By Wayne Chan, AsAmNews Humorist
Your honor, in my defense, I’ve never said that my wife is ridiculous.
By my actions, it may seem like I think my wife is ridiculous, but point of fact, I have never said that my wife is ridiculous.
With your permission, your honor, let me please try to explain myself.
My wife Maya and I have been married for over 30 years. She is a beautiful, smart, accomplished woman. It goes without saying that I see myself as the luckiest man alive that I’m the one who gets to spend the rest of my life with her.
Having said that, as two unique individuals, there are times where we don’t always see eye to eye.
Main Exhibit: Ginseng pills, a root used in various Asian countries for centuries for medicinal purposes.
My lovely wife is convinced that taking ginseng pills will boost our immune system and keep us from getting sick or rapidly get us back to tip top shape if we do get sick. Your honor, I must confess that I don’t share the same beliefs when it comes to these ginseng pills.
Every time I sneeze or clear my throat, you can be sure that Maya will soon be walking towards me with about 8-10 ginseng pills. She hands them to me, and promptly says, “Take this.” I usually reply by saying, “I’m not sick. I don’t want them.” Without looking at me, she drops the ginseng pills in my hand, says, “Take ‘em”, and walks away.
Your honor, I do take them, but I do it in silent protest.
Before dinner, she hands me another handful of these pills. “Take them”, she says.
I say, “I don’t want them. I’m not sick.” Then I say, “Why should I take another round of these pills when they don’t do anything?”. Your honor, let me clarify my last statement. I didn’t actually say the ginseng pills don’t do anything, but I WAS thinking it very intensely.
Actually, what I think I really said was, “We’re having ginseng tea tonight. I’m good.”.
Another 8 pills down the hatch.
So, let me get to the day in question, your honor. Last week, Maya came up to me with the following request.
“Could you go to the store and pick up more of the ginseng pills? We are all out of them.” I said, “OK”, but what she doesn’t know is that my “OK” really means (in code that only I know), “Do I have to go out and spend money on pills that don’t do anything?”. Silently, I believe I made my point.
Later that afternoon, I came home and I placed a bag with three bottles of the afore mentioned ginseng pills on her desk.
A few minutes later, she comes back to me, holding the three bottles of pills.
Maya: You need to return these ginseng pills to the store. They’ve expired.
Me: (Looking at the expiration stamp on the bottle), No they haven’t. They don’t expire until 2026.
Maya: They’ve expired. There’s brown dots on the pills and they taste bad.
Me: How do you know what they’re supposed to taste like? These aren’t flavored children’s vitamins. They’re ginseng pills. If anything, they should taste like ginseng!
Maya: They’re a bad batch. You need to go return them.
Me: I don’t even know what I’m supposed to tell the store! They don’t expire until 2026 but you say they taste bad even though they’re not flavored ginseng pills!!! Why don’t YOU go return them?
Maya: I can’t. I’m sick.
Me: (5 seconds pass, then I exclaimed) AHHH HAAAAA!!!!!
Your honor, maybe I yelled “Ah Ha!” a little too loudly, and for that, I’m guilty. And I’d love to tell you what we talked about next, but it’s all a blur after that.
The last thing I DO remember was returning those pills.
