City of Shared Stories Kuala Lumpur

It's no fun being bloated. They lied: morning sickness lasts all day. And now I have to deal with my husband being an insensitive jerk.

All I wanted was cempedak. It wasn't like I wanted him to drive hundreds of miles for a special type of durian. Cempedak would be available anywhere. In fact, there is a stall we would regularly go to. The makcik would never have enough small change, so we'd always need to pay the exact amount. This would sometimes make my husband go on a rant about how Malays should equip themselves better for business. (My husband is a Malay, too, but highly critical.)

So when he left that morning for work, I told him to get me some cempedak. And when he got back that evening, he had a paper bag of ... nangka with him. This was what ensued:

"But this isn't cempedak."
"The road was a bit jammed. So I went to this stall that was nearer. Cempedak and nangka are about the same, anyway."
"They're not the same!"
"Eh? Is this what you call mengidam? That's a sexist myth, my dear." And he smiled!
"I'm not saying I am mengidam. If you grew up in a kampung, you'd know the difference between cempedak and nangka!"
"Ah, it's my fault for being a city kid! Sorry babe. I'll get you cempedak next time."

How could he be so casual? If he could ignore my specific request so easily, what sort of husband and father would he turn out to be? We'd been married only 10 months; would the road ahead be filled with such disappointments?

"It's nangka madu," he said, pulling me close, "because you're such a honey."

Madu. Is that a subtle threat that he would take another wife?