The Wife and her nonexistent fist of death

Those of you who read The Wife's post yesterday were greeted by an excellent list of people she is dying to punch. But let me tell you why that's really funny.

The Wife wouldn't punch any of those people, even if given the chance. Even if they, like I did once, spent 30 minutes several times a day for two months begging her to punch them in the arm. In fact, my wife hasn't punched a single person in her entire life. She claims that she "may have" punched somebody playfully once, but I'm not buying it. I'll believe she has punched somebody once I see her performing the actual act of pummeling another person. And then I would proceed straight to the doctor's office for an MRI. If that turns out to be negative, then I'm calling the CIA to declare that "the invasion has begun!" because an alien has taken over my wife's body.

If you haven't figured this out yet, The Wife is what one would call "gentle." Sweet-hearted. Meek. "Dove-like."

And one needs not know my wife all that well to realize this. In fact, one only needs to take one half-decent look at her -- which is not something she entirely knows herself. She may as well have the phrase "I've never hurt a single human being, or animal, or plant, in my entire life" tattooed to her forehead. This makes the following joke hilarious, at least to me: Back in The Day, I sometimes liked cowering in front of her in a public location, like a grocery store, while saying "don't hit me again!" I'd then laugh uproariously as she chastised me, saying "people might actually think I hit you."

No, Wife. They wouldn't.

It's not just people The Wife refuses to whack. She remains our household's Great Bug Defender, for she rushes to the aid of any unsuspecting insect that is in danger of getting caught between the floor and my boot.

Case in point: One day, before we were hitched, we were at her apartment when an ant crawled on the floor. I'm not a big fan of ants in the house. Ants outside? Fine. Ants inside? Get out. So I tried killing it. But I didn't succeed. Then I chuckled at my failure, a mistake that sent me to the doghouse for the rest of the night.

The Wife has long had a reputation for her defense of the defenseless invertebrate. In college, in North Carolina, her fellow dorm-mates installed red Bugphones in all the rooms and the showers. Each of them were connected to The Wife's Bugphone -- like a Batphone, only the handset was shaped like a cockroach -- so whenever someone spotted one of those massive southern roaches in their midst they just picked up the Bugphone to call for The Wife's help -- after they were done screaming as if they were in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, that is.

After ripping off her shirt to reveal her bug-defender superhero suit, The Wife came running. She would scoop the cockroach with her hands, then talk to it in gentle tones as she led the insect outside. Her classmates would rejoice their hero -- even if the roach would head straight for the dorm again once it tasted freedom.

The Wife is a warmhearted soul, and I would have it no other way. Still, I'm glad that I'm not on that punching list of hers. After all, you never know when the invasion will begin.



I love humor-blogs.com. I love humor-blogs.com so much I'd marry it, if it were physically possible to marry a Web site, and it were legal. Then I'd have to do some sweet-talking to The Wife. And we'd all have to move to Utah.