March 2006 - Sincerely Sire Newsletter
Talk To The Hand
It wasn’t my fault, simply
a reflex action—that’s all it was. A mistake that any husband could make, although
you’d think a man like me, with over thirty-one years experience, would know better
by now.
It starts with Roe and I in
bed reading the paper at six-thirty in the morning. As usual, I have served coffee
to her highness and she is, temporarily at least—my goal in life—happy. Perhaps
it will be a good day.
It is then that my cell
phone unexpectedly rings, probably a wrong number I think, but I answer it anyway.
Turns out it is someone I have been trying to reach for several days. It’s an
important call, so I focus on the caller—instead of your highness—first mistake;
then I turn my back on your highness—second mistake. Next I start speaking in
an animated voice, kind of loud—third mistake—your highness requires absolute
silence in the early morning.
Your highness begins
wondering who in the heck slave-man could be talking to. Besides, slave-man
needs to be reheating her coffee. After a few moments of exasperating stares she
noisily, and for effect, crumbles her newspaper to her lap and interrupts slave-man’s
call by demanding, “Who is that?!”
Due to the critical nature
of the conversation slave-man momentarily loses his mind and becomes slightly
$#!*!%. He can’t hear the person on the other end of
the line, so, with his back still turned to her highness, he swings his arm
back around to her and gives her the “Talk to the hand” salute—the same one the
cop gives at the intersection to stop the traffic. Yeah, that’s right, he tells
her in universally accepted sign language to stop the traffic coming out of
that mouth! A bold but incredibly stupid move.
Your highness is abruptly
quieted and promptly sticks her nose back in the paper as slave-man finishes
his call, then jumps in the shower, shaves, and gets dressed for work. He has
no idea anything is awry. But when he gets downstairs, there she is, pacing the
kitchen floor like the proverbial woman scorned. “Is something the matter?”
slave-man asks.
“You’ve got to stop
treating me like this, or this just
isn’t going to work!”
I ponder for a moment what
the this is
she’s talking about, the this that
“just isn’t going to work” and pretty much decide it’s our thirty-one-year marriage.
Oh no, I think to myself,
not this again. It’s what I refer to
as the gross generalization argument.
She is the master at this. She will
take the smallest thing, in this case, me, politely suggesting that she “Talk
to the hand,”(be quiet for a moment) and blow it completely
out of proportion and savagely beat me over the head with it until I am begging
for mercy. I mean, this was NOT a big deal—was it? Just a
tiny little slave-man slipup.
But, as always, it truly doesn’t
matter what slave-man thinks. I must calm the beast with the glowing eyes that
stands before me. So, I apologize like crazy for telling her to talk to the
hand, but she is REALLY $#@!%. I can’t believe it.
Now, the commonly accepted
rule for these gunfights is they must
occur at the most inconvenient and crucial moments possible, like, for instance,
when you’re late for work, have to conduct a very important meeting the minute
you get there, and it’s essential that you are in an upbeat and positive frame
of mind. I was in just such a fix. Did she care? Oh, COME ON NOW, be real. This is my wife I’m talking about here. A very angry wife. This just positioned her perfectly for
the slaughter.
So she ignores me and goes
outside and starts watering the plants in the patio. I am beside myself with
frustration and FEAR.
I have got to get to my
car in the garage, right away, so I can leave. I can not be late. I am all
dressed up in my most expensive suit and tie. She is in the patio which I have
to cross to get to the garage. She is upset and has a hose in her hand with
water coming out of it. This could be tricky…
I open the glass sliding
door at the back of the house and step gingerly into the patio. “Uh, honey, I
have to leave now. I’m really sorry for giving you the hand—for telling you to
talk to the hand. Can you please forgive me? I apologize. Come on honey.
Please.”
Her back is turned to me
as she furiously hoses down the hanging—like me—plants. And that is when your
highness suddenly conjures up her brilliant and crushing this moment response. With her back still turned to me and one hand
holding the hose to the hanging plants, she swings her other arm around to me
behind her back, and in truly Oscar Award winning “How do you like it slave-man?” fashion, gives me the hand, the “Talk to the hand” salute. It is truly a
classic moment, an image that will forever be emblazoned upon my memory.
She had left me speechless once again, so I did the only thing I could do…I made a mad dash for the garage just a split second before the other hand, the one with the hose in it, whipped around to bid me adieu
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