{"product_id":"why-my-wife-thinks-im-an-idiot-isbn-9780812974805","title":"Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot","description":"Meet Mike Greenberg, the popular host of ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike in the Morning, the highest-rated drive-time sports talk show on the dial. To his three-million-plus listeners, Greeny is the guy who’s equally as comfortable dissecting zone defenses as he is discussing cashmere sweaters. He’s been to Super Bowls and World Series, All-Star Games and Final Fours. He’s interviewed Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, and Wayne Gretzky. He gets paid to enthuse about sports, which means he’s the envy of most men in America. \u003cbr\u003eThis is the hilarious, sometimes touching, and endlessly entertaining debut of one of America’s fastest-rising sportscasters, a wry and revealing look at one man’s good-hearted but mistake-prone attempt to grow up before his children do. Marriage, fatherhood, manhood, fame, athletes, crazed aunts with gambling problems, the true significance of sports, the worst possible thing to say in a room full of pregnant women–no topic is beyond his reach. But don’t take our word on it, read what Greeny has to say about:\u003cbr\u003e• Dating: “People who reminisce fondly about dating are blocking out all the disasters and focusing only on the few great nights. If that is all you choose to remember, fine. But be aware that no experience is without good moments. I’m sure during the sacking of Rome there were a few decent nights; maybe they put on a play.” \u003cbr\u003e• Life on the road: \u003cbr\u003e“Wife + television = no sleep.”\u003cbr\u003e“No wife + no television = no sleep.”\u003cbr\u003e“Wife + no television = sleep.”\u003cbr\u003e“No wife + television = porn.”\u003cbr\u003e• Keeping things in perspective: “Never assume you know more than the guy in the camouflage tux.”\u003cbr\u003e• And, of course, marriage: “All of us are married to women who think we’re idiots.”\u003cbr\u003eWhether he’s talking trash on the radio or talking dirty diapers over a fancy dinner, Greeny’s determined to reconcile two halves of a whole. So if your enthusiasm has ever been curbed, or you’re feeling remote without the remote, or you’re just wondering what exactly goes on in a guy’s brain, Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot will be a source of comfort and unadulterated laughter.Advance praise for Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Anyone in sports knows that Mike Greenberg is a talented sportscaster. Now many fans will see the many sides of Greeny. His humor and winning personality are apparent on every page of\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eWhy My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot. To me, he is always awesome, baby, with a capital A!”\u003cbr\u003e–Dick Vitale\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Not only did I laugh until I cried on several occasions, I wish this book could be given to all new wives on their wedding nights–it should be required reading for anyone married to a man who’d rather watch the game on a Saturday than accompany us to Bloomingdales.”\u003cbr\u003e–Jane Green, author of The Other Woman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mike Greenberg is one of the smartest and funniest voices in sports. Sadly, this matters little to Mrs. Greenberg, or to his children. As this hilarious book proves, Greenberg knows fatherhood and sports and humor, not necessarily in that order.”\u003cbr\u003e–Jeremy Schaap, ESPN anchor and author of Cinderella Man\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eMike Greenberg is co-host of Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio and an anchor on ESPN's SportsCenter. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Greenberg lives outside New York City with his wife and two children. This is his first book.The First Trimester: Denial\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I must confess, the very first thought that went through my mind was that  Ricky Ricardo was full of shit. And that devastates me, because I love  Ricky Ricardo. The man was wearing clothes in the fifties that would still  be hip today, and he made smoking look so cool I started doing it. To my  mind, he was the coolest character in the history of television.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What a shame he was so obviously full of shit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I’ll tell you how I know: Remember the episode where Lucy tells Ricky  she’s pregnant? She does it anonymously, making him figure it out in front  of his audience at the Tropicana nightclub. Ricky sings “We’re Having a  Baby, My Baby and Me,” trying to guess which guest is the lucky one. Do  you remember how he strolls right past Lucy without the foggiest notion it  might be she who is expecting? What are we to make of this? Was it the  second Immaculate Conception? Had Ricky never traversed the space between  those separated twin beds? Could it really have been that much of a  surprise?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now, this was the fifties, so I’m willing to cut them slack on sexual  chemistry. I suppose in the time of Joseph McCarthy, network censors might  have been squeamish if Lucy had said, “I should go off the Ortho-Cept this  week. Last time it took me three months to get my period.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But did they really need to insult our intelligence?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now, maybe it was better the way they did it. I certainly didn’t need to  hear Lucy tell Ricky she was ovulating, or tell Ethel she was three  centimeters dilated and twenty percent effaced. I don’t regret never  seeing Lucille Ball in the stirrups, or bored out of her mind on bed rest  because she was carrying too low and they didn’t want to use a stitch in  her cervix. Perhaps the world was a better place when we were spared all  of that on television, but mustn’t Ricky have had some inkling that Lucy  might be knocked up?