How long has this problem been bothering you?

There's a lot of things people don't tell you.
Some will say it's for your own good.
I say it's because we secretly enjoy watching others suffer the same fate we ourselves have sloshed through before.

Like before you have a kid, for example.
Breast feeding is natural.

LIE.

It may occur in a natural, organic way.
The magic of me making my precious perfect baby grow.
Looking all idealic in the delicate charcoal sketch in my What to Expect books.

That is where the natural part ends.

Getting it to work, in sufficient amounts, at the right times, without drenching your clothes just because another baby you didn't give birth to is crying. Not natural.

Without giving you mean, horrible red spots that are evidently only a precursor to the real delight of learning that you can get yeasty there and it will make it feel like someone is pulling knives out of two of the most delicate area-olas on the body. . Not natural.


There. I said it.
Don't say I didn't warn you.


Want another one?

I likewise was not told by a single married woman that I would be responsible for my beloved husband's complete and total body health in it's entirety. Forever.

Man and woman meet.
Man and woman fall in love.
Man and woman marry.
Man fails to notice leg has fallen off until wife carries leg into garage and asks what happened.

I need to notice when he is sick because he will say he is just tired and it's more than likely my fault he is tired because I asked him to go to the grocery store and get dry cleaning.

I need to get him to a dentist. "No, honey, that's not normal, to bleed when you brush."

I need to convince an otherwise brilliant man that a multi-vitamin is not, in fact, poison, simply because it makes his pee fluorescent yellow.

I need to break the news that he will one day be 50 and need to do that thing with the camera on the long tubes that scrapes the polups. I cannot spell it. You know what I mean. I frankly think he's already a little annoyed with me about that one.

Really, though, how hard can it be to keep an essentially healthy husband healthy?

Except I married a man who doesn't get sick.
At least not according to him.

He calls cough drops "medicine" and has suggested on more than one occasion that I "drugged" him with a Halls.

Exhibit A: Advil.
"Heather, it puts me to sleep."
"Wow, can I get some of those Advil?"

Lucio also has elevated cholesterol. Has had it forever.
Evidently, it's genetic in his case.

Care to guess when he filled his first prescription?
Three weeks after we returned from our honeymoon.
Did I mention we went to Paris and Rome? Elitist leak. Not sorry.

Lucio had seen dentists before we were married, but I suspect they had side gigs as cattle prodders because dentisty wasn't proving to be as lucrative as they had hoped.

The worst? His toes. Or more aptly, his toe nails.

Like he didn't have any.

15 years standing in a puddle behind 2 feet of oak passing beers and refilling ice stations had been hard on my handsome mans tootsies.

I think I was pregnant with Jack when those commericials started for how to erradicate funkitoenailitis. The cartoon one, where the toe nail gets lifted up.
Gross.

I could make them look right?
He could wear something besides sneakers and square toed Cole Haan's?
Sign us up!

Already tired of being forced to wear socks to bed, Lucio was open to the idea.
"Call that foot doctor, baby. I will get you in a pair of flip flops yet!"

Sneakers to the beach. If my own body image issues are not enough in a swimsuit, my beloved is marching across the sand in Nikes. Yeah, he's that guy.

Off to the podiatrist we go.

Upon arrival, Lucio is given a questionaire to complete. I am hungrily pouring over Entertainment Weekly. That Lindsey Lohan! What a rising star!

Lucio's name is called.
Lucio invites me to the consult.

Surprised? Nope. Because he hates hates hates when I ask him to call the doc back two days later because he didn't get all the answers I was hoping for.

We enter an actual office with a desk.
We sit across from the doctor.
Young. Cute thing. Bet he wears Tivas.

Scanning the piece of paper, doc is all "uh huh, yes, I see."

Out of nowhere, explosive laughter from doc.

Really? What could be so funny?


Questionaire: How long has this problem been bothering you?

Lucio's answer: It doesn't bother me. It bothers my wife.


Doc: "I'm hanging this one on my wall."


Tell the truth doc, how much business would you have were it not for the tenacious certitude of wives like me?