Our Red Hot Romance Is Leaving Me Blue (28 page)

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

2 eggs

1/3 cup water

1 pkg. chocolate cake mix

small candy-coated chocolate candies

red hots

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Dear Edwina,

My husband of thirty-seven years has become obsessed with the TV show
Dancing with the Stars.
He goes around the house in black tights with his shirt tails tied in a knot around his expansive waist, which, in reality is a beer gut. Occasionally I hear him yell,
“Merengue!”
or,
“Paso Doble!”
I don’t know what those words mean, but when I hear him say them, I try to stay out of his way. I’m afraid this phase he’s going through is going to destroy our marriage. Should I be patient with it and just let it run its course?

Anxiously awaiting your advice,
Dancing Without a Partner

Dear Without-a-Partner,

You’re without more than a partner. You’re without a clue. This is a tough one, hon. I’ve got a lot of answers for you, but the picture of your beer-gutted husband in tights keeps clouding my mind. Wish you hadn’t shared that.

Any-hoo, what’s to keep you from joining him? Have you seen those female dancers’ bodies? Dancing sure as hell hasn’t hurt
them
. And when he yells those foreign words, yell them back and see what happens. You might end up in your own horizontal dance of love, if you get my drift?

You’ve got your “workout” cut out for you, sister.

Edwina “Got a Partner” Martin

Dear Ms. Perkins-Martin,

My concomitant in marriage and I are attorneys. We once worked closely together. Six months ago she shared with me that she has chanced upon her old boyfriend from high school on Facebook. I thought that was nice, but now she’s on her computer night and day, supposedly working on a difficult litigation case that could alter the state of jurisprudence as we know it. She hasn’t asked for my elucidation or riposte and if she were really engaged in that endeavor, why would she stop to cachinnate or attenuate the screen when I come into the room? We haven’t been intimate in months, she barely affirms I’m in the room, much less the bed, and she told me this morning we need to sit down this weekend and have “a talk.” Give me your presupposition of what I should expect.

With profound gratitude,
Barrister of the Courts

Dear What-in-the-Hell Did You Say?

I’d like to be a fly on the wall at your house this weekend. Maybe when you talk, what you say is easier to follow than what you write. I got out my thesaurus and here’s what I think you said: Your wife has hooked up with an old boyfriend online and has been giving you the cold shoulder. And now you’re afraid she wants to do the nasty with her old flame. Is that close?

As for the talk she wants to have, if I know women—and let’s face it, I’m one of the better versions the good Lord released—she’s already made up her mind and she’s planning to let you in on her little secret. All the expatiation on your part will do no good. (That little thesaurus thing-a-ma-jig comes in handy.) I’ll share with you what my granny once embroidered on a pillow for me: “If you love someone set them free. If they come back to you it was meant to be. If they don’t, at least you’ve got this damned pillow to hold on to at night.”

In other words, counselor, she has submitted her case and the court is no longer in session.

Edwina Perkins-Martin,
Barrister of the Heart

Dear Edwina,

My husband wants me to go to a fortune-teller with him. He said it would be fun and if we know what to expect, it might help us plan for the future. The problem is I know what to expect and that’s a baby in about seven months. And it ain’t his. He had a vasectomy four years ago after our youngest was born.

Should I break the news to him now or wait and let the fortune-teller do it?

Yours truly,
Expecting Something To Happen

Dear Expecting,

I foretell that something will definitely happen. Girlfriend, you’ve got more problems then poor ol’ General George Custer at the battle of the Little Bighorn. When he said to his Crow scout, Don’t Hear Too Good, “Tell me if you see any Indians,” he had no idea.

I’d tell him the truth, hon. The sooner the better. A baby on the way is mild compared to the problems he’s really got. I wouldn’t make it worse by letting a stranger drop the news on him.

Hoping for the best, but predicting the worst,
Edwina “Wouldn’t Be in Your
Shoes for Nothin’” Martin

Dear Domestic Equalizers,

Ladies, I might want to hire you but I need to know if you are a listed member with the BBB?

Thank you for your response,
Cautious Concerned Consumer

Dear CCC,

If it makes you feel better, I’m happy to report that my partner and I are members of the BBB as well as the NRA, the DAR and soon the AARP. We also are qualified for DART (for the uninformed, that’s Daughters of the Republic of Texas). My husband is a retired Navy SEAL and my partner’s husband is employed by the DPS.

We’re lifetime members of the One-A-Day Vitamin club, Little Meals on Little Wheels, the Just Say No Acceptance League and we give generously to Jerry’s Kids. Debbie Sue still has her library card; however, mine was revoked due to an unfortunate incident in the Adult Reading section. I’ve got one punch left to receive a free Happy Meal and Debbie Sue and I both stand behind the USA!

Hope we get your business PDQ,
EP-M

Ms. Perkins-Martin,

Please settle an argument between my husband and me. He says I think I’m always right. I say he’s wrong. I’m just occasionally misinformed, which makes me right. There’s no such thing as a person being always right except in my case, because I am always right.

What do you think? I’m right, right? I don’t see how any rational person could think otherwise. So I’m right. I’m going to tell him he was wrong and I’m right. You do agree? I’m right. Right?

Thank you for proving my point,
Needing Validation

Dear Needing Something Beyond Validation,

There is no shame in being wrong. I’ve tested the idea many, many times and I’m still alive and well.

There is, however, something wrong with being crazy as a loon and trying to pass yourself off as sane. We normal people have no way of knowing when you’re coming and it really screws up our day, if only for a minute.

So here’s something you can do that is really, really RIGHT. Tell people up front, “Hi, I’m totally nuts, do you agree?” You’ll get the validation you need every single time.

No need to thank me, because I’m right,

Edwina

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track

I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.

I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute

And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;

That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.

I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;

For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,

And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.

It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;

But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid

I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.

I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be

And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,

Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.

But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone

For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,

That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,

A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,

Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track

I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,

Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,

For I can’t help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.