They Say That "[Hate] is Just a Four-Letter Word" (Thanks, Bob Dylan)

Sunday was my husband’s 62^nd birthday, which means he can now buy cheaper movie tickets, instead of paying full price. He is also able to pay less for each golf game, so we’ll be about $20 richer this year, considering how much golf he plays. I think that’s about it for perks, though. He says he hates getting old, but the alternative is worse.

I’ve hate things, too. Like golf, for instance, which I claim I hate so much I refuse to even try playing. I have convinced myself that I hate standing outside on chemically manicured grass, hitting a little ball into a hole I can’t see. My husband claims that I have chosen this hatred. I told him that I hate golf because I once had a boyfriend who was such a fanatic that when we went anywhere in his car, he had to make sure he’d put his clubs in the trunk, in case he suddenly needed to stop paying attention to me and practice putting. I bet I chose to hate this great love of his because it meant I wasn’t.

What I have come to realize is that these so-called hatreds of mine have so totally invaded me that they’re hard to let go of.

Like my hatred of eating pickled herring, which my husband loves, but which I refuse to eat, because once my brother (an early herring lover) threw it up all over me and the back of the car after eating some. The smell was so bad that I got sick, too. Or my hatred of frogs’ legs, which I developed after my mom tricked me by claiming they were a new chicken dish. When she revealed the truth, I immediately started gagging and crying, because I started visualizing those poor sacrificed frogs. (I visualize rabbits, too, which is why I hate it when they’re on restaurant menus.)

Then there’s my hatred of tapioca pudding, which I once puked up after eating it at my cousin’s. (Those lumps – oh, lord, those gloppy lumps.) I learned to hate cigarette smoke, which I used to love, after I gave up smoking in 1969. I now hate smelling perfume, which I wore for years, because it gives me migraines. I hate people who crack gum, especially when they’re sitting next to me in the movies, even though I spent an entire afternoon at a friend’s house when I was fifteen, practicing and practicing until I mastered it. I hate loud (or any) music played in restaurants. I hate using Porta Potties. I hate the sound of leaf blowers, especially my next-door neighbor’s (he is the king of leaf blowing). I hate water leaks inside my house (I found two new ones from the air conditioning leak). I hate winter in Connecticut (I believe no explanation is necessary).

I know, I know. I should not hate. Hate is a four-letter word. It’s better to love than hate, a mantra I repeated to my daughter when she was growing up.  But, my propensity to hate things keeps multiplying. Lately, I’ve started hating thin, beautiful, athletic, younger women. I catch myself staring at them with pure, green-monsterish envy. I hate them because I’m fatter, droopier, stiffer, and older – which is not something I want to hate (but I do, oh I do).

Yikes.