Category: I Love My Wife

Our bathroom isn’t very interesting, it usually doesn’t provide a vibrant and sustainable environment for bugs. My wife and I will encounter a stray spider every so often. Sometimes a gnat or fruit fly, very rarely an ant, fly, or mosquito.

However, a few years ago, we started to notice one or two little black bugs, smaller than ants, crawling around our bathroom floor and walls. We would quickly dispatch them by squishing them and removing them with Kleenex or toilet paper. A day or so later, we would repeat the observation and removal process. After about two weeks of this, a case was officially opened and an inquiry was made: “We’ve never seen these bugs before, and they keep coming back. That’s interesting.” Then the case was shelved again. No further action was taken.

Over the next few days, the bugs continued appearing and their appearances became more frequent. Nonetheless, no further movement on the case. 

Then the number of bugs started to increase. Rather than seeing one or two bugs at a time, we would now see three to five bugs crawling around. Something was up. Something was going on. What kind of bugs were these and where were they coming from? Quite the mystery.

To solve it, should we split up, like in Scooby Doo? Of course we should. That’s part of the proven formula for solving mysteries.

I reopened the case and bravely ventured into the bathroom by myself. Zoinks! This place gives me the creeps. I started looking closely at windows, drains, and any cracks to see where the bugs might be coming from. I couldn’t find any possible points of entry. A few days later, I repeated my inspection. Still nothing.

On the fateful evening, while my wife stayed back in another room continuing some after-hours work, I went into the bathroom, once again, to search for clues.

I knelt down on the bathroom floor and looked closely at the sink pipes to my right, where they connected to the wall. I didn’t see anything, but after being down there a while, I thought I heard something. That might be a clue. Ruh-roh!

I gave it some more time. The sound was real. What I heard sounded like rustling. But not like the sound of dried leaves, more faint and more steady than that. The sound wasn’t coming from my right, it was coming from my left. But there weren’t any bugs visible on that side. There was nothing over there, except the door stop. It was made of fabric and assumed the general shape of a pyramid, but without sharp edges, and was a little floppy, like a bean bag.

The door stop.

The bugs weren’t coming from outside. They were already inside and they were coming from the door stop. I put my ear next to it to confirm that was the source and I could clearly hear the rustling coming from inside. I felt a wave of disgust flash through my body.

I went into the other room to tell my wife of the discovery. She was also repulsed. After a few rounds of, “The door stop? Who would have ever guessed that?” I asked her what it was filled with. What were the “beans” in the bean bag?

“Rice.” 

Are you kidding? We put out a door stop, filled with edible contents, and then wondered why we had an infestation in our bathroom.

I returned to the bathroom to develop a disposal strategy. I really didn’t want to touch this thriving, self-contained colony. After a few moments, my wife casually followed up with, “I think there are such things as rice weevils.” Oh, God. One quick Google search confirmed this hunch. We’re so stupid that we put out a door stop, filled with the specific food for a specific type of weevil, and then wondered aloud why we had weevils living, feasting, and multiplying in our bathroom. 

And it only took two college-educated individuals several weeks to put the pieces together and crack this case. Unbelievable. What a display of brilliance. We were so clueless. Actually, we were worse than clueless. We had clues right in front of us, we were just too lunkheaded to recognize them. We’ll never fit in as meddling kids and be invited to ride along in The Mystery Machine and chomp on Scooby Snacks. Whomp whomp.

“Where is that water coming from?” Good question. My wife and I were looking at a cardboard box in our basement that had somehow sustained water damage.

This particular cardboard box, with dried drip marks running down the front of it, sat amongst several boxes, plastic bins, canned goods, and glass jars on one of those ubiquitous metal Costco shelving units.

While passing by the shelving unit on the way to the washer and dryer, my wife and I would notice this odd sight, contemplate it for a few seconds, then forget about it completely until the next pass-by.

After several rounds of this, we finally decided to stop and investigate. The slow mystery solvers were on the case. Grab your pillow.

First, our basement is completely enclosed and not subjected to the elements. It is not close to any doors or windows that could potentially leak during rainfall, so it’s not clear how water would reach this spot in the basement. Additionally, the shelving unit doesn’t lie beneath any internal plumbing, so again, it’s unclear how water might have reached this location.

