Worst Wife Ever Moments

Worst Wife Ever Moment: March Madness

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Hello, my name is Beth, and I’m a college basketball addict. I get a little twitchy when the season is over as I go through withdrawal. And when the season starts back up again, I’m giddy, but not even remotely as giddy as I am when the tournaments begin. For those not in the know, we call tournament time March Madness. This is when I go on a college basketball bender.

I became an addict in college, when I was in the pep band. (I played the flute. Next question: do you still play? I mean in theory I still could, but I haven’t in a looooooooong time, so I’m guessing my skill level at this point would be somewhere around middle school band.) Being in the pep band means you’re part of a Band Family that spends a ton of time together and has all the drama and love that a real family has. It also means you go to a zillllllllllllion basketball games with your Band Family. So, a lot of my favorite memories from college involve watching basketball, both women’s and men’s games. Which means there’s all sorts of positive emotions that I associate with college basketball, which of course feeds my addiction.

Right now we’re really just at the start of my bender. It’s Championship Week, when each of the college sports conferences has their championships. Today The Hubs took The Kids to Emerald City Comicon, so I’ve spent most of the day watching women’s basketball games, including watching West Virginia upset Texas in the Big 12 semifinal. I’ve been a West Virginia fan since college, because lots of folks from our band were friends with folks from the WVU band. So, anytime West Virginia is playing against a team that isn’t from a school I attended, I root for them. It was rad watching those two teams battle it out right up to the end of that game. AND, I loved that their Mountaineer mascot at that game was a woman.

I’ll be honest: this is an addiction I have no intention of recovering from. I intend to spend every March for the rest of my life trying to convince my kids to get into college basketball, and if they don’t, well, I guess that means that The Hubs is going to have to do some serious single parenting on game days. And during March, almost every day is a game day.

A good example: last night was the Duke-UNC game, a huge rivalry game. I camped out on the couch with some cheese fries (that The Hubs made) and a glass of wine (that The Hubs poured me) and watched the game. When The Girl asked me to play princess play doh with her, I was like “I’m watching the game, want to watch it with me?” And of course she’s like “Uh, no, I want to play princess play doh” and I’m like “Then ask Daddy to play with you because I’m watching the game.” Which meant that Daddy got to play with a prince made out of play doh. Did I mention he also made dinner for everyone?

Poor guy. 

At least I’ve managed to get The Boy interested in basketball. He plays some, including in an afterschool club, so I’m excited to see if I can get him to switch from being obsessed with the NFL to being obsessed with college basketball. I like watching football, I guess, but I really need someone to dig on college basketball with me. The Girl says she’s really not into sports, which makes me so sad because she’s probably gonna be tall, so imagine what a great basketball player she could be! Le sigh. So, it’s all about The Boy right now. He’s agreed to watch the Selection Sunday show with me next weekend and to fill out a bracket.

Which gave me a great idea: why not encourage my fellow college basketball addicts to be come Worst Wives/Husbands Ever and obsess over the Big Dance with me? So, here’s that you’re gonna do: Download the ESPN Tournament Challenge App and sign up and create a bracket. (It’ll be blank for now because there we won’t know who’s in the tournament until Selection Sunday. If you sign up after Selection Sunday, you can work on your bracket right away.) Then, there’s a link that says “Create/Join Group”and you want to click on that, and then search for Brackets With Beth and join our group.

Is there a prize for whoever wins? No, because I’m cheap. But apparently if you do well compared to everyone else on the ESPN app, ESPN will give you some sort of prize? I have zero shot of winning that–I couldn’t even win my office pool, let alone a pool that includes the entire country–so I haven’t event looked at what the prize/s is/are.

Now go turn on your TV and watch some college basketball, and make your spouse take care of the kids! 

Worst Wife Ever Moment: Shitfaced Macaques

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

One evening last week, I read something about a research study done on rhesus macaques. The gist of the study was this: they put a bunch of macaques in a couple of cages, and let the macaques in one cage drink as much booze as they wanted, and in the other cage, the macaques just got sugar water. Then the researches gave the macaques a vaccine and measured how well their bodies responded to the vaccine. Turns out the moderate drinking monkeys had the best immune system response, followed by the non drinkers, with the very drunk macaques having the worst response.

