On Being a Submissive Wife

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When my eyes glaze over and I stop talking and seeing people, Tessa calls my web host and tells them to crash my sites so I stop fooling around with the layout. Or she keeps Sean out of school to hog my good computer. Then I have to use my piece-of-shit laptop which is good only for writing. I could just kiss her on these days. It’s always nice to have Sean around the house. And I can park my ass in the backyard on the laptop and do some real work.

If it’s late enough in the day, and if I’ve been a good lad, she might even let me commune with the Kentucky spirits. On the other hand, if it’s still before noon, I make sure I’m chasing it with a nice raunchy beer. Gotta be an old pro to hide your drinking around Tessa. It’s getting harder and harder to stay bagged for even half a day anymore. Especially weekdays. Best way to hide your drinking around Tessa is just stay sober. She can hear a whiskey/rocks clinking through three walls.

My affection for bourbon/rocks is not a point of contention between us. I try to be a good wife and submit. It’s more of a man vs. nature conflict. See, when the weather cools and the maple leaves start scudding up the porch ramp like they’re doing now, the Kentucky spirits start calling to me. They take me back to childhood and those crisp afternoons spent cutting up raw firewood. Not that I put away much rotgut as a kid. No. But well-aged spirits recall that aroma of hot sawdust mixed with small engine exhaust. If you buy the right whiskey, and, if you know what you’re doing, you can draw the oak fragrances right out of every sip and swirl them around the ethanol and actually savor the comfort of a warm stove.

All right that’s enough of that. Alkies the world over are now falling off the wagon like great clods of mule turds. Sorry.

I’m actually sober right now. Drinking a Sprite. Straight. It’s just too much work to hammer the hooch anymore. I don’t mean the hiding from Tessa part. I mean next day. You fart like a Clydesdale and sweat like a pedophile in a Barney suit.

My desire to be a good and submissive wife has led me to consider other ways to enjoy firewood that would require be much less work than a hangover. I could simply install a fireplace in the house and buy a chain saw and twenty-five acres of timberland in the country. I could take the pickup out to the woods, saw up a load, get a good sniff of all the wonderful vapors, bring it home and light a fire in the house. Pretty sure Tessa would like that.