an aussie in austria

My hubby and I love food. We love to look at it, smell it, taste it, savour it and gobble it down. We also like to try as many different things as possible, so it’s probably not surprising that we often share food or go halvsies when we go out for dinner.

But it can cause problems.

If you have a hankering for a specific thing, and you’ve been looking forward to it all day, suddenly you find yourself irritated at your better half innocently stealing food off your plate.

After enduring a few tense dinner moments of reluctantly letting the other person take over their meal, we decided upon a rule:

A quarter’s yours.

This means: Generally speaking, we’re each allowed to take up to a quarter (but absolutely no more) off the other person’s plate.

It applies at all times for all meals (from a full meal to a packet of chips to a drink) unless previously decided – because there are situations where we still go half-half, or stick entirely to our own meal.

‘A quarter’s yours’ also eliminates issues of food envy. If hubby goes to make himself a delicious sandwich, and I decline when he asks if I want one, he is naturally extremely annoyed when, in seeing said delicious sandwich, I decide that I probably did want one, and go on to steal most of his. With ‘a quarter’s yours’, he makes that sandwich assuming that I’m probably going to have some, and thereby doesn’t get annoyed when I ask for it. In fact, he usually offers it to me.

A quarter’s yours. Get onto it.

It’s your right!