Right after I read about the study, I went to bed, where The Hubs was already settled for the night. He was just about to drift off to sleep when I said to him, “I just read about the most amazing research study involving booze and monkeys.”

Now, for those of you who don’t know, The Hubs has a thing about monkeys. Like, he convinced The Boy that there is a monkey living up his nose. He once told my nephew to tell my sister that he wanted monkey brains for dinner. (She was making mac and cheese. Which kind of looks like chopped up monkey brains. Which freaked out my nephew, who was like 4 at the time. It wasn’t pretty.) So, I should have realized that when I said “booze” and “monkey” in the same sentence, that The Hubs would not be getting any sleep that night.

The conversation went something like this:

“Did you say booze and monkeys?”

“Yeah, they locked some rhesus macaques in a cage and let them drink as much as they wanted. Some of them were moderate drinkers and others were just drunk for like the whole time they were in the cage. They had a control cage too, where they just got sugar water. Turns out the moderate drinking macaques had the best immune system response to the vaccine they gave them.”

“Oh my god, that is the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard of. Except for the poor sober macaques. How drunk are we talking?”

“I don’t know, pretty drunk, I guess.”

“Dude, I have to know more about this. Imagine writing the grant proposal: ‘I’m gonna get some monkeys, and lock them in a cage with some booze, and just let them get shitfaced.'”

“I feel like Shitfaced Macaques would be a great name for a band.”

“What kind of band?”

“Well, there were 6 monkeys in the booze cage, so I’m gonna go with 6 band members. It sounds like a blue grass band to me, don’t you think?”

“So guitar, base, drums, what else?”

“Jug, Autoharp, and singer.”

“How long were they in the cage?”

“Several months, let me look up the article…ah yes, 14 months.”

“SHUT UP. They were just drunk in a cage for 14 months?!?!”

“Yep, the moderate drinkers had a blood alcohol level of .02 on average, and the drunk monkeys averaged above a .08.”

“AVERAGED ABOVE A .08?!?! For 14 whole months?!?! How much above?!?!”

“It doesn’t say.”

“What kind of booze?”

“Ethanol. Blech. That makes me sad. It should have been rum at least. Although, I guess ethanol ”

“Who paid for this study?”

“I would have guessed some sort of booze industry association, but it says here it was funded with an NIH grant. Wait, 2 NIH grants.”

“That is the best use of my tax dollars I’ve ever heard of.”

The conversation went on like that for like an hour, much of which The Hubs was laughing so hard he was crying. And then he said, “How will I ever get to sleep now? I can’t stop thinking about those poor sober monkeys in the booze-free cage.”

The next morning, The Hubs looked at me with his exhausted bleary eyes, and said, “Shitfaced macaques.”

Worst Wife Ever Moment: Medically Induced Menopause

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Small cancer update: I had my radiation, it’s done, and now I am waiting for the effects of radiation to go away so I can have a PET CT to see how much cancer is left. That’ll take a couple months, so in the meantime, I am taking an aromatase inhibitor called anastrozole, and I had a shot called leuprolide that shuts down my ovaries so they stop making the estrogen that my cancer loves so much. Which means, I had a shot that suddenly put me into menopause. Like, I had chemo-induced menopause already, but now, it’s like, all of a sudden, for real.

This is the point where the people who live with someone who is menopausal say “Instant menopause?!?! HOLY FUCK RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!”

Two days after the shot, after a particularly ugly-crying session just before bed, I sent my oncologist this email:

“Holy mood swings Batman! How long can I expect to be riding the crazy train from that injection? (The Hubs is really hoping the answer is ‘not much longer.’ Poor guy has a cold AND an insane wife.)”

My oncologist asked for details and asked if I had already begun taking the anastrozole, so I wrote this back.

