Category: I Love My Wife

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 That only brought more attention to my body on the floor, and the fact that I am outdated and cheap, still playing with actual nickels.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’?”