Menopausal Mother

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know how much I like to highlight the absent-minded situations that my husband gets into. His intentions are good, but somehow his plans always go awry. Case in point: One afternoon when we were hosting a backyard barbecue, my husband offered to do all the cooking. He'd forgotten to replace the old gas line to the grill, and was happily flipping burgers when he noticed a small spark by the gas tank. Grease from the meat was splattering everywhere and hitting the leaks in the gas line.

We narrowly missed a gas explosion that day when the grill burst into flames. The black plumes of smoke sent the partygoers scrambling out into the street. Fortunately, most of our friends discovered a sudden fondness for Cajun-style burgers.

Another example of good intentions gone wrong occurred years ago when a hurricane approached our coastline. My husband thought it would be "fun" to pack our family of six into the minivan for a quick trip to the nearby beach to watch the storm whipping up the waves. Little did he know that the hurricane was a fast moving storm, and that it was closer to our area than he suspected. When the wind began rocking the sides of the van, he broke the land speed record to get us home before the hurricane hit.

Rather than leave the minivan in the driveway, my husband decided to park it on the side of the house for better protection from the oncoming storm. It was a new vehicle, and he was determined to keep it from being crushed by a fallen tree. In his rush to maneuver the car to safety, he put it in reverse and backed into the tight space of our side yard. His foot slipped  off the brake onto the accelerator and the van lunged backwards, slamming into a tree. The glass in the rear window shattered into a million shards just as the rain started lashing the streets. The kids had a hard time containing their giggles while they watched their wind-blown father struggle with a roll of duct tape and a plastic tarp in the middle of a hurricane.

My husband easily falls into these situations because he is a kind man who is always happy to help others. He'll carry heavy bags out to the car for elderly shoppers at the grocery store, assist a stranger changing a tire on a busy highway, or rescue a stranded friend in the middle of the night.  But sometimes these little acts of kindness backfire.

One morning he was in a crowded elevator on his way up to a job interview when the woman next to him spilled a stack of business cards onto the floor. Being the chivalrous man that he is, he bent down to retrieve the cards for her when he heard something rip. Everyone in the elevator stood silent, and at that moment, my husband realized his brand new slacks had split wide open from stem to stern.

Needless to say, he spent the entire interview with his backside to the wall.

It was the most recent incident, however, that will go down in history as the EPIC PHONE FAIL.

Last week when my "Spandex" book was published, my excited husband sent out a large group text on his cell phone to share the good news with everyone on his contact list. A few days later, one of his buddies responded to the text and asked what he could do to help out. My husband JOKINGLY texted back, "Buy the book, F@#*ER!"

After he hit "send" on his cell, it dawned on him that he'd accidentally sent the message to EVERYONE on his contact list. This included not just our close friends, but the plumber, the minister, our vet, the jeweler, the dentist, all of our doctors, the electrician, the A/C guy, our contractor, my mother, the friggin' MAYOR, our hairdresser, and all of our neighbors. It even went to the physician who performed our colonoscopies.

Now I'm worried that the next time I'm due for a colonoscopy, the doctor might "conveniently" forget to give me anesthesia.

I think it's time for my husband to go back to using a rotary phone.





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