We looked closer at the damaged cardboard box and touched it. The water streaks down the front had dried, but there was a corner on the top of the box that was still wet. We both touched that area and then touched the case of juice boxes sitting directly on top of the cardboard box; they too were wet. This might be a clue. We were getting somewhere.

We moved the case of juice boxes askew and felt some exposed moisture on the side of one of the individual juice boxes. Looking at that juice box closely, we saw a small puncture, and upon squeezing the box, saw more juice drip out. This was a crime scene, not an accident site.

The damage on the cardboard box was not water damage, it was juice damage, caused by a visiting mouse who was conveniently provided with juice boxes to drink from, and as we also discovered, a box of dried pasta to munch on. Not exactly a banquet, but something convenient to subsist upon. I’m sure it appreciated our hospitality.

Boy, was that foolish of us to leave down there. Equally as foolish, it took the two of us a ridiculously long time to figure all of this out–to rule out water and actually consider the juice boxes SITTING DIRECTLY ON TOP of the damaged cardboard box in question. Brilliant!

My wife has always been supportive of my running hobby. She has provided encouragement and crowd support for each long distance race I’ve run, even when it involved traveling out-of-town. She has endured bad sleep at a noisy two-star hotel room as well as at a nice hotel room with our restless dog.

In December 2013, we traveled to Sacramento for a race. There are four things I still remember vividly about it. 

First, at the 7:00 am start, it was 28°. Granted, the race was in Sacramento, California in December, which is undoubtedly much warmer than Sac City, Iowa in December, but that’s still cold. Due to the cold conditions, the first water station unexpectedly turned into a safety hazard. As runners grab and dispose of cups at water stations, water gets spilled and falls to the pavement. This happens at every water station at every race. But it was below 32°, so the water on the ground froze into a sheet of ice, which required runners to quickly react and adjust their footing.

Second, at around mile 20, I intentionally and stupidly made two high back kicks (heel-to-butt), to see how my legs were doing, and instantly injured the piriformis muscle and sciatic nerve in my left leg. I felt decent enough to finish the race, but my pace dropped over the last six miles. Over the next few weeks I could feel that something wasn’t right–it turned out I had injured my piriformis muscle.

Third, despite that, my finish time was decent enough that I first entertained the idea of making a serious attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

However, all of this is just backstory. The most enduring and entertaining thing I remember about the race involved a pair of spectators, one of them being my supportive wife.

As a participant, I had done my planning for the race. As a spectator, my wife had also done some planning for the race, with some input from me. The general plan was for my wife to meet up with an old high school friend and watch the race and cheer on runners together. They would be stationed at a specific street corner along the race route, very close to the friend’s house, around mile 22.5. 

I was familiar with the route, I knew where to look for her.

She knew where to look for me, but I also wanted to let her know when to look for me.

So, given her precise location and its point along the route, I did the math, factoring in the start time for my corral, my target pace, the total number and duration of water stops, etc. I came up with a specific five-minute time window within which she could expect me to pass by: 10:10-10:15 am. 

The field of 6,000 would be spread out by that point, so I should be easy to pick out of the moving crowd. In retrospect, however, I should have taken a picture of myself in my running gear to visually show her and her friend exactly what to watch for.

For my part, I had run the race according to plan (with one huge exception, noted above), maintained my target pace, and was about to pass my two dedicated spectators within the calculated time window.

As I approached, I saw my wife and her friend. However, I also saw they weren’t actively watching the runners, and they clearly didn’t see me approaching. Rather, they were swept up in conversation, busy chatting away, which wasn’t entirely surprising since they are both good talkers.

In order not to be missed, I had no choice but to interrupt their verbal marathon. To get their attention, I waved an arm above my head and shouted, “Here I am! Cheer for me!” which they did, so the plan worked out, with only a small piece of impromptu directing.

For her part, all my wife had to do was watch the clock, and at 10:10 am, pay attention for five minutes. That’s it. I delivered on my part of the bargain–I ran continuously and steadily for 20+ miles, to be on time, at the pre-arranged location, as planned.

To be fair and truthful, that’s not all my wife had to do. She also had to give up her weekend, wake up early Sunday morning, check out of the hotel, scrape ice off my back car window, and drive 25 miles to meet me, at the rendezvous point, at the designated time. 

And for what? To stand outside in the cold and see her husband, whom she sees all the time anyway, for 20 fleeting but shining seconds. That is support.