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The point of all this is that today, my wife told me we are going   to have a baby. Unlike Ricky, I was not shocked by the news. Not   after we went off the pill three months ago, visited three obstetricians  and a pediatrician, pinpointed the optimal instant of ovulation, became  unprecedentedly intimate with a thermometer, had sex when I didn’t feel  like it (a first), and spent hundreds of dollars on books—everything from  prenatal diet tips to the benefits of communication with the fetus. Like  everything else in my life, this transaction was carefully budgeted,  programmed by a computer, dissected on a spreadsheet, discussed via  e-mail, and scheduled in my BlackBerry long before any rabbit died. My  wife didn’t need to slip me an anonymous note, and there was no point in  feigning surprise. This was a day that was only about the facts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We’re having a baby. My baby and me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The first thing I have learned is that my role in all of this is  negligible. My wife’s obstetrician made that abundantly clear when I made  the catastrophic mistake of attending an appointment. What I found is that  my contribution to anything beyond insemination is purely optional. There  was not a single question I asked to which the reply was not: It doesn’t  matter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Should I exercise more?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Should I stop smoking?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Should I get more sleep?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Is there anything I should do about my diet?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It doesn’t matter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But the doctor did have a great deal to say to my wife and, frankly, the  language she used was absurd. Am I really supposed to know what a uterus  is? I mean, does everyone?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Apparently my wife thinks they do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “How in the world can you not know what a uterus is?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Well,” I said, “I don’t have one.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You don’t have a satellite dish, either. But you know what that is.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Do you know what rack-and-pinion steering is?” I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “No.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Well, you see,” I said, “I don’t make fun of you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I cannot believe you would compare rack-and-pinion steering to my uterus.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I realized there was no good end to this conversation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Well, does anyone want to tell me what a uterus is?” I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Without blinking, the doctor pulled down a roll-up picture of a frontally  nude woman with her abdominal cavity on display. And I immediately  regretted not having pursued the rack-and-pinion line of questioning. By  the time she finished, I needed a stiff drink.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That was how we began the horrifying process of insemination, which I must  say bears absolutely no resemblance to actual sex. As Tom says to himself  in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: “Work consists of whatever a body is  obliged to do. . . . Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to  do.” I was stunned at how quickly sex started to seem like work when it  became something my body was obliged   to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Let’s do it now, honey. Seinfeld starts in eight minutes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I actually spoke those words. What has become of me?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Though, on the positive side, I will say this: There is something  liberating about a sexual experience where the sole objective is to get it  over with as quickly as possible. It alleviates all the pressure. And all  she wants to do is get it done and then lie flat on her back with her feet  in the air like a T-square, anyway. She’s just as happy as you are if it’s  over in time for Seinfeld.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So eventually it happened. Three months of that and away we go. I would  describe my wife’s overriding emotion as relief; she has so many friends  who’ve had trouble getting pregnant, she’s behaving as though the hard  part is behind us. Me, though, I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a  giant cliff and cannot see what is waiting for me once I go over. There  isn’t a hint of euphoria or delight or even joy. All I feel is a distant  but heavy sense of dread. We’ll see how that changes—if it does—as time  goes on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Dr. Gray has recommended that I keep this diary for the duration of the  pregnancy. I pledge to be diligent in doing so, even though I have some  doubt as to how much good will come of it. I figure, if nothing else,  maybe it will make for interesting reading someday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Note to self: At some point, make sure you write a letter to unborn child.  A tad kitschy, perhaps, but an idea I find appealing. Perhaps I’ll read it  at the kid’s wedding someday and everyone will cry at the majesty of it.  Be sure to write it majestically.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    •••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Just back from a visit with Dr. Gray, who has the uncanny ability to be  uplifting while she explains that I am doomed to forever be unhappy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What you must come to accept,” she told me, “is that we all have  priorities in life. Those priorities define who we are, and yours are  about to change.