AFTERTHOUGHTS | Smokey Briggs '84

Walking in your wife's shoes can be painful

You know the old saying about not judging a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes?

Sometimes it’s not a choice. Sometimes, fate insists. Sometimes, fate reminds you that it is easy to overlook those who take care of the ones who can’t take care of themselves.

I am a very lucky man. I have a good job.

I have four children I am extremely proud of. I work with no small number of competent people who are also enjoyable. I am married to a beautiful girl.

Some days, I work pretty hard. The newspaper business is like that.

But, even on those days, life is good.

Most mornings, my wife Laura, better known as She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, cooks breakfast, and often packs me a nice lunch.

“There is only a little poison in it,” she’ll say on days I’ve annoyed her in some way.

On days when she is distracted, one of my oldest daughters often fills in. We do not eat out much. SWMBO is a great cook. Ruby and Carson, daughters A and B, are honing their skills. For a guy that started cooking for himself at 13, this is heaven.

I think I am very appreciative of my life and the effort SWMBO puts into my happiness. All is not always bliss, however.

There are days.

There are plenty of days when the “old salt mine” is rough. Days when Mrs. So-n-so didn’t get her paper and spent half an hour chewing on my ear and reminding me how a newspaper is only worth a quarter.

Days when the press eats a bearing or rips a blanket, mid-print job, and hours of hurried, tension-filled work that leave me and the press gang worn to nubs. Days when folks are sick.

Days when mistakes are made, names misspelled, dates missed, ads not quite right, computers crashed, servers fried, internet service blown away by the wind, leaking roofs, busted pipes, wheezing air conditioners…. days.

On those days especially, I am grateful to walk through my own front door.

Unless, at that moment, expecting to be warmly greeted as conquering hero and provider of hearth, home and meat, I am instead greeted by SWMBO wearing the look of badger run through a hay bailer that escaped only to fall into a water trough and nearly drown while small children poked it away from the edge and salvation with sharp sticks.

“Really?” I think. “I’ve been battling the world all day, and you’ve had a pleasant day here at our lovely home with our beautiful children, and you can’t even find a kind word and bit of gratitude when I walk in the door?”

I spoke exactly that once.

SWMBO responded with, “I’m going to kill you in your sleep with a hammer,” and walked out the front door. She came back, later.

As is often the case in male-female relations, I found myself at a loss.

Many a morning I daydream of calling in sick and spending the day at home — working with the children on their studies, smoking some meat, catching up a few honey-do’s, playing trucks and such with Charlie and Dixie (two and five-years-old), maybe getting a few rounds of target practice with my favorite rifle, and a nice nap to polish things off before cooking a good meal.

Lately, I’ve had my chance.