Maybe...
You know that feeling when all the blood drains from your face and you feel your heart stop beating. You can sense time stopping right in front of you. You can feel the world stop turning. For a lot of people this feeling is brought on by something fantastic like losing your virginity, getting married, falling in love, watching your team win the world series or winning the lottery. In those cases, the feeling is joy; uncontrollable jubilation. In my case it was not.
In my case, this feeling was absolute terror. Horror. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. It was a horrible feeling. I was paralyzed. I didn't even blink for almost a minute. As far as I was concerned, the earth's rotation stopped on a fucking dime. It didn't start again until my eyeballs started to hurt from a lack of fluid and I was forced to blink and come back to the world. When I did, I didn't know how much time had passed or where I was.
What happened? What caused my temporary lapse? Why was I momentarily incompacitated? Simply enough, it was because of my wife. Harldly a plot twist, I agree. But nevertheless, it's the truth. So here we go. I'm sitting at our computer at roughly 11am. I was gleefully reading the latest Keith Law blog on espn.com or some fantasy baseball related article, when my wife emerged from our bathroom and uttered the single most terrifying phrase that a young man can hear. More terrifying than your parents telling you they "need to talk about the magazines they found in your closet." More terrifying than your college roommate telling you that he "saw you watching him change after his shower." More terrifying than a religious official asking you "do you take this woman..." Terrifying.
She walks out of the bathroom with her hand on her stomach. She doesn't look well. She looks at me and says, with all innocence: "Wow. I've been nauseous like the last three mornings." Time stopped. My heart stopped. For all intents and purposes, there was no more oxygen in the earth's athmosphere. None.
Unfortunately, as a guy, I am preprogammed to fill this deadening silence with something. My brain, suffocating though it was, insisted on saying something. In my oxygen deprived condition, my thoughts were admittedly less than genius, and thusly the first thing out of my mouth was, though devastatingly logical, instantly regrettable. "Maybe it's just Lukemia," I offered. Perhaps this was and still is the very first and hopefully last time the phrase "just Lukemia" has ever, ever, ever been uttered.
It definitely says something about me that the idea of my wife, the love of my life, being stricken with a likely terminal illness was, for that brief moment in time, a better solution than the possibility that she was carrying our child inside of her. Obviously, I'm insane. That's clear to anybody who was with me tonight, in the sports bar, watching the NFL playoffs (about which I absolutley could not care less) who observed me sweating with the effort of preventing myself from getting up and straightening the painting below the TV, which was slightly askew. Seeing myself as a father, as somebody in charge of someone, of something that isn't walking on all fours, covered in hair and shits in the street was absolutely terrifying.
Thankfully, my wife, wonderfully understanding of my insanity as she is, knew just what to say. "Maybe," she responded quizzically and rolled her eyes.
After a few minutes of perusing fantasy rankings, the air had crept back into the room. I could breathe and move and think again. After perusing the fantasy ranking of Travis Hafner, the perenially undervalued DH of the Cleveland Indians, I prepared to make the long walk across our living room to my wife on the couch. This walk, though only about 15 feet, truly felt like a mile. Why? Simple. Anybody who hooked up with an ugly or otherwise regrettable person at college and had to trudge back home across campus in the early morning knows the feeling. It's shame, and the feeling of every set of eyes around on you, knowing your shame and judging you for it. Was my crime worse than blowing the back up second baseman of your division 3 baseball team at some gay fraternity party? I didn't think so, but it sure felt as bad (for the record, I have no idea what blowing the backup second baseman on my college baseball team would feel like, but I imagine that it feels pretty shitty, because let's face it, that dude sucks at baseball - which is of course, not to say that if he was better at baseball that blowing him would feel better. Although, what do I know, maybe it would.)
So I walked over to apologize and for what I wasn't exactly sure. Was it my immaturity? My hope for her illness? Or my off color remark about the incestuous nature of her family's distant and obese "relations?" Either way, it was clear that a long bout of cunnilingus was in my immediate future.
