Something Not to Do 19

So just yesterday, I was thinking to myself how it has been a while since I had posted anything in any of my episodic topic areas. Something Not to Do™ is one of my favorite series in that it manages to teach through the use of tragedy, not unlike Shakespeare or fine films from the 70's or Reno 911.

Then I got to thinking how I could do a very simple, short entry in Something Not to Do™ that said nothing but, "Get married." However, every time The Mrs.'s hillbilly brother, Billy, comes to visit, he reminds me about how his wife, Gordy, is still after close to four (?) years mad at me because not long before their wedding, Billy tried to get all serious in a consulting-with-the-elders way and he said to me, "So, any advice?" And naturally, I replied, "Yeah. Don't get married," because, well, duh, he'd known me for like 20 years what in the hell did he think I was going to say? And apparently I did this right in front of the bride-to-be, and she was so heart-shatteringly affected by this that to this day she is either still furious with me or is wondering if she should not have taken my advice, depending on which version of the story you hear.

So, ever mindful of this, I have to be very careful with the don't-get-married advice, as now The Mrs.'s little sister Ellie is getting married. But of course, I would never tell her not to get married, because telling a woman not to get married is like telling a lottery winner not to quit her job. But if, right before the wedding, D_ should come up to me and say, "Sooo...any advice on dealing with these Treeperson women?" it'll be a real struggle indeed for me not to just blurt out, "Yeah. Don't get married." Then I'd end up with two sisters-in-law who would be mad at me because they resent the truth of my wisdom, and it would make family reunions even more uncomfortable than they already are, and I'd probably be forced to sit out on the back porch alone in the cold rain and catch pneumonia. Again.

Though I'd get my revenge by taking them up to 12,000 feet whenever they visited in order to make them puke. Or, in the case of certain relatives, puke and have violent diarhea simultaneously. Your cats are no match for my altitude. Ha ha! [sinister laugh]

So, anyways, I'm trying to lay off the whole don't-get-married thing in front of The Mrs.'s family.

Which is a really long segue into the actual subject of today's post. If my wife is anything, she is a woman of her word (unless it involves promising not to buy something, in which case she is a woman of the exact opposite of her word), so true to her promise, she has decided to ratchet up the mean progressively until my blog is funny again.

When I came home today, The Mrs. was cooking dinner. Now, I know what you are thinking (because I can see you sounding it out slowly with your lips), "What is mean about cooking dinner?" Try to just keep quiet and not interrupt. Making dinner is not, in and of itself, mean. In fact, making a dinner that three out of the other three people in the house don't like, and then making a different dinner for two out of those three because they don't like it, but not for the third, is not really mean. Considerate in an inconsiderate way, perhaps, but not mean. So do let me go on.

Moments after taking off my shoes, my darling daughter HannahC bounded up to me and said, "Game?"

Me, CherkyB: "Huh?"

HannahC: "Play game?"

Me, CherkyB, "Hannie, honey, I had a really hard day at work, and I just walked in. Why don't you go fetch me something from the garage first."

HannahC: "OK, Dah."

Of course, this infuriated The Mrs. She yelled, "I'm cooking dinner!"

Me, CherkyB: "Of course you are."

The Mrs.: "I don't have time to wait on you when I'm cooking dinner!"

Me, CherkyB: "No. Of course not."

The Mrs.: "I suppose you expect me to have a cold beer waiting when you walk in the door every day."

Me, CherkyB: "No. Of course I don't expect that."

Then, let's say purely hypothetically, your wife starts rattling off with machine gun speed all the things she supposes you expect her to do (because they are, after all, the normal things a woman does for her husband (or so I read in books), and thus are very easy to think of). She builds up such an amazing list of things she knows she should be doing but is not with such speed that you can hardly even keep pace, but she wraps it all up with, "And I suppose you expect to have sex the way that you like it."

As temping as that grapefruit pitched slow across the plate may be, you must not under any circumstances respond with, "You mean, with people other than you?"

That, my friends, would be Something Not to Do.™

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