Wham!

After twenty years of marriage there should probably be this unspoken agreement that Hubby and I never debate over who is right and who is wrong when it comes to the little stuff. We should have this symbiosis that allows us to peacefully coexist in a home where it doesn’t really matter who is right and who is wrong. Notice I said “should”.

Most of the time it works that way since we’re usually too busy or too tired to fuss over much. And honestly, at this stage of life it rarely matters who is correct. Notice I said “rarely”. We bite our tongues a lot. A LOT as we both enjoy being right and neither one us likes to be told what to do or how to do it. Despite the occasional urge to whack each other over the head with a 2 by 4 because someone didn’t read the instructions or Hula left the gas tank on empty, we have few “I told you so” moments. However, there are days when the urge to claim victory wells up and swallows up one of us. Usually me. I don’t know why. It just does. Gosh darn it, it just feels good to be right sometimes and to point it out to he who isn’t.

Like the last time we left downtown Nashville, and I hollered for Hubby to turn right, RIGHT I SAID! He wanted to go left because our GPS, Desdemona, said to go left. I’m here to tell ya’ Desdemona was a bee-atch on our last trip, and she had us lost as Easter eggs the whole time. I said I didn’t care what Desdemona thought, we needed to go right because that would take us right to Interstate 24 where we needed to go. “Okay, we’ll do it YOUR way,” Hubby said. He just knew we were going to get turned around and wanted to prove me wrong. We rode in silence. A few miles down the road we passed under the sign that said “I-24 West” and I said, “Ha! I knew it!” I may or may not have pointed my finger at him.

Flash forward to this past Saturday when I was standing in the yard getting ready to try out the new hammock for just a minute. (By the way, I still have not napped in it yet.) As I leaned back to get into it, Hubby came rushing up and said, “Wait, wait, let me show you how to do it!” Only it wasn’t a cheery helpful, “Let me help you into it dear” kind of tone. It was more of an “I’m the only one who really knows how to do this so stand back little Missy and let me show you the right way to do it so you don’t hurt yourself” kind of tone. The man watches way too many John Wayne movies. As I started to say something sassy the Nashville incident flashed through my head and I told myself to shut my pie hole and just watch as it wasn’t worth not so nice words. As it turned out I was rather glad I did. Hubby leaned back, rolled into the hammock, relaxed and promptly flipped over. He hit the ground with a loud thud faster than a jack rabbit on a date. It was kind of like our kayak in Barbados incident but with less blood. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. He glanced around to see if the neighbors were in their backyard, and since they were, he quietly shuffled into the house mumbling something about how I could probably do it myself. I rolled my smug hind end into the hammock and lay there giggling. And then when it was time to get out, I made sure no one was watching and rolled out of it very slowly because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about marriage over the last twenty years, it’s that she who laughs loudest usually falls on her face when she least expects it.