My Friends Wife

I have this friend. This friend is definitely not me. It's this other guy who is my age and married with four children, but not me. I'll call him Gergitch. While having lunch together one day Gergitch asked me what bugs me about my wife. I quickly responded that nothing bugs me about my wife. She's an angel and I'm lucky to have her. He laughed, audibly, and said, "Come on. I've met Kathry..." and before he could finish her sweet name I smacked him so hard his sandwich flew out of his mouth. Mind you, it wasn't a close fisted smack. I would never discipline a good friend with a close fisted smack.

At that, Gergitch went on to explain that he has this one issue with his wife that has plagued his marriage since day one. "What is it?" I asked out loud to Gergitch, who is not me. "Laundry" he replied.

Side Note: During the second year of our marriage my wife and I went to Boston with a couple we had become close friends with. While cruising around in our rental car the female half of our friends thought it would be fun to play the game, "What do you guys fight about?" This is how it's played. Someone asks me and my wife what we fight about, and then for the next two days we fight about it while driving around Boston. Needless to say, it's great fun. (It should be noted that those friends have never invited us on another outing that lasted longer than dinner.) I remember the trip well and I remember that we fought for literally two days. But for the life of me I have no idea what we fought about (although I'm sure it was something serious like the growing economic divide between America's rich and poor, or the underlying historical causes of the turmoil in the Middle East, or her mom).

So when Gergitch told me that laundry was the bane of his marriage I literally LOL. I then LMAO. Finally, I lost control, and LMFAO. He told me that piles of laundry build up around the house and about once a fortnight when he can't take it anymore he explodes and it turns into a grudge match that leaves a heavy cloud over the whole house. He said he felt he bore the lions share of total responsibility and was a victim of an unfair division of labor. I explained that that last sentence was redundant and to stop wasting my time with meaningless repetition.

"Do you love her?" I asked.
"Yes," he assured me.
"Let's say, for arguments sake, that you knew in advance that she would never do laundry again. Knowing this ahead of time, would you still want to be married to her?"
"Of course," he assured me again.
"Then stop intentionally damaging your relationship to prove a point over such a trivial issue. You're shooting yourself in the foot to prove your gun is loaded. I'm with you. She should do the laundry willingly and quickly, but she's your wife, and your issue is laundry. Grow up you dumb bastard."

Then I slapped the sandwich out of his mouth again, for good measure.

As my words and the sting of a second smack sunk in I sat back and took a sip of my drink to keep myself from smiling as I secretly reveled in the simple poetry of my wise counsel. I also did Gergitch the courtesy of pointing out that he was wrought with frailty and that his wife was forced to step over his metaphorical piles on a regular basis, but was not the type to point them out. He considered this soberly, and that ended our lunch.

I caught up with Gergitch some days later and he confided that he had gone home after our conversation full of remorse and apologized to his wife for his critical attitude and vowed to mention her piles less and to help with them more. I smiled and congratulated him on his growth, and then we embraced in a very heterosexual way.

So, what do you guys fight about?

2012 in Retrospect

"Aaaahhh, 2012."
For the last few days I've enjoyed saying that with a breath of nostalgia while reclining, kicking up my feet, and lacing my fingers behind my head.
"What a year."
Sometimes I say that too.
Other exclamations I've been heard uttering whilst reminiscing about 2012 include; "Deeee-amn!" "We gotta do that sh#@ again." and "Sheeeeesh." This last one will be accompanied with a slight head shake and a wry smile.
That's how good my year went. In fact, I improved more in 2012 than I did in the last 10 years combined. This is the first time I neared the end of the year and found I had no more sins to repent of, and no more blessing to ask for. So when I prayed, me and God just talked about the weather, the lack of leadership within the GOP, or other mysteries of the universe.

So, what made my year so good, you ask? Well, at the beginning of 2012 I set some pretty lofty goals for myself, and having accomplished all of them, I had what some call a 100% year. I reached my maximum capacity, and realized my full potential.

