Tongue-In-Cheek … Foot-In-Mouth

Generally speaking, there is one major problem with marriage: women.   I don’t mean that in a bad way.  I’m just saying that after being married for a considerable amount of time, “a considerable amount of time” defined here as DIRECTLY after we men utter the words “I do,” women take over the matrimonial reins and start sliding honey-do lists under our noses, right at the alter.

Take, for example, yard work, specifically the activity of planting flowers.  I use this flower-planting example because it is early April and spring has sprung.  And nothing smacks more of spring springing than that of flowering flowers.

Okay, so my wife, who is genetically a woman, has a female friend of hers, who is also genetically a woman, and who enjoys growing various forms of vegetation, to include trees, bushes, grass, assorted cacti, but mainly flowers, specifically “daylilies.”  And this female friend of my wife’s decided that she wanted my wife to be surrounded by the same abundance of beauty she receives from her daylilies, so she gave my wife several plastic bagfuls of her daylilies.”

All right, so far things sound pretty innocent enough, right?  Read on…

So, my wife brings the bags of daylilies home, plops them at my feet and asks me to plant them for her.  Now, follow me closely here: flowers do NOT grow very well if JUST placed on the surface of the ground.  Flowers have the nasty habit of needing to be PLANTED, as in a hole being dug, and the flowers—root ball down—are placed into the hole, the hole is then covered back up with the soil, and you pat the soil with your garden implement so things are nice, tight, and tidy.

Have I mentioned that I hate flowers?  Well, I didn’t before but I DO now.

Anyway, my wife, given her amazing ability to direct me around, and who I am therefore convinced spent several of her past lifetimes hired as the person in the bowels of 15th and 16th century ships beating the backs of the reluctant captives with a leather whip in an attempt to motivate them to “row faster,” took the time and trouble out of her busy honey-do-list writing day to go to that home center, who’s name rhymes with “Pome Pepot,” to purchase me a hand-held hole maker, because according to the female salesperson, “a hand held hole maker will your life much easier primarily because you won’t be digging the holes.  Now, your husband’s life will be made into a living hole-digging hell, but we’re really not concerned about the wellbeing of our galley slaves, now are we?” (collective giggles)

For those of you who have not dug holes with a hand-held hold digger, this medieval hole-digging torture device requires the person assigned to dig the holes, that would be me, to drop down onto his hands and knees, jam the hole digger into the ground, and violently begin twisting it back and forth until the digger of the hole, that would be me, reaches China, which is the exact predetermined depth that my wife felt would make just the right depth for her daylilies to be comfortable in, and to live happily ever after in.

Now, digging ONE 8,000 mile deep hole is one thing, BUT her friend gave my wife (and I’m not making this up) 102 daylilies, all of which my wife wanted planted, and all of which need to have their very own 8,000 mile deep hole dug so that they, too, could be comfortable in, and live happily every after in.  And by the time the day ended, I had dug enough holes to officially qualify myself as a gofer.

Well, anyway, I have to go.  My wife’s female friend just gave her eight hundred trillion FULLY GROWN California Redwoods which I now need to plant.  And with the size of their root ball, I’m figuring I will have jam the hole digger into the ground, and violently begin twisting it back and forth until the digger of the hole, that would be me, reaches Neptune eight hundred trillion times.