I was putting our fresh fish into the oven for dinner. Maria was upstairs in her home office, preparing to ship out scores of yarn skeins.

She came down when I called up to say dinner was ready and checked to see that the food was covered in case there were flies, as she always did. I smiled, as I always did, bemused.

I told her  – I put on a serious face – that I had a major announcement for her.

She looked worried.”Oh, no,” she said, “you’re going to tell me that you checked it out and that I was wrong about the flies, aren’t you?”

She looked crestfallen. Maria does not like to be wrong, and neither do I.

As it turned out, my major announcement was not what she thought it would be or what I thought it would be.

Like most married couples, Maria and I have tics and worries that can either grow into bitter and grating disputes, if there is a lot of love and a sense of humor, be cleansing arguments and disagreements.

Conflicts can be interesting, even fun things to argue about.

We are both strong-willed and proud, we both have been ridiculed and demeaned in our lives and can be overly sensitive.

I maintain these small arguments to keep relationships fresh and clean, if they are out into the open, like the flushing of toilets.

I generally shop and cook, and before meals, I set the food out and prepare it to go into the oven or onto one of our cast iron pans. I never in my lifetime of cooking thought to cover up all of the food in case flies should land on it.

Maria always – always – will come into the kitchen and cover up the food. “We don’t want them laying eggs in our food,” she said, making what her “ca-ca” face.

I usually roll my eyes, which I know can be smug.

I’ve never seen anyone cover up food on the kitchen counter minutes before a meal, and besides, wouldn’t being cooked for 20 minutes at 420 degrees take care of any bacteria.

Lately, Maria has been accusing me of laughing at her for dissing her fly obsession. It wasn’t serious, but after years, it was coming up more frequently.

I thought it was a bit anal. I admit I thought it was over the top.

My previous wife was obsessive about many things in that same way, and since I am resistant to almost all authority, I just never took it seriously. It seemed neurotic.  If not for Maria, I would never think to cover food minutes before cooking it.

At the end of dinner, after my announcement, I told her today I had to write about this.”Of course,” she said, laughing.

I might be stubborn and willful, but I do try to be honest. I would check this out. I wanted to know the truth.

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “The major announcement,” I said, “is that you are absolutely, 100 percent correct. “Really?” she said, surprised and beaming as if she had just won the Oscar. No more sad face.

She and I had been going back and forth about the flies ever since we met.  Generally, we laughed about it, but sometimes, she got annoyed at my obtuseness and arrogance.

She insisted that if left alone, the flies might lay eggs in our foods and she found that disgusting. “Ah,” I would say, “the snail Queen can’t abide flies.”

Flies were about the only living thing she will ever kill if she can. She has empathy for a stone, but not for a fly, which I pointed out.

So I wanted to learn more about it. Maria is very sharp. She is right more than she is wrong, by a wide margin. I have learned the hard way to listen to her.

Had I missed something everybody else knows? It wouldn’t be the first time. I am hardly normal myself.

I read her what I had found on a Smithsonian Institute website:

“If you’re eating, and a fly lands on your food, you likely swat the pest away and continue with your meal. I want to apologize for upfront for ruining your future meals because what really happens when a fly lands on your food is actually pretty disgusting. Flies are everywhere, especially in the summer, so keeping your meal fly free might feel impossible.

These little buggers carry more than 200 different types of bacteria. “Flies can carry cholera,  typhoid, and dysentery, and they are actually twice as germ-ridden as cockroaches,” Francis Horton noted on Health Guidance.

According to USA Today, one study reported that flies carry these diseases and the small hairs that cover their bodies. When they stand on your food, they leave little presents behind.”

I made her very happy tonight. She isn’t above gloating. I didn’t even point out that cooking food flies might have touched in the oven will kill almost all kinds of bacteria.

It doesn’t matter.

I will be honest; I was delighted to see the smile on her face; she was tickled and pleased with herself. And I learned once again that there are so many things in this world I do not know and have never heard. When I stop learning, I will know I  am dead.

Ok, the article was enough for me, I didn’t need to know more.  I checked out the plastic containers Maria had put over my fish and hers when I put it out on the stove. I made sure it was tight.

“From now on,” I said, “no fly will ever get near our food.”

I have to say something about these little fights – I call them “ticks” – in a marriage. If this had involved my parents, there would be blood on the floor, raging and yelling every time the subject of flies came up.

Neither one could credit the other with being right about anything.

My father couldn’t handle being corrected, and he could never acknowledge being wrong, especially to a woman.

Neither of my parents ever did any research, and I never heard either admit they weren’t sure about something. Every irritant and disagreement became an argument, and then it grew into a hostile and angry one. Somebody always got angry and hurt.

They just didn’t love each other enough to withstand the give-or-take and empathy required of a long and happy marriage.

A good marriage doesn’t just happen, contrary to the movies. You have to really think about marriage for it to work.

And what I have learned is that it’s almost always the little things that matter.

My mother cooked  Tapioca pudding for my father during their honeymoon, and he declined to eat it, saying he didn’t like Tapioca pudding.

It was something she never forgave him for, reminding him every night when he reluctantly sat down for dinner that she had made him this pudding on their honeymoon, and he hadn’t even eaten it, thus ruining the honeymoon for her.

The pudding became a metaphor for their marriage.

It was just as raw and fresh in her mind every night as it was 40 years earlier, and he was just as angry every night about her rubbing his face in it in front of his children.

I learned a lot from them.

Bit by bit, I watched them chip away at the marriage and their love in this small and unrelenting way, like the marks dripping water can make on a stone.

There were a hundred “Tapioca incidents” as my sister and I called them, and there was no love or humor in any of those fights to soften them. My parents were bound by anger and resentment.

Imagine, I thought, if either of us got really angry about these “ticks” or hurt by the discussion.

Maria and I were laughing about the flies all through dinner.

We have all these things we differ about, I said, but there is never any sting and resentment in them. We are never afraid to be wrong and are never cruel or demeaning when we don’t see eye-to-eye.

In a marriage, I know, small arguments can be important.

We laugh a lot, but I know that each one of us will be wrong some of the time, and right some of the time.

I know that once Maria knew that, she began to trust me, and I began to trust her.

“Why is that, that we don’t hurt each other?” I wondered aloud, thinking of my parents.

“Because we love each other, stupid,” she said.

I threw a piece of fish at her; her smile was wide enough for Zinnia to walk through. Don’t be gloating, I said.