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “But what if they don’t change?” I asked. “I am the most self-  centered person on earth. What if I remain that way even after the baby is  born?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It does not happen that way, Michael,” she said, “not for us who love our  children and put them first.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That’s the trouble. Sometimes you don’t put the really important things  first. I should know; I talk about sports for a living.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Ah, yes,” she said, “the games you enjoy so well.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I do enjoy them, but it’s more than that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “How so?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Think about it,” she said. “If you can tell me why you love sports so  much, it may give us the answers to other questions, too.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Well, I spent the rest of the day thinking about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I love the fact that my father, a man who grew up penniless during the  Depression, refers to the Yankees’ loss of a World Series game as the  worst moment of his childhood. And I love that after making himself a  successful lawyer and publishing a book, he dedicated it to his heroes,  including Joe DiMaggio along with Clarence Darrow and William O. Douglas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I love the fact that my mother, who grew up within walking distance of  Yankee Stadium, is such a passionate sports fan herself that she must  watch games alone because she finds conversation distracting. And I love  that she would have left my father for Joe Namath in a heartbeat, and that  he would have applauded her for it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I love that my kid brother, who—like all kid brothers—always hated  everything I liked, chose to root for the Miami Dolphins because they were  the sworn enemy of my beloved New York Jets. And I love that, thirty years  later, he flies to Miami every time the Dolphins have a big game.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I love that my wife, who grew up without sports playing any role in her  life, now watches games with me and occasionally puts down her magazine. I  love that she recognizes it is important enough at least to try.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I love the way I felt the first time I covered the Super Bowl. It was  Pasadena, California, in January 1993. The Bills were playing the Cowboys  and Garth Brooks sang the national anthem. I remember thinking about all  the games I’d watched as a kid, and how if someone had told that kid he  would someday get to cover the Super Bowl he would have said, “I am going  to have the best life of anybody in the whole world.” And then U.S. Navy  jets flew overhead in formation just as the sun set over the mountains in  the distance. That stadium was the loudest place I’ve ever been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I love that Dave Wannstedt, then the coach of the Chicago Bears, once  yelled at me over something I’d said on the radio, and I stumbled into the  pressroom, humiliated, and a veteran writer pulled me aside and said,  “Don’t sweat it, kid. They never yell unless they know you’re right.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I love the way Michael Jordan used to pump his fist when he made a big  shot. I love the way Pete Rose ran to first base when he could have  walked. I love that Lou Gehrig really believed he was the luckiest man on  the face of the earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There are so many things to love about sports, so many moments and  thrills. But, as I think about it, none of those really have anything to  do with the question. Those are not the reasons I love sports. They are  symptoms; the question is about the disease.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Upon further reflection, I have decided that what I really love most about  sports is the impermanence. Sports are like war without all the dying.  Imagine how intriguing war would be as a spectator sport if, when it was  over, everyone shook hands and showered together. The strategy, the  passion, the courage, the stakes; war is magnificent theater until you  start counting bodies. That’s where you lose me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In sports, you never lose me. You plan your attack, prepare physically and  emotionally, attempt to execute your game plan—often in hostile  environments—and then it ends and you all have a beer together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That is the beauty of sports. That is the reason I became a sportscaster  in the first place, because of the impermanence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    You see, growing up I wanted to be a journalist—a real journalist. I  wanted to cover politics and uncover corruption and ask the questions that  topple the high and mighty. But all that changed when Andrew Donatelli  drowned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I never met Donatelli, but I’ll never forget him. A high school senior in  a small town where I was doing an internship at the local newspaper, the  kid was headed to college on a football scholarship and was valedictorian  of his high school class. He also had the prettiest girlfriend you could  imagine and the saddest dog I ever saw. The night of his prom, Donatelli  and a few buddies took their dates to a beach; some were drinking beer and  others were allegedly smoking pot. Somehow that pretty girlfriend wound up  in the water and   Donatelli inexplicably drowned saving her. The next morning, the newspaper  sent three of us on the story, one to the police station, one to the  beach, and one—me—to the house to interview the parents.