“Lemme see, like, unreasonably angry about things that I know I am being unreasonably angry about but I am still angry, then crying because I am an asshole for being unreasonably angry, then laughing at myself for crying. Like, in the span of 5 minutes. Hubs, does that about cover it?

Yep, taking the anastrozole. (Which my iPad wanted to autocorrect to astrodome. Which is absurdly funny to me right now. Don’t worry, I’ll be unreasonably angry again here in a minute or two.)

-Beth”

Like, I am not even making that up. That’s literally what went through my brain. It was like the worst PMS I ever had, multiplied by infinity. One of the things that made me angry? That The Hubs had a cold. As if he got one on purpose? The amazing part is how, as I said, I knew I was being unreasonably angry. Like, the rational part of my brain was still there going “Damn, girl, you CRAZY” while the rest of my brain was like “SHUT UP I AM NOT CRAZY…OH FUCK MAYBE I AM CRAZY, I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON…HAHAHA I AM CRAZY HAHAHA!”

What. The. Fuck.

Maybe it’s not quite this dramatic for people who do this naturally. Otherwise, I am confused why our prisons aren’t more full of menopausal women who murdered their husbands because they got a cold. Like, for reals, you guys, this shit is not for sissies.

Anyway, after reading that crazy, my doctor was clearly terrified that I had turned into some kind of rage-bear and decided he’d better make sure nobody got mauled. I mean, who wouldn’t be terrified by my email? I obviously wasn’t kidding about going round the bend. So he wrote back a very kind “please don’t hate me for constantly making you feel like shit” email with some proposed solutions. (You know, it’s gotta be hard being an oncologist, because, yeah, all the treatments they have at least come with the possibility of making you feel like shit, and frankly, most of the ones I’ve had actually HAVE made me feel like shit.)

We exchanged a coupe more emails about my hopefully temporary insanity before the whole email conversation devolved into The Hubs and my doctor and I exchanging Youtube clips to express ideas. Because we’re all GenXers and we communicate via postmodernism. (If you can express complex ideas using nothing but YouTube clips and animated gifs, you were probably born between 1960 and 1980.) My favorite is this gem that my doctor shared. You’re welcome.

The good news is, after another day, the mood swings subsided, and nobody was murdered. The bad news is, there is a very real possibility this shit could happen again at some point in my treatment. Everyone should now send their condolences, along with protective gear, to The Hubs.

Worst Wife Ever Moment: The Poopy Toilet Conversation

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

You guys, I have the most awesome girlfriends in the world. Wanna know how I know? Because I had this conversation with them about our husbands’ poop habits and they totally agreed to me posting it on my blog. Because I am the worst wife ever, and apparently not only am I the worst wife ever, so are my awesome girlfriends! Sorry/not sorry not only to The Hubs, but to the husbands of my awesome girlfriends, for the public discussion of their poop habits. But seriously, this was too funny not to share.

Beth
I literally just scrubbed dried-on shit off the toilet. Literally.

L
What is with guys and them missing the toilet? I swear, my husband gets shit on the toilet seat too and in weird places in the bowl. I can even imagine the position you need to get into to get crap on that area of the bowl. It’s completely mind-boggling!!!

Beth
Seriously, this poo was on the inside front of the bowl, like the part under the seat. How do you get poo on there?

L
Ugh! I know what you mean. I ask my husband about it and he looks at me like it’s not his. Whose else would it be? Our infant son can’t poop in the toilet yet. I mean, come on!

K
OMG, I know it’s totally stabby-making, but I am SO RELIEVED it’s not just my husband with the fucking nasty poop toilets!

A
Oh and the poop..”Captain Splatter”

Beth
LOL

L
For realz.

K
but how do they shit and then have it stick on the wall?!?

Beth
^^^THIS

L
OMG! Seriously! How does that happen!?!?

K
I mean, do they have like super sticky poo?

A
Wall????

L
What contortionist position do they get into to make this happen?

A
Wtf

K
wall of the toilet

A
Maybe it flings when they wipe

L
Oh yeah, I’ve had it on the FRONT of the bowl. The front…how the hell?

