What Would I Do Without Her?
I’m home alone. I have been for days. Lizzie and the kids are off visiting relatives. Don’t close window! I’m not going to put on after-shave, spank my face with both hands and squawk into a mirror.
♫ Love is in the air! ♫It’s cool. I’m good. No matter where I go in the house, I’ve got various piles to keep me company. Dishes. Laundry. Unopened mail. Recyclables. Who am I kidding? Despite their great listening skills, the companionship of inanimate objects is unsatisfying. It’s creepy and lame being in a house that’s empty of its normally liveliness. And it’s HARD! What happened to me? Can’t I take care of myself!?! No. Not if things like “physical proof” and “glaring evidence” are anything to go by.
Soooooo… I’ve taken to staying at the office really late to avoid going home. Last night I flicked off the office lights at midnight. I’d only eaten half a store-bought sandwich all day. Unless you count the tanker of coffee I drank as food.
Does anyone know how you say “food poisoning” and “Emergency Room” in Spanish?My stomach was audibly grumbling as I shuffled into the parking lot. What’s this? Lo and behold! A food truck. Hmmmm. Like a genie’s granted wish, it seemed both miraculous and very likely to backfire on me.
This wasn’t one of the trendy ones that hipsters follow on Twitter so they can track its movements like some sort of tagged animal in the wilds of Los Angeles. There it sat, like a dare, at midnight, in a parking lot completely empty except for my car. And it was blocking me in. Hah! Now THAT is what I called effective advertising!
I stared longer than any menu with only 8 items deserves to be stared at, as the thought occurred to me that this might not be such a good idea. But then my hunger snuck up behind that cautious thought, pantsed it and hit it with a tire iron. I ordered my food with a side of “Can you por favor move so I can go home?” and I was off.
When I got home I soaked in the lack of any sign of life with a sigh and sat down to eat. The tinfoil was so cheap you could probably see through it if you held it up to light. As I picked it up it burst and I felt the weight and warmth of beans in my lap. ¡MIERDA!
After I reassembled the mess, I took my first bite and immediately understood the raised eyebrows the woman gave me when I said “Yes” to “Hot?” Oh God.
I get to talk to my wife and boys everyday so it’s not like I’m experiencing familial solitary confinement, but I MISS MY WIFE!!! It’s not that I love her solely because she is an amazing cook and keeps me from basically living like a homeless person in our own house. It’s just that I love her twice as much because of it! They say “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” But I’d like to add that any man just has more love to give when he can cross a room without drowning in neglected laundry and doesn’t have horrible diarrhea from cheap Mexican food.
Look at her with that adorable look: “You gotta go through these nachos to get into these PJs, big boy.” We call them HELLYEAHchos.Sometimes when she zips up my forgotten fly or removes a blob of food I’ve had on my face for an hour in public, she smiles and asks me what I would do without her. Next time she asks, I’ll try to come up with something more romantic than the honest answer: “mope about in abject loneliness, lay awake in bed, live in squalor, alternately starve and eat poorly, and occasionally masturbate.”
Uhhhhh… Sorry about that last one.
With all of the long work days, stress, bad sleep and crappy food, I have a pain in my stomach to go with the one in my heart. I MISS MY WIFE AND KIDS! I freely admit that I can’t function properly without them! ARG!
Anna Nonamus says: 
Pam 
Lizzie 
MotherDuck 
Shawn 