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I went. I stood on the porch. That was where I saw the dog. He came around  the house from the backyard and stared at me. The dog was handsome but  powerful looking, like a guard dog. I don’t suppose there were many times  a stranger could have stood on that porch without the dog barking, but  this wasn’t the day for that. He just watched me for a little while and  then grew bored and flopped to the ground with his back to me. He didn’t  move after that, not in all the time I stood on that porch, which had to  be an hour. I’ve never seen a dog so still. He wasn’t asleep, either, just  sad. Dogs may not understand everything, but they usually know when to be  sad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I couldn’t ring the bell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I had all my questions written in my yellow reporter’s pad but I couldn’t  ask them; I knew it was my job but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t ask a woman  I’d never met how it felt to go to Malcolm and Brothers Funeral Home on  Worth Avenue at five in the morning with a football uniform and a navy  blue Brooks Brothers suit because she couldn’t decide which her son would  have wanted to be buried in. I have all the respect in the world for  people who ask that question, but I can’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The experience really shook me up. It also made me wonder, for the first  time, what I would do with my life. I had always wanted to be a  journalist; now I would have to be something else. I told that to my  adviser, in those words exactly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Have you ever thought about covering sports?” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Funny that he barely knew me and still asked that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So that is the story of how I became a sportscaster, and it is also the  best way I can think of to explain why I love sports so much. There is  nothing in the world better than investing everything into something that  means absolutely nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I often read about people whose lives are filled with tragedy, civil war,  poverty, hunger, and I think how much better off the world would be if  everyone could spend all that energy worrying about football. Maybe I’m  onto something with that. Maybe the solution to all our problems can be  found in irrelevance. Try it. The next time the mortgage is due and the  baby is crying and you’re late for work and the car in front of you is  taking up both lanes—that is the best time to fret over someone dropping a  ball you care too much about. It may not make your troubles disappear but  it might make them blurry, distort the focus, at least a little. Maybe, on  a tough day, that is the most we can ask for. Maybe that’s what I should  be passing along to my child someday. Maybe the best thing any of us can  wish for is just a little blurriness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    •••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There is nothing at all blurry about the way I feel today. The word of the  day is anxious and my anxiety is not at all blurry; it is crystal clear.  I’ve felt this way since the phone rang too early this morning, and my  feelings of anxiety have only grown as the day has worn on. It has reached  the point where I am so anxious I can hardly sit still. In keeping with  the intention of this journal, I am writing in hope that trying to explain  the events of the day will relax me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was my Aunt Ada who woke us up this morning, on a bad phone line. It  sounded like she was calling from a cell phone in the Brazilian rain  forest. When she told me she was on an airplane my heart started to race.  Why would my aunt be calling from an airplane?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Darling,” she said, in her whiny soprano, “grab a pencil.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “All right.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Take down these numbers. Three, nine, twenty-two, forty-six, fifty-five,  and sixty-one.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She was shouting; I can only imagine how loud it must have been if you  were seated beside her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Those are the numbers on my lotto ticket,” she said. “I put the ticket in  the freezer, under the mushroom barley.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I didn’t make the soup, darling. It’s Tabatchnick.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Aunt Ada, why are you telling me this?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “In case the plane crashes,” she said. “I share the tickets with the girls  from mahjong, and if I go down they’ll never cut the family in on my  share!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I looked at the clock. It was five in the morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Aunt Ada, do you know what time it is?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What am I, blind?” she asked, in the way that every member of my family  answers questions with questions. “I’m on the red-eye to Vegas.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My father’s sister was widowed young. She has no children, but she does  have a bit of a gambling problem. For instance, she always spends the week  of the Super Bowl in Las Vegas so she can make every prop wager known to  man. (Last year she made me ask my research department to do a study on  the history of the coin toss.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Have you got the numbers, darling?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I have them, Aunt Ada.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “All right, go back to sleep. If you wake up to terrible news, make sure  you watch the lotto tonight.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I hung up and sat bolt upright in bed, which awoke my pregnant wife.  Somehow she had managed to sleep through the entire conversation, but my  sitting up woke her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What the hell is going on?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It’s nothing, honey,” I told her. “Go back to sleep.