Beth
^^^THIS

A
Oh….I was like shit! Fricken apes flinging poo!

L
On second thought, I don’t want to know. You can’t unsee that shit.

Beth
^^^LITERALLY

A
Yep

Beth
OK, this convo needs to go on my blog. For serious.

A
Word

L
Totally!

K
Also, HOW DO THEY NOT SEE IT???? And if they *DO* see it, how do they NOT FUCKING CLEAN IT OFF?!????

Beth
^^^RIGHT?!?!

L
Remember, it’s not theirs. It’s the poop ghost.

A
Seriously. There are cleaning wipes!

Beth
I bet The Hubs would blame The Boy.

L
Or The Girl

Beth
Like blaming the dog when you fart.

L
Or the chair
What’s that noise? Oh it’s the chair… Right.

A
The Girl would say “Get your poop outta my poop!”
I fart wherever I want

Beth
I fart SO MUCH since chemo. Also when I was pregnant.

A
Chemo farts!

L
Oh the gas while pregnant was horrid.

Beth
And yet, all that farting and I never pooped on the front of the toilet.

Aaaaaannndddd…scene.

Male readers, does your poop go all over the place when you poop? If so, how the fuck do you do that? Are you a contortionist? Because, me and my girlfriends really want to know.

Worst Wife Ever Moment: Laughing at Food Poisoning

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Have I written yet about my horribly inappropriate sense of humor? I laugh at all sorts of things that I think are incredibly funny but everyone else thinks are not funny at all. Like the movie Boogie Nights. I appreciate things on an ironic level that most other people just don’t get. I also laugh at completely inappropriate moments, when one is supposed to be sympathetic or serious. Like my grandmother’s funeral. This is one of the reasons why sometimes I am the Worst Wife Ever. Luckily for me, my husband has grown used to this over the years, so when I laugh at his pain, and then apologize profusely, he just says, “That’s OK, my job is to amuse you.”

Recently The Hubs came home from work and said he felt “off.” I asked if he was OK and he said, “I dunno. But I don’t think I want to eat dinner.” Poor guy. After The Girl was in bed, he went to ay down, and about an hour after The Boy went to bed, he got up and threw up. Poor guy. I was sympathetic and then I asked him what he had for lunch. He said he took his coworker out to a restaurant he had never been to called Bernard’s on Seneca.

Now, if you are not from Seattle, or even if you are, this may mean nothing to you, but of you are at all familiar with the dive bar scene in Seattle, you have heard of Bernard’s. The place is in the basement of a hotel and it hasn’t changed in 40 years. It’s got those massive dark carved wood doors that were so popular in the 1970’s and honestly, I have walked past there a few times but I have always been too scared to go in there. From the outside, it looks like those guys from Goodfellas might be hanging out in there. Also, the reviews on the food are not exactly stellar, I mean, I don’t think the menu has been updated since 1970 either.

So, I kind of freaked out when The Hubs said he went there. I was like, “Wow! you actually ate there?!?! No wonder you feel like crap! What possessed you to go there?!?!” His friend had asked to go there, and since The Hubs was taking him out for a goodbye limch, The Hubs had let him pick the restaurant. The friend had described it as a “German” restaurant but The Hubs, who lived in Germany for a year, confirmed that they don’t really have much “German” food. I asked what he ordered, and he said he had a salad. Also, he said everything on the menu had thousand island dressing on it.

This is the point where the uncontrollable giggling began. It was a perfect storm of the things that make me laugh uncontrollably: a horrible restaurant I could appreciate on an ironic level; a stomach ailment (come on, if vomit wasn’t funny, why would they sell plastic vomit at joke shops?). And then he said when he ordered a coke, the waitress said, “RC Cola?” You mean to tell me they don’t have coke or pepsi, only RC Cola? I almost peed my pants. I did laugh until I cried and my nose ran.

And then I apologized because I am the Worst Wife Ever. And then I distracted him with my boobies, and all was forgiven.