The other night, I made a fairly standard husband mistake - I asked Ethel "what's for dinner?"

She pointed at the pan.

                    

Now, if you're like me (and you probably are, to some extent, or you wouldn't be reading this) you'd look at that package and read it as "White Chicken Chili".

And that's what I did.

I said "Honey, it says White Chicken Chili".

"Yes, that's what we're having".

"But you're using dark meat".

"What does that matter?"

"It says "White Chicken Chili" so you should be using white meat".
"No, I'm not - it's made with white beans. It's white chili with chicken, not chili made with white chicken".

"But the words "White Chicken" are in WHITE, and the word Chili is in BLACK, so obviously the adjective White is modifying the noun Chicken, not the noun Chili..."

(editor's note: we'll pause here for another moment to point out that diagramming sentences and pointing out the parts of speech is no way to instruct one's wife on the way to read the front of a package. Don't try this at home - these are trained professionals.)

"No, it doesn't. It's white chili. There's no reason to expect that I'm going to use white meat".

(turning over the package and reading it) "But, honey, it says right here - '1 lb of chicken breast' - that's white meat. You're supposed to use white meat to make white chicken chili. That's what it says here on the white chicken chili package".

(At this point, the conversation entered a period of tense, tight silence........, the kind of pause that can terrify a husband; the kind of pause that indicates that the wife never read the directions, and really, really doesn't want to hear about them after she's already ignored them - the kind of pause that often means that the volume in the room is about to be turned up, and the activity levels will go from "mild" to "vigorous".)

(But that didn't happen)

"Well, you don't have to use white meat. I'm using dark meat".

(Breathing a sigh of relief here, because she didn't hit me with five pounds of Calphalon Select cookware.)

"Oh, okay. Smells good!"