Here I find myself, a grown-ass man crawling on the dirty floor of a casino. I’m supposed to be enjoying vacation. How did this happen? It wasn’t in my horoscope, I would have remembered this part.

Each summer, my wife and I take a one-week trip to a popular travel destination. During our trips, we sometimes visit local casinos for some low-stakes gambling. 

When we do, we visit the low roller casinos, and within those, we gravitate to the lower roller sections–the sections of the casino floors reserved for the ultra-low rollers, ingloriously tucked away, to hide the shame of the casinos and the shame of the gamblers found therein. They feature $1 tables and 1¢ and 5¢ slot machines.

During one evening visit, my wife and I exchanged funds for a plastic bucket of nickels and headed over to the slot machines in the section appropriate for us. I believe it was called Penny Heaven. But looking around, it was not exactly the picture of heaven that one most likely has in mind.

Rather than play simultaneously at two adjacent machines, we picked one machine, and took turns playing. Since we shared the same machine, we also shared the same stool. One of us would sit on the stool, play a few rounds, and then would we switch.

Our stool for this evening was a bar stool with four tall legs, a high seat (about 3 feet high), and a small backrest, which my wife draped her purse strap over. 

During one particular seating switch, my wife jumped off the stool and I, not looking back, started to climb onto it. I lifted up one knee, got my butt horizontal with the seat, and started leaning my upper body backwards. 

At precisely the same moment, my wife pulled at her purse strap, which you may recall, is hooked on the backrest of the stool. This pulling action caused the stool to fall over.

Of course, I didn’t see any of this. (If I did, I wouldn’t have a fun story to share.) I kept leaning back…and leaning back…unexpectedly falling through space and time, until…THUD!!! I landed on the most undignified section of the casino floor, back-first, like an overturned turtle. 

As my body made impact, so did the bucket of nickels in my possession. Those went flying everywhere, making a tremendous clinking sound. That only brought more attention to my body on the floor, and the fact that I am outdated and cheap, still playing with actual nickels. 

It also created the appearance that I fell off the stool because I’m sloppy drunk.

My wife apologized to me repeatedly as I turned over on all fours and started scooping nickels back into the bucket. A few very nice, considerate low rollers came over and helped me gather the nickels strewn about the floor. They also asked me if I was OK. I had the wind knocked out of me, so I couldn’t verbally reply at the moment, but I appreciated their concern as I crawled around. And thankfully, with such miserable low stakes, no one bothered to pocket any of my errant nickels.

There was no way to gracefully play off my fall, so I didn’t even try. I just stood back up and watched my wife play, looking like the clumsy loser idiot that I am. Not concerned about any side glances or murmuring that may have been occurring. “I hope drunk guy is OK. You should have seen him fall, dude. Crashed like a ton of bricks. That guy over there. Yeah, him.”

I will say, that was much more excitement than I bargained for in Penny Heaven. Thank you for providing such an inexpensive and memorable evening. I got a lot of bang for my nickel.

I still get derisively reminded about this pathetic incident, and rightfully so. It also, unfortunately, serves as a really good metaphor for my literal-mindedness.

Several years ago, on an otherwise glorious Super Bowl Sunday, my wife and I were setting up the house in anticipation of guests arriving for our annual Super Bowl party. Among other simple requests, my wife asked me to put a bag of chips in a bowl. As a dutiful husband, I did.

What I actually did, I should clarify, is place an unopened bag of chips upright in the designated bowl. Using a strict interpretation of the request, I did what I was told.

A few moments later, my wife passed by and saw the result of my effort. I think her heart dropped and her soul died a little. 

With heavy resignation, she says, “I can’t believe I have to tell you to open the bag and pour the chips into the bowl.” I looked at the still life, realized my mistake, but still responded both defensively and pitifully: “But you told me to put the chips in the bowl.” What a fool, truly in need of pity.

Be thankful, kind reader, that you don’t rely on me for help. On one hand, I do what I’m told. On the other, I do EXACTLY what I’m told. For any given task, my “help” can actually be helpful and appreciated or it can be bewildering and exasperating. As you may have presumed, this crapshoot gets old very quickly.

During one quiet, boring, and blissful evening of married life, my wife and I were home, watching Netflix, and in particular, a series called Ballers, starring The Rock as a financial manager of NFL players. 

About ten minutes into the first episode of the series, I focused on one of the young actors and said, “I think we’ve seen him before in something. He seems familiar.” 

