The Grass Is Dead!

Listen, I don’t know what I am doing. I have been pretending to be an adult all this time, but really I’m just a kid trapped in an adult’s body! Does that make sense? Only I’m not nearly as adorable as Tom Hank’s character in the movie “Big.”

My wife will tell anyone (she does all the time), that I am her “live cartoon character” who gets into all sorts of predicaments around the house and “generally helps her pass the time” with a frequent stream of comic relief. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I do enjoy making my wife laugh, but I’m figuring out that she is laughing at me. Now I can’t find a solution to balance all this crazy! My brain hurts…

I usually laugh along as she re-tells stories that turn into instant classics, but sometimes I wish I were just a normal guy who stayed in the garage and tinkered with shit until dinner was ready.

I believe her favorite is the one about how I attempted to prove a very valid concern that I had when our first child was still very young. Jamie moved the baby monitor from one room to another so she could listen for Maggie while she napped. I walked in and noticed that the plug was still hanging from the wall, with the adapter laying on the floor. I didn’t realize that Jamie was in the process of moving the monitor and I immediately began lecturing her about the dangers of leaving cords hanging from the outlet where baby could do something to get hurt. I did not stop and think about the fact that I was lecturing a very practical, intelligent, well educated mother about child safety and she decided to have fun with my blind ignorance. It’s a Trap!

A quiet argument erupted (baby sleeping) and I was too dumb to see it at the time, but I was totally being set up. She played along and asked “how in the world was something like a dumb power cord that was still plugged in dangerous” and I couldn’t believe I had to actually demonstrate (for safety, of course)! So I did. Just to show my sweet, beautiful wife how dumb I thought her negligence was, (no I was NOT thinking), I bent down, plugged the cord back in and stuck the opposite end in my mouth!

Now several things began to play out at this point. I vaguely remember thinking “See, I told you so!” That didn’t last long at all. Nope, I was immediately reminded who the idiot was and it was not the magnificent woman standing before me! Jamie said that she could actually see my eyes grow to a size that reminded her of a Looney Tunes character, all I saw was stars. I remember a tingling sensation running through my body and then it turned into spikes shredding all of my nerves. I definitely think that if it was physically possible to pee, poop and vomit all at the same time, I would have. I don’t remember much after that initial surge. Thankfully, the cord had a power converter attached. The 110 volts of electrical current was actually filtered down to just a few volts, so I didn’t die a horrible death, obviously.

Turns out that I walked right into one of Jamie’s traps where she gets to prove me wrong, only this time I walked all the way in and fell into a damn pit of electric eels! Jamie swears that I never lost consciousness, but I think she was probably laughing too hard to notice.

Thanks babe, you were were right, again!