My wife normally gets the better of me during our verbal fencing. But every so often, on the rare occasion, my wife defeats even herself.

My wife and I went to Price Club today. Among other things, we needed tea. I volunteered to look for the tea while she scoped out whether or not they had frozen chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, Ashton's into dinosaurs.

I brought the box of tea back to my wife and proudly displayed what I had found. Normally I don't have much success shopping, unless it's for comics, and then I've spent hours preparing.

Lorie looked at the box of tea. "No, this won't do."

"What's wrong?" I was a little surprised.

"See this right here?" She pointed to one of the many logos all over the front of the box. "This says 'makes forty-eight gallons'."

"Yeah." I'm already smiling.

"We don't have a forty-eight gallon container." She says, completely serious.

I look at my wife.

My wife looks at me.

I look at my wife some more.

"What?" She begins to suspect something.

"Lorie, dear, that means FORTY-EIGHT ONE GALLON SERVINGS!"

Her eyes are shut before I even finish the sentence. And she can only bring herself to whisper: "Please don't write this up."

All the way home I was making 'forty-eight gallon container' jokes.

DCD

Copyright 2002 David Charles Dill Jr.