Conflict of Interest
Wednesday - August 26, 2009
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Del.icio.usFor being a husband, I think my approval rating is in the high 90s. At least for 10 minutes out of the year it is. I try really hard to do all the things a good husband should do, but sometimes my job gets in the way. While blaming my job is the lamest excuse, that’s all I got.
In all my years of marriage, I have never forgotten a significant date, the most important being my wife’s birthday. This year her birthday happened to coincide with a major MidWeek anniversary celebration the company was having. I had entered the time, space and wife paradox.
If I told my wife I had to attend the party, then the guilt trip would ensue. As the publisher of MidWeek, I was pretty much required to be at our celebration. The other thing was that her two brothers were here from the Mainland with their families. This meant she wouldn’t be coming with me. What this boiled down to was that we would go our separate ways on her birthday. Of course I don’t give her enough credit, for when I explained my obligation on her special day, she more than understood. She said she would be fine celebrating with her family and mine.
I promised her I would go to the party but not enjoy myself without her. She laughed and said, “Sure you will.” Well, she wasn’t wrong. Of all the parties I’ve gone to in my capacity as a publisher, this was the best one, hands down. I stayed to the end, but needed to make a quick exit so I could get home. Explaining my situation to my colleagues, they insisted I take home a spray of flowers they had for the party. It was a nice gesture, but the flowers looked like a display for the head table at a wedding reception. It was three feet wide by two feet high. Beautiful, but a dozen roses they were not.
When I finally got home, everyone had left and our daughter was sleeping. My wife was in the living room going over our daughter’s homework. She looked exhausted, as she’d had a full day at work, and while her birthday celebration with family was good, she was quite tired.
In transporting the flowers, I had inadvertently smashed them, so when I walked in it looked like I was carrying leftover funeral flowers. She looked up at me and before I could say “Happy birthday” she said, “Don’t tell me you’re going to try and pass those off as my birthday present.”
I threw the flowers onto the kitchen table, dropped down to the floor and immediately gave her a foot rub. I ended up receiving a full pardon from the birthday girl.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart!”
Ron’s WEBSITE of the week www.hellbentforhollywood.com
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