S4

What My Wife Don't Know Won't Hurt Me

by Dennis Clay Smith

Isn't nature funny? Everywhere you look there's the old "Food Chain" formula in evidence. The bugs are pursued by the frogs, the frogs are pursued by the coons, the coons are pursued by my dogs and me, and I'm pursued by my wife. And anybody who knows what's good for them would never pursue my wife. She's at the top of the pursuit chain. She doesn't need me for protection; not because I'm as mean as Dick-The-Bruiser and could wrap a microphone cord around somebody's neck and pound their head into a turnbuckle, or that she's a Kung-Fu expert capable of tearing somebody's arm off and beating them over the head with it. She's at the top because of that 625,000-volt stun gun she carries in her workbag. Just the sight of it when she turns it on and points it this way makes me "kennel-up".

It has a nasty, blue, electrical light that dances across two metal tips that reminds me of a Frankenstein movie. And it emits a popping sound similar to the one heard the first time I used a microwave on a foil-wrapped potato it gets your attention quick.

And so in my pursuit of hunting and fishing and dog equipment, I must be cunning as a fox, slippery as an eel, and have an Enron-ish ability to hide money in a "equipment procurement" account, more commonly known as a "rat hole". Sometimes it works; most times I get caught.

I remember staring at that beautiful, shiny, full-sized, aluminum dog-box in Ramsour's hunting supply store. I was fighting a guilt feeling: I'd be forking over enough money that would pay for that new dryer we needed, and I had to rely on a policy that's served me well in the past: "It's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission".

And beg I have. Yes sir. Those panhandlers down in the city should take lessons from me and they could boast of a hefty "wine procurement account."

I remember driving home with that shiny new dog-box staring at me frequently in the rear-view mirror. Several times I nearly ran in the ditch because of my wandering eyes and that drunken feeling of having such a prize in my possession.

My thinking alternated between the admiration I would receive at the hunts and how in the heck am I going to hide this from my wife?

I couldn't even hide her cat behind me when she came home from work early and caught me coming out the back door.

She said, "Where do you think you're going with Miss Pitty-Pat?"

"Oh, nowhere," I replied, as I let the cat slip to the ground and eased the bottle of coon training scent into my back pocket.

"Well help me carry these groceries in," she said.

I stole a look at the pups that were staring at me from their kennels and gave them a shrug of my shoulders. My wife didn't buy the tale of that shiny thing in the bed of my pickup being a luggage carrier. She knew better. And I cringed when the dreaded question finally came: "Where'd you get the money for that?" So once again I was caught and begging for forgiveness, for quite a while too.

I believe the UPS man has my number too. He knows I leave for work about 3 PM, and he conveniently delivers my dog collars, leashes, shots, new boots, etc., etc., about 3:15 so he can leave them on my back porch where my wife will find them.

My old buddy, Sundown, almost got him for me one day. Mary called me at work and told me all about it. She let him come in the house for protection (Sundown, not the UPS man, I hope).

When the big brown truck pulled up to the house and the man started for our front door, Sundown was already frothing at the mouth and looking to try out his teeth on the polyester seat of that man's pants. Well, Sundown managed to slip out the back porch door because I hadn't gotten around to replacing the broken latch (back-burner stuff, you know). Sundown went tearing after Mr. UPS and Mary said he looked like that "Keep On Truckin" poster, the one where the guy's legs are way out in front and the rest of the body is trying to catch up. Sundown just missed him as he slammed the sliding door shut. Mary collared the dog and put him back in the kennel and then retrieved my package through the truck's window. I opened the box when I got home and a note said they only shipped half my order and the rest would arrive later. As luck would have it, I was off the next day when the big brown truck pulled up again; as luck would also have it, so was Mary. I was sitting on the porcelain throne, looking at a Wick's catalog, when I heard the dogs going berserk. Mary was already outside when I got to the door, and I heard the UPS guy say, "Yep, he did it again" meaning me, of course. I'll get that guy yet!

And then there was the time Mary came home and found a shiny, dark green, Browning gun safe sitting in her living room. I actually got the "ok" to buy that.

It took two weeks of deliberating and convincing, not to mention a liberal dose of whining and begging before I was able to wear her down. I constantly reiterated the fact of how safe her jewelry would be while we were out of town at Kentucky Lake, and how much money we'd save by not having to pay rent on a safe deposit box.

My buddy really gigged me when he came over to look at the new safe. He waited till my wife was within hearing range and said, "you know, Smitty, your guns are pure junk, you're going to have to buy some new ones now that you've got a nice safe. Imagine how mad burglars would be if they worked to break in this thing and all they find is scrap iron in it. They'd probably come back and kill you."

Mary said, "If he buys any new guns, I'LL kill him, and by the way, Joe, do you know what 625,000 volts applied to the forehead feels like?"

Well, I better wind this up. I wanted to take a look at that new Cabela's Master catalog underneath the couch cushion before I hit the sack. I found the Spring Sale edition in the trash can, covered with eggshells and coffee grounds. I wonder how it got there? I never even looked at it yet.