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She shook her head in that way that means she’s aggravated. Then she fell  back to sleep. Watching her, I wanted to cry. She’s a wonderful woman and  now she’s only months away from giving birth to a child whose blood is  catastrophically tainted by the dementia of my family. I laid my head down  but knew I would not sleep. I could not stop thinking about the baby. What  chance does it have for a normal life? What chance could anyone have in  this lunatic family where they call at five in the morning just in case  they win the lottery and die in a plane crash on the same day?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Such is the curse my child is being born into, a tragedy of Shakespearean  proportions. It reminds me of the line at the beginning of Angela’s Ashes,  where Frank McCourt says there is nothing as miserable as an impoverished  Irish childhood. He would change his mind in a hurry if he ever spent  Thanksgiving with my family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That’s how my day began. I assumed the pit in my stomach would fade, but  as the hours passed, just the opposite happened. My sense of impending  doom only grew. After lunch I decided it might cheer me up to call my  parents in Palm Beach and give them the big news. What I forgot is that  calling my parents has really never cheered up anyone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My mother answered the phone and immediately started yelling at my father.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Come here, you aren’t going to believe this!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I could hear him in the distance. “What the hell do you want?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Just come in here a minute!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What is so important it can’t wait five minutes for a commercial?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Is this man unbelievable?” she asked into the phone. “He’s watching the  Marx Brothers, what could he possibly miss?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You don’t have to disturb him,” I started to say, but she was   already shouting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Is it too much to ask to have you come here when I say it’s important?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “For forty-one years it’s been important! I can’t do anything without you  needing me for something important!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Then leave, why don’t you? If it’s so hard to be with me, just leave  already!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’m going! I’m going!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For forty-one years, he’s been going.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Are you coming in here or what?” she shouted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What the hell is so important?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It’s the telephone!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Who is it?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It’s Fred Astaire, he wants to give you dance lessons. Can’t you just  trust if I say it’s important?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “For forty-one years it’s been important. That’s why I’ve never seen the  end of a movie!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was around that point that I hung up. The pit is still gnawing at my  stomach; it feels like a hamster running on a wheel. I still feel anxious.  And, it occurs to me, I’m going to have to call another time to give my  father the news.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    •••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She’ll never wear the green shoes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That’s how well I know her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Which isn’t to say I understand her; I certainly do not understand her but  I know her, and I know there isn’t any way in hell she’s going to come out  of that closet wearing the green shoes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I should explain that my wife wears black like a suit of armor. It is her  protection, her only color, and now she is convinced that the only reason  her cousin asked her to be a bridesmaid is so she would have to wear a  lime-green dress.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I mean just look at it,” she shrieked when she brought it home, still  wrapped in cellophane. “Barbara Bush wouldn’t wear this!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Tonight, she emerged from her closet wearing the dress and a pair of  lime-green shoes which, she told me, had been recommended by the bride.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “That’s the part that really gets me,” she said. “She doesn’t insist you  wear these horrendous shoes, she just recommends it. So you’re a bitch if  you don’t but you can’t complain because she didn’t make you wear them.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She was teetering dangerously close to that place where anger turns to  tears, which is a bad place to be when we are due in Fairfield,  Connecticut, in two hours and the traffic on the parkway is guaranteed to  be a nightmare.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You know what?” I said, as gently as I could. “I think they look great.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She gave me a look that said: How could I have married someone with as  little sense as you have?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But I hung tough. “I know it isn’t your style, but it’s actually a nice  look, especially with your hair up like that. You’re only having trouble  with it because it’s so different from what you usually wear.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She softened. I was getting to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’ll be waiting downstairs,” I said. “You do whatever you want, but I  think the shoes look great.