I Am My Wife's Lil-Bitch

I’m a schmuck and my wife knows it.

Her favorite past-time? Watching me jibber jabber my way into a spike-filled corner only to realize too late that I’m bleeding from 30 different places and crying for mercy.

Now that I’ve tipped you off as to how this is going to end, let me begin my story…

I used to commute on the Metra train into the city for my last jobby job. I enjoyed the mile-long walk except days when my nose hairs froze solid or old-lady Gertrude’s teenage snow shovel-boy decided to take the day off. Other than that, it was my time to listen to damn good tunes, people-watch, and occasionally “accidentally” miss a train so I could squeeze-in a quick beer at the Union Station bar.

Now, I drive three days a week along the paved toll-road pathway to the west filling my mornings and afternoons with NPR, good tunes, and views of ladies putting on make-up, guys picking boogers, and the occasional douche camped out in the left lane going the speed limit.

But the most important thing about that last paragraph was the word "toll-road."

Yeah, I have to stop to pay a toll two times each way every time I go into work. Now, they do make this amazing little magic box called an “IPass” that attaches to your windshield and automatically deducts the toll amount from your bank account so you never have to slow down or stop at a toll booth.

When we first moved to Illinois the wife didn’t work at a job…instead, she had the lowest-paying, most difficult job there is—stay-at-home-mom. One weekend after going through a toll road with her I said, “hey, I heard you can buy an IPass at the grocery store. Next time you go you think you can snag us one?”

I did all I could with that sentence…I used positive words…words like “snag,” “us,” “next time”—seemed harmless.

But what the wife heard was, “hey wife that I own and tell what to do all the time. Go fetch us a toll booth thingy now…and take the kids and fucking like it! And while you’re there, wrestle us some food and beer woman!!!”

Months passed and the IPass never came to fruition. Weekends passed where we’d roll-up to toll booths with no change or cash. We’d blow through them only to frantically go online days later hoping we hadn’t missed the deadline to pay them.

The “fuck you, you do it” dance had begun.

The wife didn’t want to feel like she was being “told” to go do something. I wasn’t going to give in and go buy it myself because…well, because I’m a guy and I never give in.

Except for that time I painted every wall in our entire house…all 1,700 square feet of it and asked the wife if she’d just toss some paint on the spindles going upstairs. Four years later we go to sell the house and who was on HIS hands and knees along the stairs holding a paint brush?

And this was no different. This past week I filled out the paperwork online for an IPass, pressed the “submit” button, all the while knowing damn well what the true meaning of the “submit” button meant in this case.

Twelve years and you’d think I would have learned my lesson by now. You’d think I’d know not to fight battles I know damn well I’m going to lose. You’d think I’d know when to give in because at the end of the day…I’m just slowly backing myself into a corner filled with pointy, sharpy things while the wife kicks back, Shiraz in hand, pointing, laughing, and patting herself on the back and saying, “you silly silly man.”

Steve Irwin Took Over My Body

So every day I commute into the city on the train. It’s about a 20 min. ride with about 6 stops along the way. But shhhh…don’t tell wifey, she thinks it’s an hour train ride with 18 stops along the way and that I have to walk up-hill both ways to get to and from the iron beast.

I love the train...I get to listen to music, read, catch-up on work, go through emails, and stare randomly at strangers…a hobby of mine I’ve perfected.

Yesterday I hopped on a late train and was beat. Just before it takes off, I got in the simultaneous double-wammy of shit situations. I’m 6’3” so I take up some room in the seat. Along comes Mr. 6’1” overweight dude who feels like squeezing in next to me. At the exact same time comes this mousey-looking lady who slides in right in front of me with her just purchased, fresh out of the oven, roast beef sandwich loaded the fuck down with onions.

Once my urge snap her neck, bust out a window and throw Big Boy on to the tracks subsided, I kicked into observation mode. The mousey lady plowed through a sandwich like I’ve never seen anyone do. Meanwhile, with her other hand, she’s doing shit in Excel on her laptop that makes The Matrix look like ColecoVision. All of a sudden I see her snap her head to the right and look at a dude across the isle.

I quickly pause my iPod to get the low-down on what’s getting her panties all in a wad and I hear it ….a loud pop… Her head immediately snaps back at him with another “die you son-of-a-bitch chewing gum popper” look. This onion-eating, whole sandwich swallower, Excel goddess hates gum-poppers. I thought that was the oddest fucking thing. And this dude couldn’t give two shits. He had his headphones on and was playing some game on his cell phone and suckin’ on a tallboy Bud Light.

I felt like the Crocodile Hunter reborn. I wanted to take my umbrella like a mic. and have Big Boy take the camera as I crouch behind the seat in the isle and start filming me as I said (*in an awfully shitty Australian accent):

Krikey!! We have an incredible stage being set for what will play out as blood-bath of amazing proportions. Mother Nature’s fury will be unleashed on this suburban commuter train. Just over this seat I’m crouched behind is a healthy Type-A, male-hating, accountant known as Psycho Scary Midget Bitch. Her natural predator is just on the other side of this seat…a scumbag shoe salesman who purposefully leaves his zipper down on sales calls, is known on Twitter as @sexyramone, and has masturbated twice a day since he was 12—the Annoying Sloth Bastard. His mating call is the popping of gum, which agitates the Psycho Scary Midget Bitch. In a mere seconds…he’s going to give what will sure to be his last mating call as the Psycho Scary Midget Bitch is going to spring from her habitat, slice him from groin to chin before he……..

Just then my train stopped and I had to get off. I was dying to know how it ended….just as much as I was dying to escape the horror of onions, gum popping, sneezing, Big Boy, cell phone screamers, and a shit-ton of other nightmares loading that train down. But I can tell you one thing.... she sure as shit knew Excel.