ninanevermore

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I apologized to my husband this morning for what I said to him on Saturday when he felled a tree onto the Mercury Cougar that used to belong to his mother and that was servicing us as our back-up vehicle. A loving spouse doesn’t roll her eyes and say, “That was really stupid, hon.” But I did.

This was wrong of me. In marriage, you are allowed to think your spouse is stupid, but it’s not something you ever say aloud. You are only allowed to say it with a look, and everyone who has ever been in a long-term relationship knows the look I am talking about: raised eyebrows, half smirk, and bald-face incredulity. It is a look that says, I love you, but you are an idiot. Women are better at this look than men, who generally respond by showing their palms and saying, “What?!” When men give it women, we tend smile sadly and look at them big sad eyes so they will go all soft and mushy inside and forgive us.

Husbands can also give the look to their wives. Jeff used the look on me after Hurricane Ike, when we were using a generator to keep the refrigerator running and have lights in the house and I tried to blow dry my hair after we finally got water pressure back and I took a much needed shower. Turning on my hair dryer caused the circuit to trip. When my dear husband asked what I did to cause this and I confessed, he gave me the look and asked, “Do you know how much electricity a hair dryer uses?”

“Uhm…no.”

“A lot, Sweetie.”

“Oh.”

So I went around with a natural, windswept look until the lights came back on.

But on Saturday, I broke the rules and spoke the words as well as gave him the look.

It started with the pine tree on the corner of the house, next to the drive way. We noticed last week that it seemed to have died rather all-of-the-sudden like. A couple of weeks ago, it looked fine. Now its needles had turned brown, its bark was falling off, and if you listened closely you could hear little Pine Bark Beetles munching happily away under its surface. It had to come down. It was leaning toward the house, so if we waited too long and nature took her course, it would end badly for us.

Jeff attached a come-along to the dead tree and a larger tree further away from the house. Then he moved his truck and my car to the end of the driveway, out of harm’s way. But he left the Mercury sitting on the far side of the driveway next to the tree. I heard the chainsaw and walked out in the garage to watch what he was up to. I saw him cut a wedge off of the side of the tree that wasn’t facing the house. I saw him cut a slit into the side of the tree next to the house. It was obvious he was expecting the tree to fall at an angle across the driveway. My jaw dropped open when it fell sideways and crashed into the old green Cougar.

Jeff turned off the chainsaw and laughed.

“What the…?” I asked.

“I didn’t expect that to happen!” he said.

“Obviously not. Why are you laughing? You killed the car!”

“It’s done. What am I supposed to do, cry?”

“Well, yes. I would. I'm going to.”

A woman driving by in a white SUV stopped in front of front of our driveway and rolled down her window. “I just want to tell you that that totally sucks,” she said.

“Doesn’t it?” I agreed.

Wesley and Catherine, the neighbors next door, wandered over to take a gander.

“Wow,” Wesley said.

“Not very bright of him, huh?” I asked.

“Thanks for your support, hon,” Jeff said. I may have questioned his intelligence several more time within the next fifteen minutes, and he drowned me out by cranking up the chainsaw and cutting up the tree before more of the neighbors stopped to gawk.

Later, he admitted that it was stupid not to move the Cougar, in light of the fact that he’d moved his truck that had been behind it and my car that had been parked next to it. “Brain fart, I guess,” he mused.

I thanked him for moving my car, at least.

“I liked that car,” he said. “This sucks.” His truck does not have air conditioning, and the Cougar did.

It took three days, but I did apologize for calling him stupid (and in front of the neighbors, no less). He accepted my apology gracefully. In the future, when the incident fades from an annoying reality to an amusing anecdote, I will refrain from using ugly words.

I can’t promise that I won’t give him the look, though.

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It's all part of nature, suburbia styel. A tree falls...