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I left her staring at her feet. Now it’s been forty minutes and we are  guaranteed to be late to this wedding, which will create endless strife in  the family. Our tardiness is sure to be the topic of conversation at  holiday gatherings for twenty years, but she’s still up there struggling  with the shoes. I’ll say one thing: If she comes down wearing the green  ones, then there is more power in hormones than there is in an atomic  bomb, because under normal circumstances there is no way I could convince  her to make even an insignificant change in her life, much less something  as enormous as wearing green shoes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I hear her coming. I’ll let you know what happened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The following day\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What a horror show that proved to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It began before we even left, when a moth flew in. We both saw it go past  us into the living room and disappear near a light fixture. Now, I hate  moths but I must say this did not cause me nearly the consternation it did  my wife. Before I could stop her she had kicked off her black shoes and  climbed up on a kitchen stool, swinging a broom over her head. Mind you,  we were now inside of an hour from the time we were supposed to be at this  wedding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The notion flashed through my mind that the pregnancy was making her  delusional. “Honey,” I said, “this hardly seems worth the trouble.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “We have to get rid of it!” she shouted, swinging the broom like Derek  Jeter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It’s a moth,” I said. “Are you worried it’s going to steal the  television?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Well, as it turned out we were a good half hour late to the wedding, my  wife refused to wear any shoes at all during the ceremony, the best man  made a drunken toast in which he reminisced too fondly about the groom’s  womanizing, and I got a speeding ticket on the way home because my wife  had to pee really badly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Oh, and the moth lived.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then I was in bed, just on the verge of falling asleep, when I heard her  burst into the room, crying loudly. (I should mention that my wife cries  every time she sees the movie Rudy, so upon hearing her cry I was not  panicked.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’m bleeding all over the place!” she shouted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That is when I panicked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It turns out she had been in the kitchen and opened a cupboard, then bent  to pick something up and cracked her head when she stood. I got dressed as  quickly as I could and raced her to the emergency room, where we were  seated amid a collection of gunshot-wound victims. She had a bathing cap  filled with ice cubes against her head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Honey, are you feeling faint?” I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I didn’t want to bleed on my new Burberry,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She was wearing my raincoat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was almost two hours before they called us in to see a doctor. There  were two other patients in the room where they took us: a woman who looked  as though she had been stabbed in the ribs, and a man with bandages  covering his entire head. I later found out he had fallen off his  motorcycle and skidded almost fifty yards on his face. A nurse told me  she’d be surprised if he didn’t need skin grafts on over seventy-five  percent of his body. Nothing like skin grafts to put things in perspective.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then the doctor came in carrying a needle that must have been nine inches  long. I thought I would pass out; if he had actually stuck that needle  into my wife’s head, it would have come out beneath her jaw. I could not  say a word, even good-bye, until the doctor squeezed the top and I  realized it was just a syringe filled with water to clean the cut. My  relief was probably evident on my face, though no one would have noticed  because when that water struck my wife’s head, all eyes in the room turned  to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “MOTHERFUCKER!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All the action stopped. Even the guy who had lost half his face on I-95  turned to see where that sound had come from.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “That hurts,” she said, more softly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It wasn’t long before the subject of stitches was raised. The doctor said  she would need between seven and nine. Then the subject of shaving the  head was raised.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “We could shave such a small area I doubt anyone would even notice,” the  doctor said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Doc, meet my wife.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “There is no chance we are shaving any of my head,” she said. “There has  to be another option.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “There is,” the doctor said hesitantly, “but it isn’t as desirable. We can  staple the wound. It isn’t what I would advise, but it will work. You’ll  come back in a week and we can take the staple out.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “And I won’t lose any hair?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You won’t lose any hair.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Then that’s what I","brand":"Villard","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301646520549,"sku":"NP9780812974805","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812974805.jpg?v=1767744275","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/why-my-wife-thinks-im-an-idiot-isbn-9780812974805","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}