(A sample of some of my minor accomplishments)

After completing the cannon of American and British Classics, I translated them to Tolkien's Elvish.

I completed P90X, Y, and Z. Then sold my exercise video to Tony Horton.

I finally published the book I'd been working on under the pseudonym E.L. James, then let my heavy set widow neighbor do the press tour for me.

I did pull-ups... all day.

I eradicated offensive, politically incorrect language like "crap" and "retard" and "Mexican" from my vocabulary.

I learned to crap defecate so efficiently that I no longer need to wipe, or wash afterwards.

When my wife got tired of being pregnant, I gestated our 4th baby for the last five months.


Please understand, this is not an attempt to beat my own drum for glories sake. But rather to illustrate a point. I've been pondering ways I could possibly improve on 2012. Is it possible? The simple conclusion I've come to is, no. It's not. For that reason I've decided to forgo goals and resolutions this year. Our New Year traditions may demand my continued growth, but my family, peers and the world around me demand that I slow the Hell down. "Stop and smell the roses," they all say to me. "Life's too short." Or, "You're going to have a stroke and and be one of those people it's awkward to talk to because they have to speak so slow and deliberately." Now, I'm not convinced that all the nay-sayers are right, but out of love for my friends, family and those within my circle of influence I've decided to concede.

So, in conclusion, this is the year I let myself go. Gain a little weight. Let the eyebrows grow back together. Spend more time with my TV and less time with my kids. This is the year The UnMighty puts on the natural man. I'm already one week into the new me, and I have to say, it feels good. Like an old pair of sweats. In fact, I've decided to backslide carelessly just to be fair to 2014. If my plan works out well, I'll make it a tradition; Even years, excel. Odd years, regress.

So bring it on 2013! Let's get wasted!

Food For Thought

“Twinkies.” A simple recipe: angel’s food and cream. I’m not sure what’s in “angels food,” but no one does; no mortal anyway. But if God approved it for his angels, you know it must be good. And I’m sure the cream came straight from the teat of a free-range cow. Twinkies just might be one of the greatest foods ever made by God and nature. At least that’s what I used to think, that is, until I learned any Tom, Dick, or Harry can read the real ingredients ON THE BACK OF THE PACKAGE! Yeah, I’m serious. See for yourself.

To my dismay, I learned that Hostess has been sticking it to their loyal customers for years. Still don’t believe me? Here are the ingredients as written on the package, word for word:

enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, Beef fat, crack, baby fat, bone fragment, toast, camel toes, silly putty, toadstool, hummus, tooth filling, Spam, pumice stone, paper, rock, scissors, Hepatitis A, B, and C, Sharpie, bike tire, sand, depression, lederhosen, dandruff, HIV, back hair, polio, communism, rubber-bands, scabies, racism, crude oil, turpentine, polite oil, arsenic, incest, full blown AIDS, and hatred.

Although I now have a better explanation for the negative feeling I experience after eating a package of Twinkies, I’m not sure what I set out to do by writing this post. I certainly don’t want to cause harm to the Hostess Corporation, or it’s stockholders. They’re just honest people trying to make a buck, same as anyone else. I do think the inclusion of some of their ingredients could be deemed socially irresponsible, what with the current health crisis and all. But I have to concede that I am not a baker and wouldn’t know the first thing about what it takes to make a world-class pastry.

It may be of comfort to some to learn that the ingredients are listed in order from highest to lowest content amount. This was a relief to me because, despite the fact that sugar and high fructose corn syrup are bad for you, they are significantly less harmful than say, turpentine or full blown AIDS which are present in much smaller quantities. That said, now I think I’m just being a bit of a “Nervous Nelly” and should stop worrying so much about what goes into my body.

After all, I didn’t acquire the body of a Greek god by eating my vegetables. I never acquired the body of a Greek god by eating twinkies, either, but I tried vegetables once and it didn't work, so I gave them up long ago. No telling what Mother Nature puts in that stuff.

