“There are two ways to do things,” Terry would tell me. “Your way or the right way.”

I contended that “my way” and the “right way,” were one and the same. Or ought to be.

It drove me nuts that before we could go anywhere, any dishes in the sink had to be washed. It was the right way.

“They’ll still be there when we get back,” I snapped.

“And they’ll be layered in green fuzz,” she said. “I don’t want to come back to that smell.”

Since Terry passed away last month, I no longer am bound to do things her “right way.” I can do what makes sense.

I’ve noticed a distinct aroma coming from the kitchen. It’s the fragrance of bachelorhood.

Could there possibly be something to this so-called “right way”? Naw, couldn’t be.

Before I married Terry, I only wore dirty clothes in cases of grave emergency, such as an important playoff game on TV on laundry night.

After she married me, Terry banned me from washing clothes.

“They have to be sorted by color, material, texture and temperature. And check the tags!”

“No tags,” I said. “They scratched my neck so I cut them out. All socks and boxers are gray. No whites to worry about. Jam it all together, wash in cold and everything comes out just fine.”

“Get out,” she said.

I could cook only when Terry wasn’t home. She deemed all my dishes delicious — unless she watched. You’d think she’d never poured sauce from a bottle that’s label fell off three years earlier. It’s still safe, whatever it is. I’m pretty sure.

She even laid down certain rules about the right way to mow lawn, even though I’d been mowing that very same lawn for 20 years before the benefit of her opinions. You nick one little flower … OK, a path right through the azaleas, and suddenly a whole new list of “right ways” crops up.

My way is if we’re going to put the little air conditioner in the bedroom window, open the window, chuck the thing in there and feel the cool.

Instead, my temperature rose while Terry fastidiously cleaned the air conditioner (c’mon, you made us do that just last October when we pulled the thing from the window), wash the windows inside and out (ditto), vacuum bug carcasses out of the window frame (double ditto), research what the CEO of the manufacturing company eats for breakfast (OK, I made up that one, but that’s how all this wasted time felt to me) and finally install the unit (unless we needed to rewire the house or paint the walls or do the dishes first).

Now I’m free to just get it done, my way. But the bug bits littering the sill bother me. And what are those smudges on the window?

Sigh. I’ll be right back with the Hoover and the Windex.

OK, Teresa, I see that smug smile on your face from all the way down here on Earth. As usual, you were right and my way was … uh, not as right.

Now, could you please stop chuckling long enough to whisper where else that smell might be coming from? I washed dishes and it still stinks. I’d like to hit it whatever it is with some “right way” power.

Oh, and the CEO prefers Cap’n Crunch for breakfast even though his doctor recommends fried eggs and half a grapefruit in the morning. I learned that while researching how to best clean the AC filter.

Your voice remains very alive in my ear. That’s the right way, isn’t it?

P.S. I miss you.

Tell Cole the right way at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.