No response from my wife. Fine.

We kept watching and about five minutes later, I paused the show and said, “We’ve seen him in something. I don’t remember what, but we’ve seen him in something.” 

Again, nothing from my wife. She remained unresponsive and expressionless.

After about twenty minutes, it finally clicked. I paused the show again and proudly exclaimed to my wife, “I got it! I figured it out. He sounds like Denzel Washington. That’s who he reminds me of.”

My wife casually says, “Oh yeah, that’s his son.” It was; the show also stars John David Washington. 

Well, thanks. Thanks so much for belatedly sharing that relevant information. You saw me sitting there struggling, racking my brain. I paused the show multiple times. You knew all along who he was, and yet, you couldn’t tell me who he was or help me out? You couldn’t even throw me a bone?

However, not long after this exchange, I recalled some informal marital advice from an old family friend: “This is what you argue about? If this is what you argue about, you’ve got it made.” While the discussion above, between my wife and I, wouldn’t properly be classified as an argument,  the advice, as I’ve accepted it, still applies.

So apparently, my wife and I have it made. This is what it feels like? Who knew? Yay for us, I guess.

Oh, this is another absolute beauty. Many years ago, my wife was regaling me with a story about one of her fellow co-workers, after having seen her bring her two cats, Thunder and Lightning, into work over the weekend.

Fast forward, perhaps five years. My wife and I were at a social gathering and a particular individual mentioned they had a dog named Thunder. I shot straight up in my chair, turned to my wife, and asked, “Wait, don’t we know someone else with a dog named Thunder?”

“Nope.”

“Really? Are you sure? That name sounds familiar.” It was a very trivial matter, and as such, my trivial brain wouldn’t let it rest.

A few days later, I persisted with the line of questioning. “Are you sure we don’t know someone with a dog named Thunder? Or maybe it’s a cat. I don’t know. I remember that name from somewhere. It’s not a common name for a pet.”

“Nope. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But I know we do, I fucking know it. And I know none of this is important, but it’s bugging me, and I can’t let it go. A few days later, it finally came to me. “Wait a minute! I got it! It’s a cat! No, it’s two cats! Didn’t you tell me a story about someone who brought their cats Thunder and Lightning to work?”

“Oh yeah. Thunder and Lightning. Those are my co-worker’s cats. She brings them into work on the weekend.

“Jesus Christ, I knew I wasn’t crazy. I remembered them from a story you told me. Why didn’t you also remember them? They’re from your story.”

“You were talking about them, but that didn’t help me remember. I had to see the visual picture of them in my head.”

“But I’ve never seen any of them in my life. I only know about them through a story you told me. It was your story, but I’m the one who remembered. I can’t believe we just went through all of this.” 

And for what? I put both of us through this excruciating memory exercise just to make the connection between the names of other people’s pets. Then I remembered the advice from our family friend and calmly reminded myself that we’ve got it made.

“Did you wear those clothes two days in a row?” I don’t particularly appreciate the accusatory tone in my wife’s voice.

“Um, excuse me? Two? That’s nothing. More like five days in a row. C’mon, give me the credit I deserve.”

Some of the true perks of working from home: relaxed standards for personal appearance, personal hygiene, and self-care. And the comforting justification you give yourself about conserving water.

“In addition, observant but critical wife, I would argue that you’re looking at it all wrong. I prefer to look at it as a fashion challenge: Who Wore It Better? Me today, me yesterday, or me tomorrow. Or maybe even me next week. You’ll have to wait and see who gets crowned the winner.”

Actually, there are no winners in this, least of all, my fresh-clothes-every-day wife.

One of my communication superpowers is the inability to follow pronouns, even in a simple conversation or story. For example, a typical exchange with my wife might unfold as follows:

“I was talking to my co-worker Raymond about books assigned in high school, and we were both assigned Shelley’s Frankenstein. And we were talking about Frankenstein and the monster, and he was saying…”

“Wait, who is ‘he’? Frankenstein?”

“No.”

“The monster?”

“No.”

“Shelley?”

“Shelley is a woman, you idiot! She is the author. She is not a he.”

“Ok, so who is ‘he’?”

“Raymond! Who else would it be? Do you not understand context at all?”

“Ok, I’m sorry. But…but…you chose to marry me. So some of this is on you.”

“You’re right. I should have married the monster. At least he would have understood me.”

“Wait, who is ‘he’?”