Sunday, July 12, 2009

Looking for Mrs. Goldfish


One would think that after nearly thirty-five years of marriage (August 23) I would have learned something about my wife.

Well, I did. Finally. She has very sharp fangs, even sharper claws, and a vocabulary of expletives that would make a sailor on shore leave from the South Seas blush like a Jane Austen maiden.

All because I made a comment similar to Jim Unger’s Herman© cartoon. I didn’t say shopping “cart” because our drugstore doesn’t have them. What I did say was shopping “basket,” which to her thinking was no different than suggesting an empty 55-gallon drum.

Boy, you should have seen her reaction to my little faux pas. Her transformation was swift and dramatic: fangs, claws, the whole thing. Vampire? I thought, especially since they’re so in vogue. The store had all its lights on, though, so I was safe. Except from her caustic tongue.

I’ll be spending a lot more time now bonding with the hounds, and I might just as well throw my crotchless Peter Pan outfit in the trash. Oh, Martha talks to me, but in brief, clipped sentences like “Yes,” “No,” and “Not in this lifetime, buster.” Maybe I'll get a goldfish to keep me company.

I do have a legitimate question, however, if any of my female blogger buddies are still commenting to me. Martha loves nail polish and has a shitload of little bottles, but every one of them is a shade of red. Whimsical names maybe, but red is red, and I think one is called “Just Plain Red.”

The question is, why does she need so many bottles of the same color?

10 comments:

Wandering Coyote said...

I have one bottle of nail polish and it's black. Black is black, after all.

Red, however, isn't just read. You must be a female to understand the distinction, however. It's a girl thing.

That Herman clip is classic!

kara said...

oh my. well...i only own one bottle of nail polish that i never use. but yes, it's red. i don't know what that means. maybe we're all drawn to red like we are to shoes and johnny depp movies?

Cathy said...

I don't even use the stuff!

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Sorry, I don't own any nail polish. I sometimes get my toe nails painted when I get a pedicure, but now that I think of it, have never gone with red.

savannah said...

i have 1 bottle of polish that my daughter left here ages ago. re the various colors of red, i think wandering coyote has it right. xoxox

stinkypaw said...

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie... I thought by now you would know better than commit such little "faux pas". You are lucky that she still talks to you in brief clipped sentences. She could have gone the "ignoring route", you do know that, don't you?

Re. the many bottles, they are not the same color, since they are different shades, geez!

I have 4 different shades of red, and they're really not the same color. ...just saying!

P.S. Thanks for that mental image of crotchless Peter Pan outfil...yikes!

Mary Witzl said...

Grrr...this is a hard one for me because on one hand, I want to agree with you; I'm a nail polish-less female who hates the stuff, and I have three teenage girls around who have collections of little bottles that run over 100. And boy, I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. But I have to show solidarity for Martha here, Charlie. Stinkypaw is right: they're not really all red -- they're all different shades of reddish stuff. Magenta. Crimson. Burnt siennna. Cherry red.

Hope I straddled the line okay, there...

Barlinnie said...

Charlie, it's times like these that we fellas have to turn to our good friend Johhny Walker.

Enjoy the silence... you'll miss it when the nagging begins once more.

Michelle Flaherty said...

Poor Martha. Uh...I mean, poor Charlie! ;)

I have one bottle of red and it's not even "real" red. It's called "The Blackest Red" - the first coat is red, the second coat turns it black. If Martha is a verbal vampire like you say, she might like this color, lol.

You should see my fridge (and yes, ALL my polish is in my fridge 'cause anyone who knows about polish knows keeping them cool keeps away the thick, gloppy, goopy ickies). I think I have every color known to man...except a true red!

Jem said...

Koolio,

I think that you meant to write, "I have every color known to woman..." (as men don't seem to know colors)