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June 30, 2008

Mike Pound: Husband, wife defy statistics, work well together

My wife and I managed to work in our yard together on Sunday and not threaten to kill each other.

I don’t know what’s wrong with us. We must be getting old.

My wife and I don’t work well together. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would probably work together better than my wife and I do. The problem, as I’ve mentioned before, is that I hate to be told what to do, and my wife loves to tell people what to do.

It’s your basic perfect storm.

I hate to go out on a limb here, but I’m thinking most husbands and wives have difficulty working together. Why do you think Roy Rogers washed Trigger by himself? Because Dale was always hollering, “Roy, you missed a spot.” And Roy was always thinking that maybe bunking with (caution: old Roy Rogers reference coming) the Sons of the Pioneers wouldn’t be such a bad deal.

I don’t mean to be sexist here or to overstate things, but it is genetically impossible for a husband and wife to work well together. It’s a fact. I read it on the Internet.

See, the very things that attract a man and a woman to each other are the very things, when transferred to a work situation, that drive them crazy about each other.

For example, a woman who was attracted to her husband because he was neat and organized most likely would wind up strangling him while they were painting a room together after he told her she was dripping paint on the floor for the 2,397th time.

Likewise, a husband who was attracted to his wife because of her carefree, happy-go-lucky personality would wind up strangling himself when they were mixing concrete together after she told him for the 42nd time, “I don’t know, a bunch?” when he asked her how much water he was supposed to add to the concrete.

Now granted, I’m not sure how many husbands and wives mix concrete together, but I’m sure some do.

The reason my wife and I decided Sunday to put aside our petty likes and dislikes about each other and get some yard work done was because our yard really needed some work. My wife didn’t want to do her portion of the yard work by herself, and I certainly didn’t want to do my portion of the yard work by myself. So we teamed up.

Sort of.

We worked in our yard together, but we managed to keep our distance from each other. We felt that was best.

While my wife was busy trimming some low-hanging tree limbs in one part of our front yard, I was busy trimming a large bush on the other side of our front yard. By the way, I hate the large bush in our front yard that I was trimming. My wife, on the other clippers, loves the large bush in our front yard that I was trimming. She just hates to trim it because the leaves on the bush are covered with all sorts of sharp, prickly things.

My wife says the large bush in our front yard is a holly bush. I, since I’m the one who has to trim it, say it’s a “pain in the &$%*+#.”

The only time my wife and I even remotely came close to arguing Sunday was when she asked me to help her move a tree limb.

“It will only take five minutes,” is what my wife said.

I think I speak for roughly 100 percent of all veteran husbands out there when I say that “five minutes” to a wife is equal to one hour, minimum.

The problem, at least with my wife, is that when she says it will “only take five minutes” to move a tree limb, she is technically correct. However, what she doesn’t say is that the tree limb she wants me to move is not the limb that will take only five minutes. She also doesn’t tell me that there are at least 10 other limbs she wants me to help her move. And none of those limbs are the limbs that will take only five minutes.

But I did it anyway. And I didn’t argue.

When the last tree limb had been moved and hauled to the brush pile in our back yard, I told my wife I was done for the day. I told my wife I was going inside to have a beer and take a shower. And I walked away.

And as I walked, I started singing “Happy Trails.”

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