It’s scary sometimes how you can be going along in your life thinking you’ve got everything all sewn up, and suddenly you don’t. I hit my sixties and felt I’d finally gotten the hang of living. Good marriage. Reliable car. Well-trained dogs. Kids out on their own. I’d achieved that surprisingly delectable state of mind, complacency.

This year, however, my husband was traveling for work more than he was home. Sometimes when he was home, I was away. Finally, last week we were both home for a full week. He mowed the lawn. He power-washed the lanai. When I cooked dinner, he cleaned up the kitchen. Ours was a very, very fine house, with three dogs in the yard.

One night, after exercising, cleaning up the kitchen, and taking a shower, he flopped on the couch—all part of our nightly routine. He asked if I wanted to catch some late-night comedy before bed.

I asked if he wanted ice cream.

And this is where things took a dark turn.

I was on speaker phone with one of my boyfriends. Let me explain. I’m happily married, but my husband’s a software engineer and a hard-body health nut. I’m a writer. I’m verbal. I have needs. He makes a good living and keeps himself ripped, but he doesn’t have much to say. You can’t have everything. That’s why I maintain a stable of good conversationalists on the side, and some of them happen to be men.

While chatting with the guy who gives good phone, I scooped two bowls of ice cream, poured peanuts on the cutting board, and reached for my chef’s knife. It was gone.

I’m always misplacing stuff. My husband always finds whatever I’ve lost right smack in front of me, and I feel like an idiot. That’s why I pretend to look a second and third time before I go whining, “I’ve looked everywhere. I can’t find the chef’s knife.”

My husband was sprawled like Burt Reynolds, up on one elbow, wearing nothing but pajama pants and a nervous smile.

He said, “Um . . . it might be in the dishwasher.”

No. This was not happening.

I yanked open the dishwasher and got hit by a dragon’s burp of hot steam. My glasses fogged over. I groped for the blade, but remembered my college friend who was studying to be a classic pianist. She went home one Thanksgiving, reached into a sink of soapy water, and suddenly discovered she needed major surgery and a change-of-major form.

My boyfriend was still yakking away on speakerphone. I said, “Hang on, I have a situation here.”

I pulled off my glasses. Now I could see, but nothing made sense. I said, “The chef’s knife shouldn’t be in the dishwasher.”

My husband said, “My engineer brain told me it’s not a problem.”

My boyfriend said, “I gotta side with your husband on this one.”

I stood silent for a few beats. My life didn’t exactly flash before my eyes, but part of it did–my love affair with Wüsthof.

I once fell for a man who fancied himself an amateur chef. When it ended, I accepted that I would be single for the foreseeable future. If I was frugal with my teacher’s salary, I could maintain the house and car and care for my kid, cat, and dog by myself. If I craved some of the finer things, I could plan, save, and Google a coupon code.

I missed the chef’s kitchenwares. Over time I realized, if there’s anything worth spending money on, it’s good shoes and good knives. I couldn’t afford an entire set of Wüsthof, but I saved up and bought the most important blade: the chef’s.

I loved that knife. The handle’s silky smooth ergonomic curve, the weighted balance in the palm, the way the blade rocked under my hands, how, when I turned from the cutting board to the stove, it rested on its side, waiting for my hand like a faithful dog. I cherished the ritual of rinsing, drying, and sliding the blade away in its sleeve.

The ceremony of sharpening.

I loved that knife so much, I eventually invested in the paring knife. Then, the bread knife. And when I married this hard-bodied software engineer, I shared with him the Way of Wüsthof. As far as I knew, my husband, my knives, and I had gotten along seamlessly for fifteen years.

I found my chef’s knife clattering in the top rack. I dried it and placed it in our special knife drawer–the one my husband made with his treasured wood-working tools, the ones he takes such good care of. It’s right across from his Gaggia espresso machine and top-of-the-line Turin coffee-bean grinder, the one he’s hesitant to let me use, lest I fail to turn the dial just so and so damage the gears forever.

Across the great room, my husband and my speakerphone man lobbed corroborating facts to each other–the blade can withstand the heat, any wear in the dishwasher is insignificant compared to chopping on the cutting board—they knocked words back and forth, over and above and right past the actual point.

In the drawer beside the others with the matching black handles, the chef’s appeared gray. I put on my glasses. The handle was crazed with tiny cracks.

“It’s all faded,” I cried.

“It’s old,” my husband said.

“Yeah, it is NOW.”

“I knew you’d be upset,” he said, “so I only put them in there when you’re out of town.”

The world opened under my feet. Was I crazy? Was I not just the family cook but a crazy knife kook? Sure, maybe the men were right. But why wasn’t I trusted with the facts about alloys and temperatures and chemicals like sodium carbonate and ethoxylated propoxylated alcohols, a term I can pronounce and my husband can’t? I’m as analytical as the next guy. I teach critical thinking. I’m more than capable of adjusting my ways when presented with convincing evidence. If the dishwasher will do no harm, by all means, throw in the knives, along with the practice of cherishing.

I hung up the phone and called on Dr. Google. In less than a second I found a hundred articles about why you don’t put a good knife in a dishwasher—Martha Stewart, Good Housekeeping, Real Simple. It comes down to three things: the jostling, the heat, and the chemicals. Four if you add the safety of piano majors and other people who make their living using their fingers on keyboards.

I aimed the links like missiles to blow up my husband’s phone.

“Okay, okay! I’ll wash it by hand,” he said. “Why do you leave it on the cutting board if you don’t want me to put it in the dishwasher?”

I recognize victim-blaming when I hear it. I wanted to say, because I trusted you, but I needed to think. I gave him his ice cream, sat beside him, and watched some late-night, but everything had changed. Later, I lay awake worrying, tugging the thread of evidence that unraveled how he had always disrespected my things, like my Kenmore canister vacuum and all its attachments, which he lost. I couldn’t fall asleep until I promised myself, the next time I traveled, I’d hide the good knives.

The next morning, to honor my rediscovered love for my knives, I rolled them in a towel and took them to ACE Hardware for sharpening. It was a gorgeous morning. While I waited, I sat in my car with my bare feet out the window and called my favorite female conversationalists.

“I’d wrap the handle in duct tape and write HIS on it with Sharpie,” one said. “Then I’d buy myself a new one.”  She’s a lawyer.

Not a bad idea. But I loved this chef’s knife, which shared my story, the ill-fated love affair with the amateur chef, my hard-scrabble decade as a single mom, fifteen sweet years of marital complacency–and now, this wake-up call.

“It’s the lying,” another said. “He admitted he knew it would upset you, but he did it anyway behind your back.”  She’s a psychologist.

“Yes!” I said. “It’s a betrayal.”

When I got home, I talked to him.

“Look, I won’t do it again. You were right.” He hugged me.  

That wasn’t the point. “Here’s the thing,” I said. “Why couldn’t you just say, ‘Hey, I think maybe the dishwasher can’t hurt these knives after all. We could’ve looked into it together. We do that about lots of stuff.”

He agreed. “I don’t know.”

“Am I unreasonable? Hot-tempered? Unhinged?”

“Nope. I wouldn’t have married you.”

“You think I’m too stupid to understand the science of knives and dishwashers?”

“No!” He frowned. “Here’s the thing: are you telling me you don’t do anything like it when I’m not looking?”

I couldn’t think of anything, but I recognized the feeling, the mild defiance, the childlike thrill of doing what someone else thinks you shouldn’t do—swiping a pad of paper from the office, making a U-turn across a median when the coast is clear, slipping a morsel under the table for the dog.

I may cherish my knives, but now I also cherish my tiny crimes.