I wouldn't say I'm a bad husband, but the word "good" seems a bit strong these days...
In my case, this feeling was absolute terror. Horror. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. It was a horrible feeling. I was paralyzed. I didn't even blink for almost a minute. As far as I was concerned, the earth's rotation stopped on a fucking dime. It didn't start again until my eyeballs started to hurt from a lack of fluid and I was forced to blink and come back to the world. When I did, I didn't know how much time had passed or where I was.
What happened? What caused my temporary lapse? Why was I momentarily incompacitated? Simply enough, it was because of my wife. Harldly a plot twist, I agree. But nevertheless, it's the truth. So here we go. I'm sitting at our computer at roughly 11am. I was gleefully reading the latest Keith Law blog on espn.com or some fantasy baseball related article, when my wife emerged from our bathroom and uttered the single most terrifying phrase that a young man can hear. More terrifying than your parents telling you they "need to talk about the magazines they found in your closet." More terrifying than your college roommate telling you that he "saw you watching him change after his shower." More terrifying than a religious official asking you "do you take this woman..." Terrifying.
She walks out of the bathroom with her hand on her stomach. She doesn't look well. She looks at me and says, with all innocence: "Wow. I've been nauseous like the last three mornings." Time stopped. My heart stopped. For all intents and purposes, there was no more oxygen in the earth's athmosphere. None.
Unfortunately, as a guy, I am preprogammed to fill this deadening silence with something. My brain, suffocating though it was, insisted on saying something. In my oxygen deprived condition, my thoughts were admittedly less than genius, and thusly the first thing out of my mouth was, though devastatingly logical, instantly regrettable. "Maybe it's just Lukemia," I offered. Perhaps this was and still is the very first and hopefully last time the phrase "just Lukemia" has ever, ever, ever been uttered.
It definitely says something about me that the idea of my wife, the love of my life, being stricken with a likely terminal illness was, for that brief moment in time, a better solution than the possibility that she was carrying our child inside of her. Obviously, I'm insane. That's clear to anybody who was with me tonight, in the sports bar, watching the NFL playoffs (about which I absolutley could not care less) who observed me sweating with the effort of preventing myself from getting up and straightening the painting below the TV, which was slightly askew. Seeing myself as a father, as somebody in charge of someone, of something that isn't walking on all fours, covered in hair and shits in the street was absolutely terrifying.
Thankfully, my wife, wonderfully understanding of my insanity as she is, knew just what to say. "Maybe," she responded quizzically and rolled her eyes.
After a few minutes of perusing fantasy rankings, the air had crept back into the room. I could breathe and move and think again. After perusing the fantasy ranking of Travis Hafner, the perenially undervalued DH of the Cleveland Indians, I prepared to make the long walk across our living room to my wife on the couch. This walk, though only about 15 feet, truly felt like a mile. Why? Simple. Anybody who hooked up with an ugly or otherwise regrettable person at college and had to trudge back home across campus in the early morning knows the feeling. It's shame, and the feeling of every set of eyes around on you, knowing your shame and judging you for it. Was my crime worse than blowing the back up second baseman of your division 3 baseball team at some gay fraternity party? I didn't think so, but it sure felt as bad (for the record, I have no idea what blowing the backup second baseman on my college baseball team would feel like, but I imagine that it feels pretty shitty, because let's face it, that dude sucks at baseball - which is of course, not to say that if he was better at baseball that blowing him would feel better. Although, what do I know, maybe it would.)
So I walked over to apologize and for what I wasn't exactly sure. Was it my immaturity? My hope for her illness? Or my off color remark about the incestuous nature of her family's distant and obese "relations?" Either way, it was clear that a long bout of cunnilingus was in my immediate future.
I wouldn't say I'm a bad husband, but the word "good" seems a bit strong these days...
posted by Tent Time at 8:08 PM
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