Under Grumpa's Hat

There is a strange little funeral that often happens in long relationships. No church bells. No obituary. No grieving relatives holding tiny sandwiches nobody wants to eat. Just a slow, quiet burial where curiosity gets lowered into the ground under routines, fatigue, grocery lists, aching knees, and the dangerous comfort of predictability.

Sandra used to think that was what maturity looked like. Her husband Marc clearly thought otherwise.

Marc had a habit. A terrible, childish, inappropriate habit. The kind that made her eyes roll so hard they nearly filed for workers’ compensation. If she bent over to grab a can of soup from the bottom shelf at the grocery store, there was a decent chance she’d feel a teasing finger aimed squarely where decent society says fingers shouldn’t wander in aisle seven. If she walked past him in the kitchen while company was over, his hand would somehow “accidentally” brush her backside with suspicious accuracy. More than once, while stirring pasta sauce, she’d nearly launched the wooden spoon across the room after feeling a quick pinch against her breast through her shirt.

“Marc!” she’d hiss.

“What?” he’d grin innocently. “You make it very difficult to behave.”

The man treated her body like a favourite hobby he refused to retire from.

At first, it amused her. Then it annoyed her. Then, over the years, she began reacting automatically. Eye roll. Hand swat. Sigh. Same script every time. She stopped seeing the flirtation inside it because routine has a nasty habit of sanding down the edges of excitement until everything feels emotionally childproofed.

Then came coffee with Denise.

Sandra was midway through complaining about Marc’s inability to keep his hands to himself when Denise went strangely quiet. Not offended. Not judgmental. Just… sad.

“You know,” Denise finally said, stirring her coffee without looking up, “I think I’d cry if my husband touched me like that now.”

Sandra laughed at first, expecting sarcasm. Denise didn’t laugh back.

“He used to,” she admitted softly. “God, he used to chase me around the kitchen. We’d barely finish dinner before one of us found an excuse to corner the other against the counter.” She smiled faintly before the expression disappeared. “Now? Nothing. We go to bed like two exhausted accountants sharing hotel points.”

That hit Sandra harder than she expected.

Denise continued quietly, almost embarrassed by her own honesty.

“I miss being wanted. Not politely loved. Wanted. The little looks. The teasing. That feeling that somebody sees you and still gets those thoughts after all these years.” She shrugged. “Now I could walk through the house naked holding a pizza and he’d ask if we have any more ranch dip.”

Sandra nearly snorted coffee through her nose, but underneath the humour sat something uncomfortable and painfully real.

Denise leaned closer.

“Be careful what you keep shutting down. One day it might stop happening altogether.”

That sentence followed Sandra home like perfume trapped in clothing.

That night, while she loaded the dishwasher, Marc came up behind her and slid his hand slowly along her hip before giving her the usual playful squeeze. She opened her mouth, ready for the standard annoyed response… then paused. For the first time in years, curiosity stepped in before routine could answer.

She turned toward him slowly, lowered her voice just enough to make his pulse visibly malfunction, and whispered, “You’re awfully brave for a man standing that close to sharp kitchen utensils.”

Marc blinked. Then she leaned closer.

“But maybe don’t stop.”

The look on that man’s face could’ve powered half of Canada.

Now no, they didn’t suddenly become some wild couple making homemade adult films between Costco runs. That wasn’t the point. The point was what happened after Sandra stopped treating desire like an inconvenience that needed constant supervision.

But something woke up between them. Touches lasted longer. Looks carried meaning. Ordinary errands became loaded with private little games only they understood. The grocery store became downright dangerous. Marc would murmur filthy little comments under his breath while comparing tomatoes, and Sandra, to her own horror, started enjoying the rush of pretending not to like it. More than once she caught herself bending over slower than necessary, which frankly was behaviour she never thought she’d see from a woman discussing fibre supplements two years earlier.

And underneath all the teasing, all the playful tension, all the stolen little moments that made her cheeks warm, Sandra realized something important.

Marc had never stopped desiring her. She had simply forgotten how good it felt to be desired.

Maybe that is what too many couples lose. Not love itself, but the willingness to stay curious inside it. We become so determined to act proper, practical, mature, that we slowly starve the playful side of intimacy until the relationship feels more like a business partnership with matching bath towels.

But curiosity has heat to it.

Sometimes all it takes is one tiny crack in routine for that warmth to slip back in, grinning like a mischievous husband reaching for canned soup he never actually needed in the first place.