: “You’re always out with your animal friends and never have time for us! Just because God put you in charge of the animals doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do! Plus, you stink.”

Eve took another long look at Adam and thought “Ugh.” She reached up without thinking, grabbed a piece of fruit from a tree and threw it at him, screaming “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to eat a piece of fruit once in a while!”

She felt somewhat better, but when she turned around she realized what tree she had grabbed the fruit from and thought “Shit, something tells me I’m NEVER going to hear the end of that.”

And that’s how this whole mess started.