Words That Strike Fear in My Husband’s Heart

When I utter this specific string of five words, I see fear in my husband’s eyes, I hear it in his voice, and, I swear, I smell it oozing from his pores. The words in themselves are innocuous; it’s what they represent that scares him.

Some husbands panic at “We have car insurance, right?” Others tremble at “Mother’s coming for a visit!” And a few quake at “Honey, I think I’m pregnant.”

Not my husband. First, he doesn’t let me drive that often. Second, my mom won’t leave home for more than three hours at a time. And, third, we’ve decided to wait to have kids.

[That’s a joke for those who are looking at my profile photo and wondering if I’m delusional.]

“What could those words possibly be?” you ask. The five little words that strike fear in my husband’s heart are . . .

“Hey, I have an idea!”

He tries to hide the terror, but his subtle body language tells me otherwise: the slumping shoulders, the eye-twitching, the convulsing, the hand slapping his forehead, or his head banging against the wall. He thinks I don’t notice, but I’m observant, if nothing else.

I don’t know what his problem is. My “hey-I-have-an-idea” ideas have been good ones, if I do say so myself.

• Begin an online publishing syndicate. [I admit working twelve hours a day and watching $13,000 go down the cyber drain was not the most fun we’ve had.]
• Create an art piece to draw attention to our living room’s cathedral ceiling. [Can you believe he took issue with lifting and hanging my 4-foot by 8-foot masterpiece built of wood, tile, and stone?]
• Start Party of One, A Fellowship for Those Tired of Dining Alone. [Some found it unusual that I asked my husband of four years if I could start a group for singles. Who knew?]
• Initiate a marketing campaign for my fellow literary clients—all 154 of them. [Sheesh. All I asked him to do was take pictures of the books individually on our bookshelf; size the photos; create individual Facebook cover photo banners; Photoshop e-books into the bookshelf; and, oh, create the nonexistent book spines for these e-books.]
• I convinced him to join the critique group which meets at our house, you know, just to help out. Now he has an anthology of short stories published called, Premium Mixed Nuts.)

Hmm . . . Hey, I have an idea!

Since my husband is so good at executing my ideas, I think I’ll make him a nice meal today before he gets any of his own ideas about that singles group.

Actual size of wall hanging: 4′ x 8′