You've Been Lip Serviced

Most people don’t know this, but my wife is a master of persuasion and champion debater. And being a graduate of a state college public speaking class, I am well aware of the tools used against me when we are forced to go toe-to-toe in a verbal sparing match. They are the 3 Greek elements of persuasion, as set forth by Aristotle himself, and I’m sure you will all agree that he was one deep thinking SOB.

The three elements are as follows:
Ethos (Credibility or Ethics) means convincing by the character of the speaker, or persuading by appealing to one’s ethics.
Pathos (Emotional) means persuading by appealing to one’s emotions.
Logos (Logical) means persuading by the use of reasoning.

My wife, like all females, has never tried to use Logos. Before you ladies freak out and blow an ovary, let me say it is not my intention to offend. Females cannot be faulted for this. It’s just that they are born without the part of the brain that produces the logic hormone. We can no more expect them to use logic as we can expect them to pee accurately standing up. They’re just not built that way.

She is also unable to use the element of Pathos. This time however it is not due to a lack, but rather an over production of the element. When she attempts its use, words and noises fly out of her mouth in an uncontrolled barrage of inflammatory nonsense, which undulate in pitch, volume, and intensity. It's like watching one of the mutants, from the X-Men movies, as they first discover their powers and unwittingly cause large amounts of destruction.

As for Ethos, well, she uses it on a very limited basis.

So how can she possibly be a persuasive speaker, you are probably wondering. It is because she has discovered and capitalized on the forth Greek element;
Hyperbolos: persuading by the use of ridiculous exaggeration.

Allow me to illustrate with an excerpt from our most recent debate.

Situation: We are at the local Dell Taco to appease my wife’s “cravings.” This locale is equipped with a play area for kids, which my daughter disappears into the moment we arrive. Halfway through our meal…

Wife: Where’s Maggie?
Me: She’s playing.
Wife: Where? I can’t see her. Can you see her?
Me: She in one of those tubes. She’s fine.
Wife: Go find her.
Me: Go find her? Honey, there’s like 50 miles of tubing in there. It could take days. She’ll come out when she gets hungry.
Wife: There’s an outside exit in the play area. How can you be sure she didn’t open the door and run out into the street and is about to get splattered by a giant semi from Hell?
Me: What?
Wife: She’s probably in the back of a windowless van, gagged, bound, drugged, and helpless, with you sitting here stuffing your face, while her captors are forcing her to shoot up heroin and smoke crack and do acid.
Me: That’s a lot of drugs.
Wife: She could be getting high and watching pornography right now.
Me: Huh?
Wife: Maybe she’s in a shipping crate, on her way to war-torn Africa where she’ll be given a gun and forced to participate in the latest ethnic cleansing campaign and kill mindlessly while, simultaneously being forced into a life of child prostitution as the tribe passes her around like some kind of soulless plaything, and pushed to the brink of existence till she is nothing more than an empty shell, a vague memory of the cute, rosy-cheeked girl we once knew and one day, as she teeters on the edge of a monstrous African cliff, before she leaps to her own demise upon the jagged rocks below, she will utter one… last… word.
“DAAAADDYYYYY!!!”
Me: *gulp*
Wife: You’d never be able to forgive yourself. You’ll sit around in a constant state of morbid depression, getting old, fat, ugly, bald, stupid, and retarded. Unmovable. You’ll burst into uncontrollable, seizure-like, fits of weeping every time you think about the day you chose a burrito over your own daughter. Hmmph.

And with that last “hmmph,” I was defeated; once again bested by the Queen of Rhetoric. I promptly ran to the play place certain I was too late.

As it turns out, she was only playing on the slide. Not a windowless van in sight.

Life Lesson #62

When calling a friend, make sure it’s him that answers before responding, “Hey numb-nuts!” just in case he decided to go on vacation and leave his cell phone with his mother.